I have not done the Village Italy tour, but I did the Best of Tuscany in 2022 during its first year. My review may not be super helpful because my understanding is that they have made several changes to the tour since its first year (probably for the better!). I enjoyed the tour, but it's not one of my favorites (Best of South Italy, Best of Scotland). Overall, I liked almost all of the cities & places we visited, but had issues with the amount of time we had in certain places. Some of the visits were too rushed - in Pienza and Pitigliano, we only had a bit of time after a guided tour to explore the town. And because we weren't staying in either place, we all had to get back on the bus (Pitigliano in particular was a long drive out of the way). I did love where we stayed outside Pienza (La Moscadella), but my understanding is they are now requiring a minimum length stay so the tour can't stay there - bummer! Elba was skippable to me. The hotel there was not good, and I think there were only 2 hotels big enough for the RS tour. However, many of these issues seem to have been resolved, since it looks like the 2024 & 2025 tours don't go to Elba, stay in or near Pitigliano, etc.
I still enjoyed the tour, but I've learned my lesson to not do an RS tour in its first year! I'll wait until more of the kinks are worked out first. I'm taking the Best of Italy tour this year and looking forward to a combination of revisiting some places and exploring new ones, but based on how much people seem to love Village Italy, it's definitely on my list! So, I would say go for the Village Italy tour! Lucca was one of my favorites on the Tuscany tour, and it's part of Village Italy too.
