looking for alums from the Prague and Budapest tours

You just exposed the problem with the tour reviews as the format from having value in the past and then morphed into a very brief summary with little substance... sadly a marketing element.

I wonder if all the alums that took this tour are away at the moment. Or, they don't hover over these boards.

Just trying to bring this post forward, since I am also curious about any comments

I was on the Prague Budapest tour in October, 2015. George from Budapest was a great overall guide. We had two wonderful local guides in Prague. One woman was very nice, funny, personable, and informative (don't recall her name) for the castle/cathedral tour and lunch. While she was scheduled, the others were apparently last minute substitutes. Sharka lead the Revolutionary walk and regaled us with amusing anecdotes of her Communist childhood and the Velvet Revolution. She was fantastic! The other fill-in local guide cited facts and numbers about the Jewish Quarter. She was uneasy with English and ... not sure how to word this, but she seemed overly focused on her appearance. I don't recall that anybody asked her any questions as she did not appear approachable or friendly, even allowing for possible language issues. Several people commented about her. I was surprised how much I LOVED Prague, despite the cold and rain. The bus trip to Budapest was so long, like we had lost a day. The cooking class in Budapest was fun. I loved both castle tours. Both cities have excellent public transportation systems that George taught us to use and gave us tickets. I went to the Szechenyi baths with one couple, to the House of Terror Museum with another couple, then to the Holocaust Memorial and the Shoes on the Danube alone. The Danube River cruise was okay; there was a narrated film with the river telling its story in first person (?) I'm not sure why some people gave this tour 4 stars, unless it was similar observations about a local guide, the lengthy bus ride, or weather.

thanks for that detailed description of the tour! This is the sort of stuff I wish reviewers could share.
A lot of tour members do not follow the forum boards (or are aware of them). It might actually help the tour department if they encouraged their (prospective and alumni) tour members to read through them because it tempers/aligns expectations.

Please, any more alums able to contribute?

We just returned from the Prague and Budapest tour yesterday. The guide was Jana Kratka and she was great and worked very hard for the group. Both cities are beautiful and there are lots of things to see and do outside the tour. The hotel in Prague (Hotel Leonardo) was excellent, and the hotel in Budapest (K+K Opera Hotel) was very good. The food was OK, not really the highlight of the tour. The tour was well organized by Jana, and the local guides were excellent. We especially liked the "Velvet Revolution" tour with Sharka (she's a pill) in Prague, the tour of the Municipal House and the classical music concert in Prague, and the cooking class in Budapest. There was no singular "wow" moment for me, but it was a very nice 8-day tour.

Fluffy,
You mention that someone gave the Prague-Budapest tour a 4. Is that a good rating? What rating would you give it?

I am not sure who mentioned Jana Kratka as their guide for Prague-Budapest but she was the guide on our tour - Berlin, Prague & Vienna. She is fantastic and worked hard for us and enlightened us about life under the Communists and since the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic. She really made our tour special.

Judy B

I took this tour, returning on September 5. It was a great experience. Our tour guide, Katerina, was wonderful, and the local guides were quite good. We saw all the big sites, and received lots of advice on things to do/see during our free time. Katerina checked in with each person to help them with their plans for free time. I liked the mix of organized tours and free time - I don't want my hand held every minute of every day. The hotels were very good, with helpful and friendly staff. Their locations were terrific - very convenient to everything we wanted to do. We were given three-day transit passes in each city, and lessons on how to use them, so we could be quite independent during our free time. The group meals were fine, but I had some better food when we ate on our own. The cooking class in Budapest was fun (and the food was very good, if I do say so myself!) Relaxing at the Budapest baths (an optional activity) on the last day was a perfect end after so much walking and sightseeing. There were plenty of friendly folk on the tour to do things with (I was a solo), but I also had time to myself.

I wouldn't worry too much about the "4" ratings. The only way to know why someone choose that rating would be to ask them directly, and their reason might not be relevant to you. Maybe they were comparing the tour to another one that was slightly better. Maybe the cities didn't quite live up to their very high expectations. Maybe the group was not very compatible (no control of this by Rick Steves!) Maybe the weather was too hot or too cold or too rainy. Maybe, on general principle, they just don't rate anything "5" unless it's absolutely perfect! I wouldn't read too much into it.

I think if someone REALLY didn't like a tour, they would rate it much lower than a "4."

Hope this helps. Have fun - whatever you decide to do!

Judy, I'd give this tour a 4.5-4.8 with just a little off for the long bus transit day and the tour guide who told us we were "dismissed" (ha, I suspect it was a language issue) after the tour of the Jewish Quarter. The original poster had commented about the ratings. I think a 4 is pretty good. I did forget to mention the terrific concert at the beautiful Spanish Synagogue! As renee said, the ratings are so subjective; you don't know people's expectations; and there are the intangible chemistries of group dynamics/personality collective, weather, and other travel issues. It was a wonderful experience in two beautiful cities with a group of fun and witty travelers and a great guide. I greatly enjoyed both this tour and the Rick Steves Venice/Florence/Rome tour in 2014. I will take more RS tours.

Hi Fluffy,
Thanks for the clarification re: your rating. I agree it is difficult to gauge what someone's expectations might be and how they might affect their ratings. Context is important. I went on a RS tour last June with a friend whose foodie self went into high gear regarding the meals and I needed to remind her we could search for places on our own time that she would like better. That is not to say that the RS meals were not wonderful, sometimes they were not to her taste or to my mine.
My personal rating for the RS tours I have been on are 4.8 - 5, so I have might qualify as a "Rick-Nik".

Judy B

Fluffy - I laughed at your mention of "dismissed" as possibly a language problem! My father was an immigrant to this country and thought he knew English pretty well. He was a doctor and got his first job at a hospital. As he listened to a patient's lungs through his stethoscope, he said, "please inspire. . . and . . .expire." What must that patient have been thinking!

Judy, I think I'm "Becoming" (to quote Stephen King) a Rick Nik. I've used his podcasts on the road, read many of his books, and loved his packing vids. The tours are well organized and thoughtful. I've seen the guides handle unexpected schedule snafus seamlessly.

renee, I trust your father's patients had good senses of humor!