I knew the time would come that I would eventually turn to the combined wisdom and knowledge of the doper community… and it would seem that time is now!
I am thinking of doing a Contiki tour of the US next year sometime. There are two that really appeal to me: the Hawaiian Discovery (an 8-day tour, from A$1879) and the Eastern Canada & USA tour (A 12-day tour from A$2139). So I got on the Contiki website and asked them to send me a brochure, which of course has given me too many choices - I suppose I could even do the 24-day Grand Northern tour (A mere A$4079!!!).
So, here’s the thing - if I’m going to spend a huge amount of money going to another continent, then spending the next 8-24 days going places and doing stuff, I’d like it to be fun (duh) and value-for-money. It all SOUNDS good on paper and the brochures look great… but let’s face it, sometimes reality doesn’t quite live up to expectations.
So, I’m putting it out there, for all of you who have been on a Contiki (or similar) tour:
Did it live up to your expectations?
Was it fun (yes I know this is a subjective question)?
Was it value for money?
If you did one of the longer tours (more than two weeks) did you find yourself wishing it would just hurry up and end? Or did you enjoy the whole thing?
These tours have “free” days where you can bugger off and do your own thing - did you find this was enough time to do the stuff that wasn’t already included in the tour?
Were the accommodations, meals etc included of a reasonable standard?
Would you do it again?
Enough questions for you? I hope you can all help me out
I haven’t actually done one, but I was a travel agent. The industry nickname for Contiki tours is “Screw & Spew”, IOW there’s a lot of bedroom swapping, and a lot of drinking going on besides (and sometimes instead of) sight-seeing.
If that’s your thing, you’ll like it, if it’s not, may I suggest “Trek America”. They do similar tours, for a young age-group, but without the “Contiki-factor”.
Me personally, I’d gnaw my arm off before going on a Contiki tour (even if it was free) but each to their own.
A friend and I took two Contiki tours back-to-back a few years ago, two weeks of Italy and two weeks of Greece. We didn’t have the screw issues that Goo refers to – both tours were predominately female or couples – but there were a few spew problems. We tended to do our sightseeing by ourselves or with a couple of other people we hit it off with, so we avoided a good deal of that.
There were places on the tour where I would have loved to spend more time, but there were also places I probably never would have visited on my own that turned out to be some of my favorites. I just figure now I know where I need to return to For most places, we started out with a short tour and then were pretty much on our own until it was time to leave.
Hotels were okay, and the included meals ranged from okay to pretty good. My friend and I took part in most of the optional excursions and enjoyed them also.
We probably could have done it on our own cheaper, but it was worth it to us to not have to figure out how to get from place to place, where to stay, etc.
I spent nine weeks in Europe in the (northern) winter of 2000-01. Eight and a half of those weeks were spent backpacking (in the Czech republic, Hungary, England, France, Spain and Belgium) and the remaining 10 days on a Contiki tour of Spain and Portugal.
The tour I did was one of the hotel tours (as opposed to the camping tours) and a little more expensive. The “screw and spew” factor wasn’t too bad (possibly because it was more expensive), but there did tend to be a focus on shopping and clubbing rather than sightseeing. The accomodation and food was pretty good.
I didn’t hate the tour, and I got to see lots of amazing places that I never would’ve seen backpacking, but on the whole I would much rather spend my travel time backpacking than on a bus tour. Some of the advantages of backpacking over touring are:
backpacking is cheaper
you get to spend more time in places (on tour we never spent more than two nights in any city/town, and often it wasn’t enough)
you have more chance to get off the tourist trail - tour groups tend to be marshalled into all the tourist shops and restaurants and bars
the two above points mean that you get more of a feel for the places you visit, which for me is a big plus
you meet better (more interesting and adventurous) people
you get to set your own itinerary, sleep in when you want, go to places you wanna go, and don’t have to put up with someone else’s timetable.
Of course, it all depends on the individual and what you are looking to get out of your travel time. I’d say, if you are a reasonably confident and capable type of person, you will have a much better time backpacking than you would on tour.
Brief caveat - this is all MHO - I have known people who’ve loved Contiki tours, and gone back for more.
The converse of this is: you have to set your own iternary, you have to choose the places you wanna go, and you have to come up with your own timetable. When I traveled on my own, I thought this was a pain in the ass. On the guided tours, my only responsibility was to wake up on time, and that was more of my idea of a vacation.
Personally, I’ve never taken a Contiki tour. I have taken a couple of Trafalgar tours, which is the same company. The demographic was older, but the hotels were better. Which I liked better.
Thankyou to all of you who have replied with your experiences, good and bad It’s given me some stuff to think about… but I have to say, I’m with SmackFu - the less thinking and stressing and organising I have to do on a holiday, the happier I am
It seems the consensus is that going on a guided tour shows you small amounts of lots of different stuff, which I think would be the way to go for my first big trip overseas… nothing stopping me going back and checking stuff out for myself!
I hope you can all help me out 