Grand European Tours

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Message Submitted by Carol C on Thu, 09/23/2010 - 20:35
<p>I'd love to hear from anyone who has traveled with this company. How large is the group, usually? Are the hotels located so that the advertised leisure time can be used effectively? We are considering the 14 day Spain, Morocco and Portugal trip. We usually travel with Adventures Abroad, and like their 21 guest limit, the included dinners at local restaurants, no optional tours, and no tipping except for the tour guide policies. Alas, we don't care for their Spain itinerary. We are active seniors, experienced travelers. </p>

Reply Submitted by EzyEdy on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 20:22

Ive traveled with Grand European twice and will NOT travel with them again. They have a policy of getting a hotel and keeping it for 3 days or so with out moving, BUT that means that you must waste a lot of time driving each day to and from the hotel. In Amsterdam they were not well located and on a free day I had to take several trains and busses to get to the destination that I wanted to see. Their groups were about 22 each time that I went with them. Some people like the idea of not moving frequently, but I am not one of them. I much prefer Adventures Abroad for all the reasons that you mentioned. If you like AA, you will not really like Grand European (in my opinion!)

Reply Submitted by aicitn on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 13:34

We did a May 14-day bus tour of Western Turkey with GET and couldn't have been happier. We were 33 I believe -- bus could have held 40. We thought all the hotels were great except for 1 in Konya which had lousy dinner service but hotel very nice. Yes, some of 'em were out of town (Goreme), and would have preferred Antalya to be a bit more central but they were all 4 or 5 star. The ones in Istanbul were well situated on the "other" side of the Grand Mosque, not too far from Taksim Square and near restaurants if you didn't want to spend $$ to eat at the hotel restaurant. Our guide Tibet was fantastic.

We also did their optional Istanbul-Athens 6 day cruise which was fine (ship mediocre but port calls were good). Unfortunately, my husband fell on rocks coming down from the Lindos acropolis, and that's another whole story.