Quote:
Originally Posted by linz06  Thanks! I understand the company needs to make money but this is part of the reason we chose Cosmos over the other tours with included excursions, so we could choose to save money and not go. I just looked up the tours at Versailles and you can get access to everything for 18 Euros... and the tour company is charging us 70 Euros to go! That just seems really ridiculous to me. I know they need to make money but that is a huge markup!
Everywhere else we will probably just go with the company for excursions because we don't speak the languages so it might be tougher to do it on our own. I wonder if we might be able to get by with some broken Canadian French in France though lol.
From the sounds of some reviews, I think we need to choose our excursions and pay up front in the first couple of days of the tour. It would be way nicer to choose as we go though! But I'm sure that's another way they make money, by people banking on nice weather for everything!
Thanks for the information on the coffee shop! I drink coffee, but not regularly, and Scott won't touch it! But I will probably have to try some there! And maybe I'll bring some back for my parents  |
I think it's the logistics for a lot of people. I guess if you are familiar with using public transportation and weigh what it would cost you, and the time involved. I think that is one of the things that really appealed to us. Having the headache taken out of it.
I'm not sure how much it would cost to get out to Versailles, plus we were brought in a different entrance for groups, which was nice, no waiting. Same with the Vatican, we had an appointment time to get in and walked by tons of people waiting in the rain. Our guide said people wait 2-3 hours just to get in. So to me it's worth the extra cost on stuff like that. Time was too precious on the tour to waste long lines. Plus quite a few of our excursions included a meal, so that was good.
I think the guides use some of their own discretion on handling the extra excursions. We were lucky to have such a flexible one. We didn't end up paying for all the excursions that we took until a couple days before the end of the tour.