Free time in RS fully guided tour compared to RS My Way tour

Lori, during a RS fully-guided tour that travels to different locations, you will(may) be with your group for 1/2 day and will have the other full day free. We are very independent, yet this type of itinerary was perfect for us when we first started traveling to Europe. But, know that it is also YOUR vacation. You are always free to not participate in something the group is doing as a whole if you'd rather be on your own. If you liked My Way tours, I anticipate that you will love the others, also.

Read the day-by-day itineraries for the tours you are interested in. They are pretty clear about the amount of free time . . . not the exact number of hours, of course, but it will say afternoon, or day, or something similar. If there's no communal meal, then that time would be free as well. The guided tours give a different experience, especially if you are not going major cities - special activities that you wouldn't have on your own - meeting locals, cooking classes, guided nature hike, or getting to out-of-the-way places efficiently. If there's something on the itinerary that you don't want, it's usually very easy to arrange with the guide to be on your own for a period and then meet up with the group later.

Jean and Chani's comments are spot-on. The amount of free time depends more on the published itinerary than the guide, so you can see that information before booking. When you have a guided tour of a museum, you all enter together, but then usually are free to stay in the museum as long as you like (e.g., in a city where you're staying overnight). If you don't have a bus to catch together, you could opt-out halfway through a city walking tour, just by telling your guide. Also, as much as I love to read menus and choose my own dinner, I have to say that our group dinners are pretty consistently great and have often included more choices than I expected.

Thank you all, your advice is really helpful. I've begun to take a look at the detailed itineraries, as well as trip reviews. People do remark on the balance of structured and free time in their reviews, and it looks like a fully guided tour will satisfy my need to roam around and opt out when I don't want to follow the pack (though, I don't want to be seen as a "grump" if I do!). Now I just have to decide on which country and which tour...

Thanks again!

On my RS tour and when a couple opted out of something, the only reaction was concern because they weren't on the bus with us! Our guide was flexible about such things (I skipped the entire first day).

Hi Lori,

I am going to recommend looking at the website. Www.challengingourperspectives.com
The couple who made it have done 4 "regular" RS tours, with the most recent listed. I found it through the tour scrapbook archives page on this website.

The interesting thing are the graphs that were made graphing out the amount of tour, individual, and travel time for each day. I think it only lists the times for the most recent tour, but you can get an idea. Got to the "At A Glance" tab and choose, "By the numbers" page. (You may have to choose the 'Tours' tab first off).

As the others said, you can always opt out tour offerings, unless the activity is timed to coincide with bus time.

I hope thins helps.
:)

Lori, in answer to your question about other tour companies where you have some structure but a lot of free time, Trafalgar Tours has some excellent "Leisure" tours that fit the bill. You stay in 4 star hotels that are centrally located and travel with the group to the next city and you get breakfast and a few dinners but other than some scheduled sightseeing, you have loads of free time. They also have some great city tours. The leisure tours are to places like France, Spain, Great Britain, Ireland, Greece, the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, all over Italy, St. Petersburg, Russia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and more. You can choose whichever ones you are interested in. You can check out their offerings at www.trafalgar.com/usa/our-vacations/at-leisure or see their brochure of the worldwide At Leisure tours including the European ones at issuu.com/trafalgartours/docs/usa-at-leisure-2014 You can also access the brochure at the first link directly on their site and they will gladly mail you a free copy if you like. The hotels, food, and transport are vastly better than the RS tours though you might like them too.

Hi Lori, I've done 5 RS guided tours and loved every one of them. The itineraries are quite full so there is a limited amount of free time. I did the Loire and the South of France last week and we had a full free day. The guide arranged a group activity in the early evening and everyone showed up (guess nobody wanted to miss out on the fun!). I opted out of an activity (we were in Nice and I wanted to go to Monaco for a half day). I let the guide know so she wouldn't be looking for us, and there was no problem. I did wonder what we were missing...

I wanted to comment on what the previous poster said about the transportation and food on the RS tours. The busses are first-class, luxury coaches - with 24-28 people half of the seats are empty so you can spread out. I've seen other tours at the rest stops and it looks like they use the same type of busses but there are twice as many people on them... The food on the RS guided tours is very good and you have a choice of meals. On the last tour my favorite group dinner was in Sarlat - foie gras and duck (and wine and dessert, of course) - super!

I haven't done a My Way tour yet but a woman I met on the Belgium-Holland tour followed it up with the Germany, Austria, Switzerland My Way tour and I talked to her about it - she said it was fine but she missed the group dinners.

Nearly 30 years ago--yes, it's amazing how time flies--my wife and I went on a tour that was a precursor of the My Way tours. It was called European Weekends, and operated out of New York. The tour included chartered airfare from NYC, and then staying in London, Paris, Lausanne, Florence, and Rome, with a bus taking you to each of these places, but no guided tours or meals. It sounded like a good concept, but it had a major flaw: the locations of the hotels was not guaranteed, and the London, Paris, and Rome hotels were all at the airports! This was a HUGE inconvenience, and a waste of time.

We've just signed up for the My Way Italy tour, and we're confident that all the hotels will be conveniently located. I would not have the same confidence in other tour companies. Having a four-star hotel does not mean it will be conveniently located.

So...Buyer Beware!

Bob

Gretchen, thank you for posting that link. I found his details amazing. I am a numbers gal and I love graphs :)