Nancy and Dan’s Euro Travel Diary – Rome Guided Tours TRUTHS Revealed!

Nancy and Dan’s Euro Travel Diary – Rome Guided Tours TRUTHS Revealed!

So you decided to go to Italy on an adult’s 
only vacation. Congratulations! You booked your flights and are working with a travel agent 
or on your own or looking at cruises and perhaps a Mediterranean cruise with a stop for a day or 
more in Rome, Italy. You’ve also decided on what you want to see and experience during your time 
in Rome, and possibly some package tours. However, which are the good tour companies with 
good tour guides that you should use, and which other ones you should avoid. This 
is where this short video can come in. Hi, I’m Dan from Nancy and Dan Travel The World. 
I recently returned from to weeks over in Europe where Nancy and I stayed in both 
Italy, primarily in Rome, and in Athens, Greece before a one week Greek island cruise. It 
was fantastic! We thought it would be helpful to you for Nancy and I to share which specific tours 
excursions and car services we actually use during our short time in Italy that were great and we 
recommend for you, like our tour of the Vatican, and which we recommend you stay away from, 
like our particular tour to Pompei and the Amalfi Coast. In this short video, we’re going to 
summarize for you of each and every car service, excursion and tour that we experienced 
during our 4 days in Rome this past summer of 2024. Some of the tours were great; some of the 
tour guides excellent like Laura from LivTours, some you should avoid. We will shortly have more 
videos on all our experiences in Italy and Greece, and on the Greek island cruise, to help 
you plan for yourself such a vacation. If that sounds interesting and possibly 
helpful for your future adult travel plans, then please consider subscribing to our Nancy 
and Dan Travel The World Channel and click that notification Bell right now so you are notified 
of all our future adult travel videos which are between 1 and three each and every week. So for 
now, let’s start our summary review of the car services and excursions that we personally 
experienced during our 4 days in Rome. And, we’ll go through them on the sequence of our 
stay there … day one … day two … day three and so on for each excursion, tour and car 
service we will tell you the name of the tour or car service itself, how we book them, the name of 
the actual provider of the service or the tour, a simple great versus okay versus disappointed 
rating, and why, and the issues we encountered. And, we also tell you what we would have done 
differently knowing what we know now and having experienced it for ourselves. Let’s begin day one. 
We arrived at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport, the call letters FCO, in the late morning. So 
we pre-booked a car service to take us from the airport to our hotel. We booked it through 
Viator. The name of the actual provider of the car service was Decus Italia. The rating, have 
to say all in all, it was was disappointing. So what were the issues? Well you’re arriving on a 
redeye flight from the States and you are tired; you just want to get to your hotel. For us the 
driver was not waiting for us when we arrived. This is what it was like when we arrived at 
Terminal 3 at FCO airport having passed through security and passport control and exited the 
baggage claim area. Yes it was as they say a zoo. It was in incredibly hectic. you can see lots and 
lots of drivers hired for other passengers with their names but ours was nowhere to be seen. He 
showed up 15 to 20 minutes late. Now to be fair, the day we arrived it was crowded in Rome due 
to the ending of Italy’s version of France’s Tour de France. Yet a good driver should have 
accounted for this. We did receive a text from his dispatcher, yet we were on our own to wait in this 
chaos hearing nothing from the driver himself. Once the driver arrived, then the driver had us 
walk 15 minutes with him to where he parked the car in the midday Roman sun having ust after 
arriving on a sleep deprived redeye flight. Next time we would definitely book pre-arranged 
car service from the airport to take us to our hotel yet we would use a different car service.; 
book one that will not keep you waiting and one that will park a lot closer to the terminal 
and possibly even bring the car to you rather than make you walk in the hot sun all jetlagged 
and tired. For our first full day in Rome, which would be day two, we decide to take a small group 
maximum 18 people Day Tour down to see Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. How did we book them? Through 
Viator again. The actual provider of the service is called Walks Italy Spain and Greece. For 
our rating we’re giving up both a great and a disappointing combined rating. Why? Pompeii lived 
up to its billing. It’s about a 3-hour drive from Rome to Pompeii including a rest stop. The rest 
stop was at an outlet that was under construction, included a retail souvenir store, some food 
and bathrooms. The Pompeii part of the tour was great. The local guide very informative 
in that respect. Pompeii did not disappoint. The Amalfi Coast did not live up to its billing; 
no tour at all it, simply drove us to Positano, a town on the Amalfi Coast. When we were there, 
we were on our own for lunch and to walk around for a couple of hours. Then the drive back to 
Rome. The tour guide in the bus was not really a tour guide more of a chaperone. I’m not sure of 
the value provided that the driver could not have done himself; yet this was the most expensive 
tour of all all the tours we did during our 2 weeks in Europe. The the tour guide also insisted 
we stopped back at the same identical, under construction, restaurant stop after we’ve already 
stopped at a different one earlier on the drive back because some of those in the bus needed to 
use the bathroom. There was no need for the second stop at all. The first rest stop and potty break 
