Cosmos Europe at Leisure

by **HRose** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 11:31 am

This is a great tour for your first time to Europe but it is anything but leisurely, 21 days. Anyone interested I will be happy to tell you about it. However, don't go when it is warm as many of the hotels do not have AC and it may be too noisey to leave the windows open. We just got back June 8th and I would not want to be going any later. Great sites, great food and we had a wonderful time. Anyone that is picky about your hotel room, I would suggest you not take a Cosmos tour. Hotels have small rooms and even smaller showers. Rooms are very basic with no frills and like I said no AC for the most part. But most of the hotels we stayed in were in wonderful little quaint villages. You are not in your room that much as you get into the city late afternoon and then go to dinner. You are up bright and early the next morning to tour. We took a lot of op. tours and op. dinners at night so we got in late, took a shower and went to bed. Then you are up at 6am to 6:30am in the morning and out. Long bus rides but they stop about every 2 hours for a break, usually at an auto center on the highway for lunch, (They have pretty nice auto centers.) or in a little town. It is well worth the money for this tour. You could not see everything we saw and see eveything we did for the same amount of money. My biggest fear was the hotels and I was pleasantly surprised.
If you have any questions, just ask.

by **GLoveseurope** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 5:48 pm

Hello, thank you for your report. I was thinking of taking this tour last year but ended up taking a similar tour (with another company) that was a little shorter - was afraid three weeks would be too much (how did it seem to you). . But am thinking of going again next year with a similar itinerary because I saw so many wonderful things & would like to see them again. My question specifically is how were the hotels in Rome & Florence, were they OK? I have been on other Cosmos tours & don't mind basic but not fond of bad (there was one hotel in Lugano that was icky, but thankfully Cosmos doesn't use it anymore). . Anyway, just concerned re: the hotels in Itay, otherwise Cosmos is fine, thanks! Glad you had a good time, Gale S.

by **HRose** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:11 pm

I forgot to tell you. I was exhasted and ready to go home the last few days. 3 weeks is long with no down time. We did a lot of the optional tours, and all of the optional dinners. Therefore, no time to rest.

Something additional I would say is. We did not have enough time in London. There is so much to see. We arrived at 8am so basicallly we had a day and a half to see London. It's not enough. Also, If I had it to do over again, I would take the tour back to London from Paris. We flew into Heathrow and had to transfer to Gatwick. Not an easy task if you have never done it. We kept having to ask what to do and where to go. I thought we were going to have a 4 hour lay over in London. It took every bit of 4 hours to get to our plane in Gatwick. If your airline flies from Paris to London make sure it goes to the airport you will use to fly out of London. Our friends flew straight from Paris to the US. I wish I had paid better attention to that.

by **Guessed** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 6:04 am

Hi HRose,

Am I glad to see your post here! I've been waiting for someone to post a feedback regarding the Cosmos Europe at Leisure tour and finally I saw your post!

I will send you a private message, as of coure I have a few things to ask regarding the tour, I hope you won't mind me msging you.

For a start, my husband and I are doing the Europe at Leisure tour this coming Sept 4 for 18days (we're from Australia). .

Thanks in advance! and hope to see more feedback from others regarding this particular tour!

cheers,

Guessed

by **Hillarie** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:10 pm

Hrose,

Did you initially fly into London via Gatwick? If so, about how long did it take for you to get from Gatwick to the hotel? I'm hoping to have enough time on my arrival day to get out to Wimbledon and take a tour, but time is tight.

by **Letsgo** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 12:39 pm

I have now learned after several tours to ALWAYS arrive in my departure city at least 1 day early.Gives you a chance to see a little more and to get over the jet lag. I don't think there is ever enough time in London and last summer DH and I spent a whole week in London on our own. We had a great time.

by **Hillarie** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:23 pm

hi Letsgo. I'm going as a single and the extra day was very costly for me as the trip I've chosen has already cost quite a bit. This is also my first time traveling outside the U.S. so I wanted as much handholding as possible :p
I'm hoping to be able to come back and do a London week another time.
I'm just going to go with the flow and if I can't make it out to Wimbledon in time for the tour it won't be the end of the world.