ABOUT BUS TOUR COMPANIES

Unless someone has been on all of them, there is no way to have an opinion about which is "best". It all depends on what suits your schedule or price range. Tourist information desks will have lots of information on the available tours, and might help you narrow it down.

Thank you for response Nancy.

If anyone has taken any day trips or multi-day trips from Paris, and had a positive experience, please post. I would appreciate the help. Thank you very much.

parisvision.com euroscope.fr paris-trip.com are some of the brochures I have but can't give any recommendations or comparisons. Not all companies offer all the tours on all days of the week so the day of the week that you're available for where you want to go might determine which company you choose to go with.

Thank you, Darcy.

Those are good sources to start. Many thanks.

Your're welcome! Have a great trip.

Janice,, there are two well known and reputable companies that do big bus tours out of Paris, daytrips as well as short stays.

I have taken both, one to Loire Valley and one to Brugges. They were pretty equal .

parisvisions and cityrama , just google them.

Mont St Michel should really be done as a 2 or 3 day trip in my opinion,, but if you don't have the time, they do it as a daytrip also. Same with Loire Valley. These tours are not cheap,, but if you really want a tour ,, instead of doing it on your own,, they will do.

Pat, thank you so much. This is a great help.

Yes, I saw that the "day trip" to Mont St. Michel is "14 hours" Yikes!! No, would not want to do that. We have plenty of time. 2 weeks actually.

I saw Brugges and it looks interesting as well. Worth a visit?
And, yes, those tours look very costly. May decide to rail/drive to save on cost. Not fond of keeping to "tour schedules." Just thought it would be less planning and less stress not having to "find our way" by car, plan rail tickets, etc. Guess there are pros and cons either way. Many thanks for info. Helpful. Kind of you. ~Janice

TO PAT AGAIN: Just visited CityRama website. Excellent site. The best I have seen yet. Explains their vehicles and tours in good detail, and prices more reasonable than others I have been seeing on Internet. Many thanks!!!

Hello. My husband and I spent a month in London, Pris, Lucerne Lugano and Zurich. We were there in May-June. We used "Gray Line Bus Tours" in both London and Paris. We went to Versailles, Giverney, and Windsor. We also took a couple of totally Paris tours with them. We were very impressed with that tour company. We booked most of them before we left the states. Then the billing was done here int he U.S. There weren't any conversion charges, etc. We were told to get a "Capoital One" credit card before we left the U.S. That was a great idea. "Capital One" is the only credit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees. We even contacted our five hotels, before we left the U.S. We asked that they charge our "Capital One" card in advance for our reservations. That way we knew we wouldn't have a problem with our "Capital One" credit limit when we arrived in Europe. Elaine

Elaine~

Thank you for taking the time to write such helpful information. Especially good to know about the Capital One Card!! This is my "retirement" celebration trip, so I do want it to work as smoothly as possible. Max joy, minimum hassles.

I was looking at the Greyline Tours and they do look very professional based on their website. Thank you. Some bloggers have said [on TripAdvisor site] they did not like the huge groups in the large bus tours. But the company seems well organized/efficient.
Okay, this may sound strange, but it may be a deciding factor :+) I know they do not have a "loo" on the minibuses, and wonder if they have them on the larger Greyline buses. A long way to travel without a "rest stop" when needed. Can you respond to that? Many, many thanks for your help!!! Jan

Janice,, commercial bus drivers will not drive more then 2 or 3 hours without stopping, literally if trip is 3 hrs and 10 minutes ,, they will still stop( I think its a law to prevent driver fatique)about 1/2 way for a pit stop. Its good to know.

As for the large group, when my son and I did the Loire Valley tour with Cityrama, and when I did the Brugges tour with ParisVisions.. the group was divided by language into smaller groups for sightseeing . We had only about 20-25 english speakers on our tours,, the rest were Japanese, Italian , Spanish and Germans I think.. Our guide for Loire Valley took the english and the germans, the guide at Brugges only took the english( as there was a large amount of us) So point is,, most tours cater to many langauges, which annoys some( they don't like it when in the bus the commentary is given numerous times in different languages) but is good to see a busload ( 40-50 people) break down into smaller sized groups for the site touring.

That is one advantage of multiple nationality groups.