would have been fine but the tour guide insisted. Next time we would do the drive or perhaps 
take the train to Pompeii. We would skip the Amalfi Coast portion and skip this tour 
company. If possible perhaps even staying for a few days in the Amalfi Coast area 
and do some self touring would be in our plans. Day three Nancy and I decided to 
take a tour of the Vatican including the Vatican Museum the Sistine Chapel and St. 
Peter’s Basilica. For this tour we used a different site and different tour provider. We 
booked it directly on the website of LivTours, a relatively new entrant to the package tours 
in Europe. For the rating, it was great. There were only six of us on the tour. The tour guide, 
Laura, majored in art history and she brought all of this experience and training to bear during our 
time with her. The tour was 4 hours long including the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel ,where 
of course no filming or pictures is allowed, and St Peter’s Basilica. There were no issues 
encountered at all. Our wonderful tour guide, Laura, was incredible at explaining the art we 
would see, guiding us on many of the details of the paintings, the sculptures, and the rooms 
we entered that provided incredible context for us. She even knew where to take great pictures of 
us in and around a Vatican Museum, like this one, and of course in St Peter’s Basilica. Next time we 
would absolutely use LivTours again and we would ask for Laura again. When we have published one or 
two videos of our Vatican guided tour with Laura, we will post a link right here for you so you can 
see for yourself. Now day four. Nancy and I took a combined tour of the Coliseum, the Roman Forum 
and Palatine Hill. We booked the Roman Coliseum, Roman Form and Palatine Hill through Viator. The 
provider of this service was the Tour Guy. For our rating we would give it an okay. There were 
two issues. First, even with our tour starting at 9:30 we had long lines to wait inside and outside 
the Coliseum, as well as before we could enter the Roman form in the hot Roman early summer sun. 
The crowds of tourists were huge and not very well organized at all inside the Coliseum, so it 
made it challenging to keep up with our tour guide at the best of times. Our tour group had about 
25 people in total. Other options for earlier in the day or late in the afternoon or evening as 
well as perhaps consider a semi-private tour. The second issue we had was the Roman Forum and 
Palatine Hill took another 2 hours plus with much of it still in the hot midday sun with little 
chance for a break other than a potty break before the Roman Forum portion. This area has a ton of 
history which was lost on us unfortunately because our energy levels were starting to sink in the 
long tour outside with the large crowds and hot sun. Five hours outside on a tour on a hot sunny 
Roman day in the late spring really is too much to expect. Next time, if time permits, we would 
separate out the Roman Coliseum tour from the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill tour or just do the 
Roman Coliseum guided tour then a self tour with audio of the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. It’s 
just too long in the spring and summer starting at 9:30 in the morning. Day 5. Nancy and I were 
leaving Rome for Athens so we took a pre-arranged car service to take us from our hotel back to 
Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport. We booked this through Viator once again and the actual provide 
the car service was also Decas Italia, the same as car service upon arrival at the FCO airport. Our 
rating this time was great. There were no issues encountered. The driver was actually at the 
hotel 10 minutes early and provided nice views of Rome like this on the way to the airport. 
Next time however, based on conversations, we likely overpaid about 30% compared to just having 
concierge at the hotel pre-arrange a car service for us. We will ask the hotel concierge to do this 
for us on our next trip. Now we do not recommend taking pre-arrange tours for everything that you 
do and all your experiences in Rome, Italy. Here for example is a video of where we purchased for 
ourselves online for 5 Euros each tickets to see the Pantheon in Rome and we saved a lot of money. 
Yet there is a trick to purchasing these five Euro tickets online for the Pantheon. watch this next 
video right now for a step-by-step guide on how to purchase your own 5 Euro ticket to the Pantheon 
in Rome, Italy. Thanks, we’ll see you next time.

Learn the truth about the Rome Italy guided tours we tested summer 2024. View our review of Guided Tours and Excursions in Rome, Italy before you commit your money and vacation time. AVOID the bad guided tours.

Nancy and I spent 4 days in Rome, Italy summer of 2024 and experienced several different car services, guided tours and excursions from different providers including of The Vatican Museums, The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica; Pompeii; Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.

Guided tours and excursions, and car services, in any city in the world can be hit or miss. You don’t want to book a guided tour or a car service for your vacation that is a ‘miss’. You want to add the good ones to your world travel guide for your adult world travel adventures in Rome, including Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast.

This video provides the truth, details and our evaluation for the many different tours, excursions and car services we used during a very hectic 4 days in Rome, Italy in the summer of 2024. This included guided tours booked through Viator and directly with LivTours,

Learn from our first hand experience of which tours operators, tour guides and itineraries you should do for yourself and which you should AVOID.

@NancyAndDanTravelTheWorld

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