I just got back from my first Contiki tour. It really was amazing! I still can't believe how much of Italy we saw in 12 days. You are constantly on the go, so if you think you're getting any rest you're wrong. Just wanted to give a heads up on somethings. The dinners that are included in the package are not very good. The pasta is always good, but the meat that's offered usually was pretty bad. A lot of our group had had it with the food. The optional dinners we did were very good, except our farewell dinner. Also, the hotels are not completely guarenteed. Our hotel for Milan changed and we had to travel 2 hours outside of the city to stay at some random hotel. At least the hotel was nice but we wanted to try and go to the Soccer game and we couldn't. They tried to make it up to us when we came back to Rome. Said our farewell dinner was included to everyong and our hotel upgrade. The hotel was awesome! However, me and 5 other people had to stay in different hotel the 2nd to last night b/c supposidly our upgraded hotel lost power in some of the rooms. It ended up being a 10 minute drive or so away from everyone else. So instead of being able to hang out in the hotel with our new friends we had to go to this other hotel. It was terrible!!! Our last night the rooms were fixed and we were able to stay there. Usually all the optional dinners included bottles of red and white wine. Our farewell dinner only included 1 bottle of red wine and anything else we had to pay for. If you don't like wine or like to drink, it shouldn't be problem. But splitting 2 bottles between 10 people and not getting anymore was a little insane. Our tour manager was awesome and so was our driver. It wasn't their fault this stuff happened. Despite those things I wouldn't have done it any other way to see all of Italy. We met some great people, who I hope to keep in touch with. Just a reminder, none of the museums are included in the price. If you want to see the Vatican you might want to book a tour a head of time so you don't have to wait in the line. You could luck out and be able to get pretty fast though. We did that our last day instead of doing the tour with the group. Our 1st day their we got in early so we bought a Roma Pass and saw the Colesseium, Palitine Hill, the Roman Forum and a ton more. It all depends what you want to do. With that being said, I hope you have a great trip and have a lot of great people on your trip!...
One more thing, we all sort of got sick. You are in a bus for a long time with 50 or so people. If you can, bring some cold medicine just in case!

Hello, I will go to Italy in December. Could you please tell me how much does it cost the tour at the Vatican, and the Roma Pass? Any website you can recommend? Thanks a lot!!

My husband and I will be possibly taking this Simple Italy tour in April 09.

Were can you get this Roma Pass ahead of time? How much did it cost? I would love a tour of Vatican city...any info on this would be awesome!!

HOw were the hotels? Were they conveniently located near good sites?

What was your favorite stop?

I just got back from the Sept 26 Simpy Italy tour.

A few things:

1. The original poster is correct...most of the included dinners are not good whatsoever. If you are a foodie and are going to Italy for the food i reccomend looking elsewhere. If you are going to see the sights in a whirlwind fashion, than this is the tour for you.

2. When you go to Pompeii, do not follow the guide to the exit or you will have to kill the next 1.5 hours in the parking lot full of overpriced souveniers! Stay in the ruins and explore some more, they are totally awesome. The food at the swiss restaurant is not that good, even with a 20% discount i'd say leave it and search elsewhere.

3. There are lots of times when you will be carted away from downtown in the cities only to be brought back there for dinner 2 hours later, unless you are dog tired stay downtown and catch the bus later. talk to your tour manager about what's really happening on the itinerary.

4. The hotels you get in your package are not the ones you will stay at. The old switcheroo. it doesn't matter to contiki that what was going to cost you 5 euro's to catch a cab to the station is now going to set you back 30. Suck it up buttercup.

5. The tuscan dinner aside from the good company is nothing to write home about despite all the hype and that you have to go.

6. Italian waiters are slow and don't really care about you.

7. Every bowel movement will cost you money.

8. You aren't actually allowed to **** in the toilet on the bus (unless you are a girl).

9. the bus stops every 2 hours or less.

10. on the way to rome you will stop at some horrible outlet that sells similar crap to that which you have had the chance to purchase but didn't. Eat all the freebies you can cause the merchandise is overpriced and this is an hour that you won't have in Rome. Better yet cause a riot on the bus and force the tour driver to skip it.

