Need Tour Pre/Post-Night Hotel Advice

[islandgurrl]

Hi,

My friend and I will be taking the Cosmos St. Paul's to St. Peter's tour in June. We plan to have pre and post-nights. I was hoping to get any advice on how we should handle booking our pre/post nights.

The reason I ask is because through Cosmos we were quoted $200 per night ($100 each person) for 1 night in Rome at the Dei Massimi, however the rates quoted of the hotel's direct website is $160.80 per night. We are also told that if we book the pre/post nights through Cosmos they could provide airport transfer about $40-$58, but if we book hotel on our own they would not provide airport transfer, which I was told could be even more expensive.

We are tempted to just go the easy route and book everything through Cosmos so everything runs a bit more smoothly. But saving even a little bit of extra money which we could use for excursions or during the tour sounds nice too.

If anyone could provide some advice here, we would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
islandgurrl

[Letsgo]

Try going to the tripadvisor web site. Than do a search for hotels in the city you wish to stay in. You will come up with ratings on all the suggested hotels starting with hotel # 1 and going up.. . You can than click on the different hotels and you will get several different links to check prices and make your reservation..I always use tripadvisor to find hotels and I always save a lot of $$$$$. . I never use the hotels through the tour companies as they are always overpriced. It is actually possible to sometimes stay in the same hotels as the tour but get it much cheaper by booking it on your own. There will be reviews by the tripadvisor members of the different hotels.