Bus Tour Self-Defense
By Rick Steves
I've spent months on typical big bus tours and have some hard-earned advice. (And this is not leading to a plug of my tours.) If you follow these tips, even a big bad bus tour can be a good value.
When calling tour companies, here are questions to ask:
Nail down the price
- What does the price actually include? (How many nights and days? How many meals? Admission to sights? Exactly what kind of transportation?)
- If the dollar drops, will the tour price stay the same or will a supplement be charged?
- If the tour doesn't fill up, will the price increase? Are prices lower for off-season tours?
- Do you take credit cards? (If you're dealing with a tour company that's not well established, pay by credit card. A credit-card company can be a strong ally in resolving disputes.)
- Do singles pay a supplement? Can singles save money by sharing rooms?
- Are optional excursions offered? Daily? Average cost?
- Is trip interruption/cancellation insurance included?
- Will the guide and driver expect to be tipped? How much? How often?
- Are there any other costs?
- Do customers receive any freebies for signing up?
Find out how much the guide guides
- Is the guide also the driver?
- Does the guide give talks on the cities, history, and art?
- What are the guide's qualifications (education, experience, fluency in languages)?
Run a reality check on your dream trip
- How many tour members will be on the tour?
- Roughly what is the average age and singles-to-couples ratio?
- Are children allowed? What is the minimum age?
- How many seats on the bus? Is there a bathroom on the bus? How much time is spent on the bus each day?
- Is smoking allowed?
- Roughly how many hours a day are spent shopping and watching product demonstrations?
- How much free time is usually allotted at each sight, museum, and city?
- Are all the hotels located downtown or are they on the outskirts?
- What's the average length of stay at hotels? One night? Two?
- Does each room have a private bathroom? Air-conditioning?
- What percentage of included meals are eaten at the hotel?
Let's get personal
- How many years have you been in business?
- Roughly how many tours do you run a year?
- What is your policy if you have to cancel a tour?
- What are your refund policies before and during the tour?
Request
- The detailed itinerary and location of hotels.
- The names and phone numbers of satisfied customers, though these aren't always given out.
- Written tour evaluations, if available (may be posted on their Web site).
How to Enjoy a Bus Tour
Keep your guide happy. Independent-type tourists tend to threaten guides. Maintain your independence without alienating your guide. Don't insist on individual attention when the guide is hounded by countless others. Wait for a quiet moment to ask for advice or offer feedback. If a guide wants to, he can give his entire group a lot of extras — but when he pouts, everyone loses. Your objective, which requires some artistry, is to keep the guide on your side without letting him take advantage of you.
Discriminate among optional excursions. While some activities may be included (such as the half-day city sightseeing tours), each day one or two special excursions or evening activities, called "options," are offered for $30–50 a day. Each person decides which options to take and pay for. To make sure you're not being ripped off on excursion prices, ask your hotelier the going rate for a gondola ride, Seine River cruise, or whatever.
Some options are great, others are not worth the time or money. While illuminated night tours of Rome and Paris are marvelous, I'd skip most "nights on the town." On the worst kind of big bus-tour evening, several bus tours come together for the "evening of local color." Three hundred Australian, Japanese, and American tourists drinking watered-down sangria and watching flamenco dancing onstage to the rhythm of their automatic rewinds is big-bus tourism at its grotesque worst.
Your guide promotes excursions because she profits from them. Don't be pressured. Compare. Some options are cheaper through your tour than from the hotel concierge. Some meals are actually a better value with the group. Keep an open mind. While you are capable of doing plenty on your own, optional excursions can be a decent value — especially when you factor in the value of your time.
But don't let bus tour priorities keep you from what you've traveled all the way to Europe to see. In Amsterdam, some tour companies instruct their guides to spend time in the diamond-polishing place instead of the Van Gogh Museum (no kickbacks on Van Gogh). Skip out if you like. Your guide may warn you that you'll get lost and the bus won't wait. Keep your independence (and the hotel address in your money belt).
Updated for 2006. For lots more tips, check out our best-selling Europe Through the Back Door travel skills guidebook.