Review of my first Rick Steves Tour in 20 years: Sicily - Hotel comments

Some people have complained about hotels and rooms on another tour company’s trips: Road Scholar. On our 5 recent Road Scholar trips, all the rooms have been better than you describe. Ours were doubles, which may affect size. Our hotels and breakfasts were 4 star, definitely not 5 star. Also all were in larger cities with plenty of choices, and well-located.

I understand about wanting to have control over lodging choices. It was one of the mental blocks I had about taking any sort of tour prior to ever taking one. 8 group tours later, I’ve only had three hotel rooms that were duds. I’ve managed to pick a few duds when I was choosing lodging myself as well.

I found your hotel review interesting as I will be taking this tour in April.

Thank you NWValerie. I have not yet taken a tour, as I travel independently but not solo. I have been eyeing two of the RS tours to places I do not have a potential travel partner, but am hesitant as I am one of those people where the hotel matters. I don't need luxury (can't afford it anyway) but do like a certain level of "comfort". The two issues that would bother me the most from your list above are no where but the bed to sit and limited natural light. I never sit on the bed as the bed spread or duvet are not usually washed between visitors and it just gives me the willies. Lack of light is just depressing and makes me feel like I'm in a prison cell, especially if the room is small (not that I've ever been in one!) I really wish they had a list of possible hotels they use in their tour descrptions like other companies. I know you could still get a subpar room, but at least you could get an idea if the hotels match your comfort level and read some reviews.

Thanks again for your honest reviews.

For those who haven’t seen my other Sicily review...the tour itself is fabulous fun. So I suppose it's just a compromise and personal assessment for everyone.

I'm going to try another RS tour in the spring...Andalusia.

@NYCMOM - I have traveled with Road Scholar more than any other company. I have definitely had a couple of rooms I didn't like, but by and large, they were pretty good. I consider them one step up in hotels. I've also traveled with Odysseys Unlimited and their hotels are definitely a large step up. Unfortunately, they only have about 20 or 25 itineraries in Europe.

I've traveled solo with groups and on my own. I have found that single rooms can be anything from barely a closet to palatial. When traveling on my own I have the luxury to book exactly what I want. With group tours it really is a the luck of the draw.

Valerie, thanks so much for your honest review.

We like all those things in a hotel room as well. I think being on a tour makes it harder for tour companies to pick a hotel because it has to be big enough to house the whole tour group.
Glad you enjoyed the tour and thanks for the review! This is a tour we are considering.

It's OK to decide that RS tours are not for you. He makes it pretty clear in the books that his primary criteria for hotels (and restaurants) is location. Sometimes even nice hotels have some uncomfortable rooms. Our guides have tried to rotate who gets the best rooms.

Thanks for this report. We definitely going to do a tour of Sicily at some point but I'm with you, I like a better quality hotel with a sitting space. One of the primary reasons we're looking at alternatives to the RS tour is we found another with significantly better hotels (I can't remember the company off the top of my head).

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the hotels, Valerie! Of all of the comments, this is the one that bothers me the most from my own criteria (and yes, I appreciate light & like a place to sit.). I travel solo now on tours, and I am very safety conscious. Unless I specifically plan to have dinner with someone else on the tour, I am not walking alone this distance at night. I had this situation in Korcula, Split and Dubrovnik during the Adriatic tour. I understand that the typical small hotel or B&B I reserve when traveling by myself, located in the center vs. a 10-minute walk, is harder to find for a tour group. It wasn’t a big deal when my husband & I were on the tours, but now I am very aware of it. The tour commitments state, ”Keeping our groups small gets us into quaint, centrally located hotels in the historic heart of each city, within walking distance of the major sights.”, so I was surprised on the Adriatic (my last tour) that the hotels weren’t in the historic heart - especially Dubrovnik where we had to walk a distance plus take a bus to the center.

”Despite how nice the rooms are, I think that the neighborhood is a little off-putting - and it’s about a 10 minute walk to the main pedestrian street.”

Interesting. I really appreciate your review Valerie and the other insights. I don't habe anything to add but wanted to say thanks

Thanks all! This was my first solo trip...and I had a new appreciation for hotel location and walking alone at night. There was a definite learning curve for me...and I was apprehensive at the Romano House when the tour ended and I had 7 hours to pass alone before my airport ride. I did go out and stroll around Catania but the area around that hotel was not nice. There was a little plaza nearby and a liquor store right adjacent...so many people (all men) were just drinking tall boy type beers and hanging around.

I have the same issues with RS tour hotels. Unlikely I will ever do another RS tour. I too want somewhere to sir other than the bed.

There are a lot of other tour companies out there, you don’t “have” to do RS. We have done a Tauck tour, the hotel rooms were large and very nice, we didn’t touch our baggage, the included meals were wonderful. There were also 40+ people on the tour. We have done 12 RS tours, some of the hotels have been a bit funky, we’ve hauled our luggage and sometimes the group meals haven’t been so great but I’ve enjoyed every one them more than the Tauck tour. Check out the other tour companies until you find one that meets all your needs.

