Of an 8 day tour, there were only 6 active days and a lot of time even in the active days was self guided. The tour leader wasnt a good time keeper so we frittered away time and got places late and had interesting things cut short. She didnt factor in time for comfort breaks especially on the longer drives which wasnt good.
Generally when we walked places she stormed off ahead leaving the older, slower walkers way behind. On the saturday she had the whole afternoon to herself but still took us to the wrong restaurant for dinner.
Also the coach was very uncomfortable as the seats were very small and if you were squeezed in the window side you burned your ankles on a metal strip that ran the length of the bus. The driver always seemed reluctant to put the air conditioning on. Also there was no toilet on the bus which would have eased the problem of comfort breaks. When on of the group asked would there be a comfort break on the 3 hour journey so he could decide if had a beer, she said no. This was also a day when my husband had an upset stomach, which made the journey more stressful for us
In general the itinerary was misleading examples of this were:
On day 3 we were supposed to look at grapevines, olive groves and cheese production and have a cookery class. What we saw was cows being milked and the room where the cheese is made, we saw no olive groves or grapevines. The 'cooking' class involved rolling reading made paste and filling it with a mix of ricotta and chocolate which was already made and shaping ravioli, this would have been basic for a room full of kids, we didnt learn anything so I don't think it could be called a class. There were positives the olive oil tasting was what was promised an the meal in the evening was good.
Day 4 we waited at the Teatro Andromeda noone answered the bell, we waited more than half an hour, they came out when we only had 10 mins to spend. They were there but wouldnt come put because of the rain. the guide said this had had happened on other occasions so I dont quite understand why it is still on the itinerary if the people there are unreliable. Only because someone in the group pointed out we had missed out on the theatre were we offered aperativo instead.I dont drink which was no use for me, it seemed like a poor swap.
The winery tour wasnt particularly interesting and we werent given any explanation of how to properly taste wine, just given wine and food,it felt like that was a missed opportunity.
On day 6 the tour of the tomato farm started as looking into 2 empty green houses and being told the same thing pretty much twice. We saw the processing room but there wad nothing being made. On the positive side, the people were lovely and they made us a really nice meal.
When we arrived at our last hotel the guide told us it wasnt possible to drive over the bridge to the island, which was clearly not true as we we drove over it to get out thid morning I assume it was because the driver wanted to get away back to Palermo, the guide mentioned he had a three hour drive back, its a shame that was prioritised over our comfort.
In summary the trip fell short of our expectations if this had been our first Explore trip we definately wouldnt have booked another one. We appreciate a number of these activities are seasonal, that being the case maybe it shouldnt be offered this late in the season or adjusted to include other elements? This has put us off booking with Explore again
