Bohemian Highlights

Too many cities in too little time. We didn't get to see some things that we were interested in. We were very tired at the end. But it was overall a good experience. Several of the included dinners were served by overwhelmed wait staff. I don't blame them, but the service was rushed, impersonal, and inattentive. At our farewell dinner in Prague, we were the second Trafalgar group of the evening. We could tell. The farewell dinner was unfortunate for another reason: it was near the old town center, and the bus had to drop us off a good 15 minutes away. It was a very long walk back (uphill) to the bus for several of the older people. I found out belatedly, from some of my fellow passengers, that Trafalgar gives a discount to repeat customers. We didn't get a discount, and I didn't even know about this. We were on a Trafalgar tour in St Petersburg & Moscow in 2019. Roderick DeGroot did a good job as tour director. He worked hard for us, and treated us well. Most of the tour specialists were excellent, especially the specialist in Krakow (a blond woman, about 50, didn't retain her name.) The specialist for Berlin, Paul, was not good. Our specialist in Prague was excellent, and very funny.

Very late rooms checkin. Optionsl tours should have their dedicated transfer. Wasting time to get the people from optional tours and go back to town. Wrong! Bus travel to Vienna was too long. The wine testing doesn't make sence. Bad Internet in the bus. It is important to explaine about a tour including walking difficulties, steps, distance, etc. Need more time to decide about Optional package. Protocol for wearing mask for sick people may be considered.

A holiday is not about seeing. It is about the experience. You don’t remember anything unless there is an emotion tied to it. The itinerary promised so much and sounded really good but the actual experience was very disappointing. Oversell and under delivered. We went through one of the great beer making locations in the world and not a single dinner offered a local beer. We even had to beg for a beverage at the included dinners. Driving by the Olympic stadium in Berlin was a tease that upset many for the entire trip. We had 90 minutes to spare in that time frame and were not allowed to take a tour. We may as well have looked at a picture in you tube. Going into the stadium to image how Jesse Owen’s would have felt, or the athletes after the Cold War, or the people during the U2 concert. My strong suggestion is to dig deeper into the experience at the cost of 100 hours of someone explaining which archetech built which building. The salt mine tour was a perfect example. That was done correct except for the fact they never explained how the mine worked, where the salt went or how it sustained the local community. If I planned this trip it would be twice the experience for the same price and have three times the enthusiasm. 12 days 47 people and I never saw a single person get excited or hear them laugh out loud. You can ask the tour director, we tried to inspire the group and create energy but he was just going through the paces. A critical review, yes. An honest review , yes. Will it inspire a change by your group, I highly doubt it. The most disappointing is that I see the potential yet did not realize much of it. Paul

This is my tour number 3 with Trafalgar. This time compared to the two trips was slightly different. There are a couple of things that called my attention. The tour director did a great job, but unfortunately I didn’t feel welcome this time, there were no a welcome reception for the whole tour, nobody knew each other, there were no interactions with each other. The travel director sent us in the group chat the agenda and scheduling for the activities. Secondly, in this tour there were several extra activities considered as additional if we were interested in them, in the other tours everything was included. A little disappointed for this.