Travel Review: Italy Vacation, Rome, Venice, Florence, Tuscany, Positano, Amalfi Coast, Honey & Wine Tasting, Cooking Lesson

Overall, the tour planned for us was incredible in scope. We appreciate how much coordination goes into planning stays at five locations for five people (two couples and a single) over a 14-day period. One of the advantages to having a professional handle the logistics of such a journey is foreknowledge of the available lodgings, and this was certainly evident here. Each hotel, in our opinion, was unique in its own way and representative of each particular locale, especially  from the ornate rooms in Venice, to the rustic charm of the farmhouse in Tuscany, to the mountainside accomodations in Positano; each was outstanding. We also appreciated the manner in which our travel agency provided us with important phone numbers, pictures of guides, dining recommendations and other valuable information.

Most impressive, I think we all agreed, was the transportation between destinations. The rides were comfortable, and the drivers were courteous and knowledgeable; I do not believe we would have been able to arrange this part of the trip as well as it was handled by this travel agency. (A special shout-out goes to our Venice to Florence driver who arranged an impromptu visit to a balsamic vinegar farm while we were en route!)

Our travel agency's choice of guides was equally laudable; each was accommodating and knowledgeable. They expedited our entries into the various attractions, allowed us to go at our own pace to a great degree, gave us some excellent restaurant suggestions, and basically made us feel special. In retrospect, I feel that we should have not scheduled as many tours as we did and left more time for independent exploration, but that certainly was not the fault of this company; we were the ones who drove the schedule. That being said, the golf cart tour of Rome seemed like a good idea at the start, but I don’t think it was what we expected; we found many of the destinations uninteresting and mostly forgettable. We found what we felt would have been better places to visit just from walking around Rome on our own.

The one big negative of the entire trip was our final stop in Positano. We had required, and were given, three rooms at all of our other locations, but for some reason, the travel agency originally booked only two rooms for us in Positano, meaning that our single traveler would have to bunk with one of the couples for three nights in a one bed, one bath room. We only found out about this arrangement a month before our trip, and would not have even known about it if one of our party didn’t notice it on her own. Our travel agency's solution was to house the single traveler in a separate hotel for two nights and then with one of our couples for the final night…inconvenient, but doable. However, upon reaching Positano, we found an error in the reservation (the wrong dates were reserved…how does this happen?) and ended up with one room for four people. At this point, we were unable to reach any a company representative; the problem was eventually solved by the hotel manager at the hotel, but it involved us staying in three separate (and not co-located) hotels for one night, two separate locations for the second night, and finally all of us in a villa the last night. The villa was probably our favorite lodging, and things worked out in the end, but unfortunately, this was no thanks to our travel agency.

This is really a shame because this trip was so well-planned, and yet, the freshest memory we have of it was this last situation. Many times we were amazed how our travel agency found all of the people and places, such as the Chef’s Dinner in Florence and the honey and wine tasting in Tuscany, that made this a once in a lifetime experience. We expected there to be missteps along the way in an undertaking of this size, but it seems like that whole Positano debacle could have been avoided if the correct reservations were made at the outset when we all agreed upon them.