Winter Wonderland Reviews

Booked through Global journeys for our Insight Vacation Tour and did not disappoint. GJ were so helpful with answering questions and helping get us organised. The tour with Insight was a winter wonderland snapshot. It snowed and the scenery and experiences were magical. The accommodation was excellent. We made friends with other people on the tour. ...read more Lots of experiences to cherish.

This was the most wonderful, enjoyable and most memorable tour. While some of the organised guides could have thought about our need to eat...and shorten their chat...other than that...wish there was some more free time as quoted, in Lucerne...before the shops shut. 🥲 Faith was by far the best tour guide!

70 people prayed for snow and snow is what we got from the 1st morning of our tour, it was amazing. We had the best historian and orator as our tour guide - Vincenzo. A winter wonderland in all its glory. My only complaint was that a couple of the motels would only be rated as 3* and the food on the last night in Offenbach was terrible. Our driver and ...read more the tour itself - fantastic.

I'll bullet point the comments to make it easier to read, but please dont think we were disappointed with the tour, we were VERY happy with the overall experience. The poor points were really disappointments relative to our expectations after reading the itinerary blurb.

Its called a 9 day tour, its really only 7 days the first and last days do not ...read more contribute to the tour very much at all.
The tour director and driver were very good, helpful, talkative and we always felt safe. I suspect that the tour directors each have their own interest/expertise, ours was history and while we learnt a lot about historical events, we would have liked a bit more information about our surroundings at the time.
The included dinners were poor quality, the welcome meal at the Sheraton Hotel was particularly bad and we actually complained about it at the time. The 'Highlight Dinner' was very average, more like a pub meal and I wont mention the very poor (house) red wine served! This was inconsistent with the 'Business Class' touring style Insight portray.
The Sheraton & Hilton hotel experiences were very good, probably better than expected actually, whereas we stayed at a couple of other hotels that were quite disappointing, surly and unhelpful staff and small/hot/noisey rooms.
The coach was very airy and spacious and quiet, with plenty of legroom (I'm 6' 4')and the driver managed it extremely well particularly in tight spaces/parking.
The tour pace was very good, casual and generally unrushed with the optional tours generally well recieved by everybody on board.
We were disapointed by the cancellation of our chairlift ride up into the mountains in Lucerne (due to poor weather, high winds) and can accept that these things happen, however, there was no alternative offerred, not even a drive up into the mountain villages. Hence we had way too much time in Lucerne just shopping/walking around and felt that there should have been a backup plan for bad weather.
The exposure to the Christmas markets was very good, every one was different in its own way.
A general observation we made (not just on this tour, but everywhere we went in UK/Europe) was that visiting popular places at weekends is to be avoided! We could not believe the crowds, and Valerie actually felt claustrophobic battling our way through the christmas markets on Sat/Sun (she is 5' 2').
Global Journeys (Yvonne) was very supportive and helpful (and patient with all my questions!), particularly when our tour date was cancelled while we were already travelling, she managed to make the new arrangements quite painless for us.