Want to take the family on the essential Europe tour but would really like any input from anyone as to the best tour company. Thank you in advance for your reply.

We are taking a Cosmos tour (Best of Italy) in 2006. Our reason is that Cosmos as opposed to Globus gives you more 'free time' we plan to experience the local culture - but we will be still taking some of the optional excursions.. .

Globus will provide accomodation in a more central location and possibly a higher class of hotel. Included also, will be more sights. There are still optional excursions that you may want to do but at an additional cost.

Cosmos accomodation is tourist class and will generally be further from the central locations so some extra travel may be required to visit areas on your own. Optional excursions are also included but at additional cost.
Enjoy your trip - Mario

Thank you mario for your reply. Much appreciated. If anyone else has any other advice we would love to hear it. Thanks

When we were deciding on which tour company to use for our UK trip, we had to consider cost (family of 4) vs. better hotel locations and some other "perks". . We decided to use Cosmos and went knowing that some things would not be perfect, of course the same can be said for any tour (even the real expensive ones have an occasional flop) and that we were on a "Budget" tour. We LOVED it! If your family is 4 people and the differance between the Globus Essential Europe and Cosmos from Rome to London (almost same tour) the cost differance is near $3000 (US dollars), but you do get more with the Globus tour (less days/better hotels/a few more visits/etc.). . I am not rich, but want to get as much as we can afford, so we go with the budget abd use some of the money we save to pay for any extras we may choose. It is a hard decision and when it is just my wife & I then the higher end tours are are more affordable so we tend to look at them! In Europe 2 adults can cost a lot less then if you have 2 kids as for some reason they cost us about 2/3 of our entire budget (dang kids are expensive lol). . No matter what you decide if you are comfotable and approach it with a positive attitude you & the family will LOVE it!

I've done Cosmos and Globus. Globus is definitely higher end and to me it was worth the difference to stay in first class hotels in better locations. If you don't mind second rate dingy hotels then cosmos is fine. I must say that the tour directors were excellent for both cosmos and globus.