Tour operator : The Travel Dept...

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bzoi

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Hi Everybody,

With my wife, we would like to try a fully escorted holiday to Italy to Lake Garda.
The Travel dept offers are very attractives (Prices, excursions). But I don't know the competitors.
Please could you give some advices relative to your past experiences.
Thank you very much
 
Did the Lake Garda tour with them. Excellent. Do a search here on askaboutmoney for other contributors views.
 
Have made a couple of trips with them,usually very good with good tours and guides.
Only quibble I would have with them is the location of the hotels they use,they are
sometimes off the beaten track.
Lake Garda is beautiful,enjoy the trip.
 
Did the Lake Garda holiday as well - there's a lot of travelling involved on the trips to Venice & Verona, ended up with around 4 hours in Venice on a 12 hour round trip (I think it was 12 hours, I know it was a long day on the coach!).

Wasn't terribly impressed by the hotel, nothing absolutely wrong with it, but it wasn't a 4* as suggested. Food can be a bit boring after a while (set meals), and be prepared to sit at the same table with the same people for all of your meals for the week - we had to, it felt like being in the classroom again!
 
I also did the Lake Garda Tour. The hotel was nice enough but the food was very poor. We also had to share tables despite the fact that there were plenty of empty tables in the restaurant. The day trip to Verona was poor. Venice was O.K. Early morning starts are the norm. The same greedy people would rush to grab the front seats on the coach. Much better and cheaper if you organise the trip yourself.
 
I've never gone with Travel Dept but have toured with both www.insightvacations.com and [broken link removed] both of which I found excellent.

On both of these operators you travel to the different areas and stay in the locality - normally fairly centrally located hotels - as opposed to one base and taking long day trips to see other sights. Also seats are allocated on a rotation basis so everbody gets to sit in the front !

I found it lovely to just sit back & enjoy the sights etc as opposed to doing all the work, but then I often travel solo so this really suits me.

Look up the various sites. If you want everything arranged for you try http://www.cietours.ie (www.cietours.ie) They use both companies mentioned but include flight organisation. going direct to Insight or Trafalgar & organizing my own flights I found cheaper. Look up http://www.affordabletours.com/ They often have bargains.
 
Just to say that CIE Tours are no longer linked to Insight Vacations - Insight are now dealing with Slattery's in Tralee.

(I'm on the Insight mailing list and received a mail to inform me of the change a few weeks ago).
 
The lake Garda tour is brilliant. Did it a couple of years ago on October,but there are a couple of points to be aware of.

Make sure your booking is for the Liberty Hotel in Riva.
They sometimes use another one further up the same street (just can't remember the name of it at the moment). In this other hotel the food is not good (boring in fact) and it is very regimental and as other posters have said a lot of silly rules about which tables you sit at etc.

This is not a relaxed lazy type holiday. A couple of very early mornings and quite a bit of walking involved. Our guide was brilliant so overall it was a wonderful experience
 
It was the Liberty Hotel that I stayed in with the poor food, regimental rules and forced to share tables.
 
Travelled with them to Egypt and would really recommend them for this one. Very good hotels and boat (along the Nile) and the tour guide was excellent.
 
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