I assume the Rick Steves staff are monitoring comments like these-- especially after Rick was caught eating gourmet meal after gourmet meal on his private barge/yacht in France!

Happy travels

And this is the thing that gives me pause on doing a RS tour. Hotels typically are primarily for sleeping when I travel, but I do spend some time in the evening organizing thoughts and uploading a daily Facebook post with a few photos. it's nice to have a place to sit (other than the bed) to do that! Also... I don't like the phrase "really dated room." Dated generally feels dirty to me, and clean is very high on my list of lodging virtues.

Thanks for the comprehensive review of lodging. It is much appreciated!

It’s interesting to see these responses. There’s a real varied range of opinions, of course.

But there’s plenty of people like me - hotel rooms matter. And so that’s why I posted the review.

It’s important to point out - in case you didn’t read my posted review of the tour itself - that I think the Sicily tour is fantastic fun. I had a great time.

In hindsight, the hotels on the Sicily tour were not subpar enough to prevent me from taking this tour. But there were enough shortcomings to remind me that I really need to research the likely hotels before doing more RS tours.

I just think it’s helpful to share the names and my thoughts on the hotels. I spend a lot of time sleuthing around what the hotels for a potential RS tour might be. All of my other travel companies post the hotel names. I try to get the RS hotel names from RS trip reports, online searches from blogs etc. - but it takes up a lot of time.

So your Sicily tour hotels may vary, but at least here’s a possible list for people who spend a lot of time researching:)

Thank you for your thoughtful post. Hope to add Sicily soon to our list of tours. I think the biggest difference is American expectations on hotel rooms vs European rooms. Do you want to be closer to the action vs out further with larger rooms. Do you want an American hotel experience? It is not wrong just different

For a similar price do you want 28 or 50 people on your tour? Spread out on the bus or a larger hotel room? There are smaller tour groups many cost a lot more.

The tour videos give a pretty good insight on the rooms. You do see Rick often working on his bed.
With that said I have seen the hotels on tours actually be larger, less quaint in recent years. Could be just the tours we took.

Our tour last week Barcelona & Madrid both were in nice what I consider larger hotels than normal. My daughter had a single room. In Barcelona it was pretty small. Very clean and modern , but she said about the size of a single dorm room at College. in Ireland last year at the bed and breakfast she actually had her own little she-shed type little building in back that was larger than our room and very cool. The rest of that trip 7 days Ireland she had same size rooms as ours.

Now on our last night after the tour we stayed at an American hotel on points. Very small room and the shower was in the middle of the room. Kid you not. Thank goodness didn’t share a room with the daughter that night! So expectations are different on hotel rooms in Europe.

Hope that helps others reading this post. We had 8 singles on our tour last week. Great tour.

I think the biggest difference is American expectations on hotel rooms vs European rooms

I don't think this is a factor at all in what Valerie wrote. She is an experienced traveler with lots of knowledge of European hotel rooms.That's the context in which she wrote up her comments - not in comparison with American "expectations" or comparisons.

My husband and I went on this tour in April and had a different hotel in Siracusa. It was Lanterne Magiche Ortigia and was really nice.
Totally agree about the hotel in Catania - glad they are changing it.
I didn’t care for the location of Hotel Ambasciatori in Palermo either so we stayed in a different area of town at Palazzo Pantaleo for the 3 nights pre-tour.
The other hotels all seemed nice enough but we were a bit spoiled by the hotel choices on the Rick Steves Portugal tour we took last year. We seemed to have lots of lovely hotels on that one.
We have booked another RS trip for next year. Hoping for the best!

--| I think the biggest difference is American expectations on hotel rooms vs European rooms--|

I agree with Kim that this isn't accurate. My husband and I went on a tour to Sicily but with a French company. Price-point and sites visited were similar, but airfare from Paris, 4-star hotels with lovely, large, well-appointed rooms, and all meals were included. There were 8 people on the tour.

So iffy rooms are no more a characteristic of traveling in Europe than lovely, well-appointed rooms. It just depends on if the company is putting you in a 2-star, 3-star, 4-star or 5-star hotel.

Thanks Elizabeth I would love to know the French tour company that offered all that at the same price as Rick Steves. It would be very helpful as we look at tours. Did they speak English on that French company tour? As for others I totally understand Rick Steves tours are not for everyone. I do think there are different expectations and it really does depend on city or town you are traveling too. Thanks for the insight.

I will never go on a RS tour, the hotels aren’t that nice and you can do exactly the same thing for have the cost.

We have booked another RS trip for next year. Hoping for the best!

With all due respect to the RS organization, I just don't feel like consumers should have to "hope for the best" with regard to hotels for a tour.

The comments on this thread are so interesting. So many different points of views and travel experiences.

The idea that taking a tour and going to the same places independently are comparable experiences as expressed by one poster is false. I’m not saying that they can’t both be terrific experiences and meet the traveler’s needs and preferences. I’m just saying that they are quite different experiences. One does not evenly substitute for the other. Tours offer proven logistics and informative guides that can bring so much background and local perspectives to the sites visited. They offer a friendly social group for those where sharing an experience with others is part of the joy of travel. Independent travel offers complete autonomy to set the schedule and pace exactly the way you want it to be. In this case you can choose exactly the hotels you want.

