Travel Review: Italy Family Vacation, Rome, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Montepulciano, Siena, San Gimiagnano, Cortona Cooking Class

This was a trip of a lifetime.  I was thrilled by the itinerary that our agent and her team put together for us.  It included everything I wanted--upscale accommodations, private transfers and tours and unique experiences.  The trip went off perfectly!  Every driver showed up on time and we loved every day of the trip.  The only disappointment I had was that we realized we would be hitting Siena on a Sunday morning and could not tour the cathedral.  I wish we could have worked around that somehow but the driver had us on a time schedule and we could not wait until it opened.  Also, the day the tour guide met us to tour the Vatican I did not realize that we had to take cabs--the rest of the trip we had drivers arranged and I did not realize on the schedule that was not part of the tour that day.  We had to take 2 cabs because the tour guide had to ride with us and if I had realized this we would have met her at the Vatican.  Also in Montepulciano, the hotel had a hard time getting us cabs for us to take into town for dinner.   One cab driver tried to scam us and we ended up having to pay way more than we thought was fair--after we negotiated a round trip price he changed it to tell us it was that price each way.   The hotel told us we should have told them far in advance we needed a cab but how were we to know far in advance what time we would want to go into town?  It all worked out ok though.   

I am giving them 5 stars but I want to comment that after I paid my deposit, I had a harder time getting in touch with someone at her office to ask questions.  A few times I emailed our agent several days would go by without a response.  I even tried calling and no one answered the phone and did not return my calls   I eventually did catch up with her and she apologized and said she was very busy.  In addition, I emailed her the day we left to ask her if we could add a friend to the private tours in Rome (we found out at the last minute an old friend would be in Rome the same day we would) and I never heard back from her.  But overall, I could not have planned this trip on my own and she really found unique experiences that we loved.  I would use them again.