Travel Review: Custom Italy Vacation Package, Bologna, Verona, Bellagio, Milan, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Lake Como, wine tours

We would get a greater guarantees that things promised would be delivered even if it was at the expense of the travel company. Once promised it should be delivered. We would also seek reassurance that if hotels were not as promised there would be some way to remediate the situations on site. This was the problem with dealing with a travel company with no physical presence in the country being visited. We would also have set up certain tours on our own. We really looked forward to the gondola ride in Venice and the tour company was not very good. It would have been just as cost effective and we would have had greater choice if we would have set the tour up ourselves once we had arrived. [Travel Company's Comment] Thank you so much for your comments, and I appreciate the detailed feedback you have given since your return to the USA. I can assure you that every detail has been used to improve the service we give to our customers. And I am pleased that out of the 2 week trip, and 8 tours - all of your hotels, transfers and tours were delivered as promised, and your arrangements flowed smoothly from start to finish. As I'm sure you will remember, we were very apologetic about the La Scala tickets, unfortunately they were all bought immediately by ticket scalpers - and prices went from $60 to $300 - we did our very best to try and find them within your budget but unfortunately we were unlucky with this event. It is the first time we had bought tickets for this opera, and unfortunately the popularity of an event like this in Italy is very hard to determine. Our knowledge lies more with travel arrangements than with concert tickets. We did our best to find you a backstage tour of La Scala to make sure you actually got to see inside the theater which you said was your main objective. The gondola tour was your one tour which left you feeling dissatisfied. I understand you had difficulty finding your meeting point, and you felt the map we supplied was not adequate. We have not heard of this problem before, perhaps since you arrived 45 minutes early, the guide had not yet arrived. However we are now also including a photo of the gondola meeting to make sure this problem does not happen again. The gondola tour was in a group, to meet with the budget constraints you set us - and it is a fraction of the price of the private gondola, perhaps we could have discussed a private experience so you wouldn't feel as though you 'were in the middle'. However, I realize you felt the tour was shorter than as advertised - so we were happy to refund you for half of the tour. I am sorry your room in Florence was noisy - I really wish I had been given the opportunity to rectify this situation whilst you were at the hotel. I would have made sure you were upgraded or moved to a different hotel. Unfortunately I did not hear about this until after you left Florence, so we were not given the chance to do anything. As you mentioned, I always respond immediately to emails, and all of the hotels have wi-fi - so if you had once mentioned it to me during your 3 night stay I could have done something about it. After your return to the USA, I spoke to the manager at the hotel and was open with our correspondence so you could see that I was trying my best to get you some compensation - and to give you the opportunity to understand why it was noisy. Being in the historical center of Florence in a listed building with Beaux Arts facade, they are not allowed to install double glazing. For the future, I will explain to guests the importance of upgrading from a 'Classic Room' to ensure that they would be on a higher floor. We do always try to obtain a free upgrade for our clients, but this is of course subject to availability. We are now impressing on our clients the importance that they contact us whilst away with any kind of problem - no matter how small - so we can rectify immediately. Not only are we here from 7am - 7pm, 7 days a week - but clients also have all of the local phone numbers for their guides and drivers in Italy who speak perfect english and can help with concerns - or contact us immediately if necessary. Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to give us feedback, and I'm glad your Italy experience was all you expected.