My other thought is that many of you would feel uncomfortable traveling to Japan. I had a solo hotel room there where the bed was enclosed on three sides by walls and you had to climb in through the bottom. A foldable TV tray type table was supplied so you could sit on the end of the bed and put it up for a desk or table. Of course you had to put it down if you wanted enough room to open your suitcase. The included breakfast was not good. It wasn’t a problem. 7-11 was a two minute walk away. The train station, 4 minutes away. The convenience of location outweighed the quirkiness of the room. Now when faced with a small room or odd layout I just say to myself, “It’s bigger than that room in Japan.”

I’m not saying that they can’t both be terrific experiences and meet
the traveler’s needs and preferences. I’m just saying that they are
quite different experiences. One does not evenly substitute for the
other. Tours offer proven logistics and informative guides that can
bring so much background and local perspectives to the sites visited.

This is my observation too. We have had Rick Steves guides who gave performances so incandescent and indelible that I cannot conceive of how we could experience the like on our own. And like Carol, we've had terrific experiences on our own too.

Happy travels

@Carol NR-laughing at the reference to Japan hotel rooms! Having just returned from Japan, I can relate. We had one room so tiny, no way to access the bed from the side. Only from the bottom of the bed!!!

The idea that taking a tour and going to the same places independently are comparable experiences as expressed by one poster is false.

100% agree, Carol

We have done both and have found for us it is more expensive on our own. And takes so much more time & energy. Will I get those most sought out times tickets the minute they go on sale or lose out? We like a combo of both and don’t mind the hotels but understand it is a deal breaker for some.

Interesting replies from people who have never been on a tour but say they know all about the rooms?

Valerie - My husband and I just finished the Rick Steves Sicily Tour on Nov. 7. We had a wonderful time; had perfect weather; learned a lot; saw so many great sights (Segesta, Valley of Temples, Mt Etna, Siracusa, Taormina, WWII Museum and Ancient Map Museum in Catania); enjoyed our guides and bus driver; walked a lot; made yummy cookies; were part of test group that had a fun cooking class the last night; ate too much; laughed a lot ... we recommend this tour!

Our group stayed at the same hotels you listed. But we had a different experience in room size and bathroom size, since we booked as a couple. It's a shame solo travellers can get assigned to small rooms that are disappointing. OK for college kids, but not older adults! Some of the tour hotel rooms we stayed in included a chair & small table or desk. Others did not. Most had windows with lots of light (and luckily also had shutters and/or blackout curtains). All of them had showers that were dangerously slippery!

The Ambasciatori in Palermo was all right, the best part was the rooftop breakfast terrace with the great views of the sea and city, and also the mattress. Pre-trip my husband and I stayed at the Hotel Grand Wagner for three nights. It was nice, though a bit noisy since our room faced the street. I also found the bed at the Wagner to be too firm (too hard on the hip bursas for side sleepers). I enjoyed the memory foam mattress topper at the Ambasciatori for the two nights we were there.

We had a big room at the Residence La Gancia in Trapani, which included a kitchenette with a long counter with a couple of kitchen chairs. A few of the couples in the tour group got the luck of the draw at this hotel and were in even bigger rooms that included a dinette table and chairs and a sofa!

Our room in Agrigento at Baglio Della Luna had a small round table with two small wingback chairs, and a great view of the Valley of Temples lit up at night! I agree these rooms could use a decor refresh ... a bit outdated with floral fabrics and brown furniture. But it was very clean, the bed was comfy, the room was quiet, and the courtyard, the garden and the terrace where breakfast was held were beautiful.

In Syracuse at Domus Mariae Albergo, our room was one of three rooms where we opened a door along the interior hallway and entered a beautiful, quiet, plant-filled courtyard (with several outdoor tables and chairs, including some under a canopy). The separate doors to the rooms were along one side of the courtyard. I have a feeling you would have loved the room we had at this hotel.

In Taormina at Hotel Continental, where you had a tiny shower with an accordion door, our bathroom included a large shower with both a rainshower head and a separate wand, and our room had a large balcony with two chairs and a table. Our AC was fine and kept the room cool.

Note that a Road Scholar Tour Group was also staying at the Hotel Continental (saw them in the breakfast room both mornings), so going with another tour company doesn't ensure you'll stay at a different hotel.

Regarding the Hotel Romana House in Catania, the hotel was nice inside and the staff were friendly, but their location is indeed a negative. Reminded me of some hotels in San Francisco and Portland. Go in one direction and it's fine, go in another and it's sketchy. Another couple in our group escorted a female solo traveler to the Catania bus station (she was headed back to Palermo) because walking to the station meant going through a rough area. It will be interesting to learn what Catania hotel this tour will stay at in 2026.

Overall we found the Sicily tour hotels to be fine (clean, comfortable, quiet, with good breakfast buffets). It obviously depends on which room you get. I wouldn't want to stay a whole week in any of them, but I think that of any hotel in any city, no matter how many stars it's been rated! Happy Travels!