Early Bird - group of 4 going to Europe

[futago flyer]

Hi everyone,

Myself and a few friends are wanting to do a trip to Europe next year in August. I have a few questions.

1) We'd like to do a tour of Europe see the major sites. We are not sure about Contikei, as we'd like to stay in at least 3 star hotels and are not a drinking crowd. We are looking for 3 weeks - accommodation, most meals - for no more than $3000 - less would be great. Rome, paris and everthing in between are where we'd like to go. Its our first trip there so yes, we would like to stand in front of things and get our photo taken, eat lots of food and generally have a great time!

So does anyone have a suggestion for a good tour company, that is not too pricey? We don't want to end up with just families or seniors, we are 20-25 age bracket

2) We'd like to book return flights into London. Does anyone know of a good deal? Early bird. We could book pretty soon. I've also heard about deals (they may be a thing of the past!) like, MasterCards BA deal where you got one leg upgraded, has anyone heard of a good deal?

All suggestions, most welcome! Thanks in advance.

 

[Mal]

Re tour, you might want to check out Trafalgar Breakaway tours. They're basically an 'upmarket' Contiki tour for 21-38 yo's.

One comment though, is that Breakaway tends to attract the young "newly married" crowd who don't want Contiki due to it's reputation.

I thought Contiki also did "hotel based" tours, but not totally sure. Perhaps it's only hostels.

Either way, I'm pretty sure you won't get a 3* + tour for 21 days for less than $3000 like you hope. Maybe a ~2 week tour will fit into that price range.

Note also, there are pretty good "Early Bird" specials which might help...

 

[coolumbla]

"in my day" I did a winter contiki tour that was hotel based
All were 2-3 star (ish)

Mind you my day was 25 years ago!

HAve just done a peregrine"family" tour of Vietnam/Cambodia
All the hotels were 3-4 , one 5
(except for the home stay and the longhouse stay that was like sleeping in a shearing shed)

SHane

 

[lovetravellingoz]

In the Melb Herald Sun in the Travel section The Flight Centre hada full page ad (1300 655 847 or flightcentre.com.au) :

Earlybird UK/Europe
From $5689 (saving $225) including:

Airfare flying Singapore airlines, taxes and tour
23 days

Holland
Germany
Switzerland
Italy
Spain
France

I think Cosmos was the operator...and I have knowldege as to how good they are.

 

[futago flyer]

Thanks for your responses so far

 

[vitaminp]

Contiki do hotel tours, known in Contiki parlance as "Timeout". These tours provide accomodation in hotels for the duration of the tour. The hotels tend to be close to the city centre. I can't comment on the quality, but the best thing is you don't lose ~3 hours in travel for each city.

While I would probably never do one again, the good thing I found about Contiki was you get so many different groups on the tour. If you don't want to drink, you don't have to, you can do as little or as much as you would like. We had plenty of smaller 3/4 person groups who would disappear as soon as we got to a city and then come back right before the bus was leaving (while everyone else was still drunk)

I think I got a fairly good "snapshot" of the major places and did all the photos/touristy things - and more importantly knew where I wanted to go back to!

I also think that whatever option you choose, the budget may need a bit of tweaking from $3k. I think that would be underestimating a bit.

 

[Travel Guru]

If you want to steer clear of Contiki (like I now would 10 years after partaking in my one and only month long Contiki tour - which was great at the time but not for me now), i'd recommend looking at Kumuka tours, fantastic tours, some off the beaten track stops, good quality 3* hotels and a good mix of people generally in the 23-40 age range.

I would steer clear of Breakaway myself and head for Kumuka.

Early bird deals are now out, but none offer a free upgrade in one direction, instead offering excellent prices for the 2009 season.

Good luck with it, if you need any further advice, don't hesitate to ask

TG

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I also think that whatever option you choose, the budget may need a bit of tweaking from $3k. I think that would be underestimating a bit.

"3 weeks (tour) - accommodation, most meals - for no more than $3000" -

Change most to some or none...and you have a chance but remember that there are always extra expenses that you have when you travel...drinks...coffee...shopping...extra activities/sites.. etc

 

[That girl in pink]

I think EF College Break is cheaper than Contiki, if price is an issue. And its an 18-26 thing, so it seems that the ages thing works out well. Maybe you should take a look at them. I did a trip with them this summer to Greece, and it was so much fun, I went with friends too- and I cant even explain to you how amazing it was. I have their discount too, cause Im actually signing up for another trip this year with them to Ireland, but their discount code is hesseln1188 and it gets you $50 off any trip if you do want to use them. If you do end up wanting to go with contiki though, you should look into their partner sites, since I saw some 5% discounts advertised when I was looking. Good luck, and have fun!

 

[lovetravellingoz]

There are a number of deals and companies shown here (including earlybird rates):

Best Coach Tours Travel Agent - Online Coach Tours Search Engine