11. You have to book in advance to see 'the last supper' in Milan. Similarly, prebook the Uffuzi and Accedamia in Florence, a trip to the top of Pisa. All of these have thier own websites and many have a 3 month wait.

12. Your hotels will be no where need the downtown. Cabs are usually your problem.

13. The farewell dinner is bad...real bad. And i can attest for the lack of wine served with this meal.

14. wine is cheaper than water

15. The cappuchinos are incredible

16. The gelato is outstanding, the more lowkey the location the better the quality. the more flashy the worse it tastes.

17. go to the top of the Duomo in Milan!

18. Cinqueterre is the nicest place you will go enjoy it.

19. If you have a weak stomach, bring gravol.

20. Mornings start very early, choose your drinking quanities accordingly.

21. If the scooter guy in Capri asks you if you drive a scooter every day back home, Lie and say yes!

22. Yes risotto is on the menu in restaurants but the chance of you actually gettin it is 1/100.

23. some of the hotels are dodgy and have bedbugs (Florence) and stinkbugs (Milan).

You will have fun.

I second just about everything voiced by those prior to me. I went on this trip this past summer and I hate to admit it, but I did have fun in hindsight. I'm not really a 'tour' lover, so I butted heads with our tour manager a few times. Namely, he was pissed because I convinced most of our group to skip the farwell dinner and go elsewhere together as a group- it was fantastic!

Here's my two cents:

1. In Capri the 10 euro entrance fee into the blue grotto is NOT included in the price of the 'cruise' around the island. They pull you in, look arround, then out again, AND the boat drivers expect to be tipped ontop of that. The profit from a 40 person group? you do the math.

2. The "boat ride" in Cinque Terre is a public ferry. Yes, it does stop in every port, but if you're like me and get queasy at the thought of yet another boat ride, don't let your tour manager tell you there's no other option! The tour gets on the boat in Portovenere, ferrys it all the way to the end, then takes the, what was in our case very very very late train back to La Spezia. If your athletic you can hike the distance, the trails are totally worth it and the views are breathtaking! There's also a public bus (boring, but cheap,) and even a train.

3, Don't Don't Don't ever follow the tour guide out of Pompeii, it's a TOTAL scam. The bastard had me in tears because once you leave, there's no re entrance. They don't tell you that you will be exiting the ruins, and the food, drink, souveniers etc. outside are totally Bogus. For the adventurous, there's a neat portion of the ruins you can see if you have exited and walk along the uphill road that runs paralell to the ruins. The reason it's neat is that it's inaccessable from the interior of the site.

4. Likewise, in Rome, you can stay behind in the Forum Romanum when the guide takes the group out. It's well worth it as your ticket includes the Colleseum that you can go check out later by yourself. The tour guides try to make things interesting, but most of their "information" is hogwash or half-fact. To top it off, the Forum is connected to the palatine hill where you can see the house of Augustus, and it's all in all a BEAUTIFUL adventure. Lots of little things that go unnoticed by the masses.

5. You don't have to attend any of the "demonstrations" for gold, lace, glass, etc. The tour managers and Contiki get incentives for bringing tours there. The stuff is overpriced in general, although I did find the lace one interesting in Florence.

6. Most of the included dinners do well, suck. Make it better by stopping by a grocery earlier in the day and picking up a few uber cheap bottles of red wine. Your group will thank you. Ask the waiter if it's ok beforehand, but most of the time it's fine. tell them the wine is special and draw on the label a bit. Thus you avoiding high priced and crappy wine that's specially been selected a la contiki tour.

There are many more things of note. Be wary of your tour manager, they tend to enjoy giving the tour groups half truths, then ditching them to enjoy their kickbacks.

I know this isn't the advice section, but I have a question for those of you that have been on this tour - my sister and I are going on the 28th Dec, and we were hoping to try to see the Last Supper while in Milan. Did anyone on your tours do this, do you know? Do you remember what time they dropped you in town, and when they picked you up? And where did they drop you - near the Duomo?

Any advice you could give us would be much appreciated

Don't worry about the advice, they didn't open the bookings for Jan until the 1st of Dec, and on the 1st Dec all the times were booked out. So no Last Supper for us. Thanks anyway!!