After taking the Insight Vacations European Voyager this May here is some valuable information about Optionals.

While planning our trip my mother and i picked out which exursions we planned to do and budgeted accordingly. We couldn't budget to do all of them and thought it would be nice to rest and see some things on our own.

Upon the start of our tour we were very confused about optionals because our tour director raymond row kept commenting about how he had revised the list of optionals, and that he would not be going over them until the third day of the tour! In Amsterdam we were taken to the canal cruise and asked if everyone was going on this excursion...as everyone was a bit bewildered the entire group went on the excursion.

Finally Raymond explained the optionals on our third day on the bus. Basically he explained to us that this is how things work: the tour director is in charge of selecting which optionals will be offered. He went through and combined several tours and omitted others. Basically if you do all the excursions you are taking part in the full tour and everything runs smoothly. If you do not do an excursion you are dropped off somewhere to fend for yourself, while the others go on to the excursion.

For example:
In switzerland all of our paperwork indicated several optionals: lake lucerne cruise, swiss alpine show, mt. pilatus, or a combination. Raymond explained that in switzerland the optional excursion was a combination of the lake lucerne cruise and the Mt. pilatus excursion. He did not offer us the option of doing one or the other. Also, if something changes in the excursions, dont expect a refund! We were disappointed that on our mt. pilatus excursion the train was closed. So we took a cable car both ways. There was a price differnce, but our excursion price stayed the same.

We felt very misled by the information presented to us in regards to optionals. Also, Raymond had a way of insisting on optionals. In Greece he added an optional excursion to Delphi and explained that he really felt everyone should do it, it was a must. In reality, it was on the way to our ferry and there was no where to drop people off who didnt want to partake. A few people did not purchase the excursion and were forced to sit outside in the heat for several hours until the excursion concluded.

Finally, everyone on the tour was very unhappy with how Raymond approached optionals. On our final list the following was written, "For a relaxing, put your brain in neutral, decision free, enjoyable holiday please indicate with a check mark to join all tours." for those of us unable to join all tours we felt as if he was telling us our vacation would not be on par with the rest.

In the end we felt forced to partake in excursions that are over priced and we felt all our tour director was there for is to make as much money as possible. If we did not do an excursion he offered no advice on what to see in the city, instead his only offering was to "Have a bite to eat and shop around." In every city!

We did have a fantastic tour! On the days we did not do optionals we made it fine on our own, with no help from Raymond. We began to refer to excursions as "Mandatory Optionals" Had we known this is how the tour ran before hand we would have planned accordingly. Please understand that you do not have several options in one city, you either do the one optional that is offered (that may be completely different than what you planned on) or you make your way on your own.

Don't be intimidated by your tour director into doing all the optionals, remember this is how insight makes a profit. In my experience a good guide book proved more useful than out tour director.

Dear Katie,

Your TD sounds like a dud and he merits a black mark on his record.

It appears that you managed to make the most of your holiday despite his lack of interest in providing you with the essentials to do so. As for those poor people who had to wait in the sun for hours while everyone else was on the excursion, I hope they send a strongly worded letter to Insight regarding the TD's lack of courtesy and professionalism towards them.

I will be taking my first Insight tour later this year, and like many others I have been pouring over the optionals list and ticking off the ones that I'm really interested in. It was very disappointing to learn that the TD's cutomize the list according to their desires. I know that you can't cater to everyone all the time and that providing all the optionals is unrealistic, however it's the TD's responsibility to ensure that we, the paying guests, get to do what we want and not want he wants. I hope my TD does a better job of it than yours did.

Cheers!

M.

We had most, but not all of the listed optionals available on our tour to Switzerland. in fact, i don't think we could have had them all offered. we were given the choice of the Lake Lucerne cruise and we had the Mt. Pilatus ex. included in our tour. When we didn't go on one of the tours on Lake Maggiora, we were left to have our lunch on our own and explore Stresa. very good! but then we had a very good TD. i think it makes all the difference.

Hi there, we have done 2 tours with Insight and have been very lucky with TDs. The TD on our European tour tols us, we cannot physically do all the options so let's go over the best and I'll book ahead as we go.... we had a wonderful time as we also did in the UK so it really is dependant on the TD as to how well it is all organised.

As far as optionals are concerned, not all of them will be offered on any given tour. They may not be offered because the optional is not in season or closed for reasons out of TD's control. Another limitation is that there are not enough resources (i.e. coach, guide, driver) to run concurrent optionals.

Based on my recent Insight tour, the optionals always start from the hotel we were staying at. With this arrangement, clients not on the optional can stay at the hotel to rest or to explore the city on their own. Our TD was very good at providing tips on taking public transit and in suggesting places to visit and eat.

The TD should be provided the freedom to recommend optionals but needs to keep in mind that everyone has different interests and preferences on what they want to see. Clients should never be pressured by a TD to take a particular optional.

On my first tour I also decided beforehand which optionals I am interested in, but I ended up taking some that I did not originally consider, mainly because the TD was an excellent marketer. Based on his description of a particular optional, it sounded totally different and more special than the advertised optional. In the end most (probably all) optionals were exactly as described in the documents, so don't get to exited by how the TD describes the optionals.

Nonetheless, in most instances I was glad that I did take the optionals, and for my next tour I plan on doing all the available optionals unless it is obviously something that I am not interested in and I have a viable alternative. In my opinion it is not worthwhile spending all the money to go on tour and then not experience eveything. To "have a bite and shop around" is really not why am on tour.

In summary, I believe most optionals are worthwhile, and if you can afford it, take the optional unless you have an alternative that you believe will be a better experience than the offered optional.

Koot

It should be remembered that Optionals play a bigger part on SuperSaver (SS) tours than on Premium First Class (PFC) tours. This is because many of the included highlights of PFC tours are offered as optionals on SS tours. Indeed, Insight recommend budgeting for Optionals as follows:

All SuperSaver Tours: US$50–60 per person per day
All First Class Tours: US$40–50 per person per day

(These figures are perhaps a little low because they haven't been adjusted for several years in spite of a major decline in the value of the US$ against the €.)

The Optional lists provided on Insights websites and included in the paperwork delivered with tour vouchers, etc., contain the following cautionary note:

quote:

The following list is general as it would be impossible to operate all excursions on any one tour. The actual tours to be offered will be advised to you by your Tour Director.

The paperwork provided to you contains only a general indication of the types of optionals that may be offered to you. As others have noted, the TD will choose a set of Optionals perhaps unique to a particular tour start and these will be based on several factors including seasonality, venue availability, transportation availability or client choices at the time. Optionals may be offered that are not listed on the websites or in the tour paperwork and it is not uncommon for two optionals to be offered in an aggregated format. The days on which these optionals occur may also differ from that shown in itineraries.

The only element of this process that I have found to be a problem is where an optional that I was keen to do has been cancelled because an insufficient number of fellow travellers chose to take that optional. For this reason, I have never been troubled by TDs working hard to sell up the optional program.

Whilst most evening meal optionals usually include travel from and return to the tour hotel, this is not always the case with daytime optionals. For example, last year in Sicily, we had to travel from Agrigento to Giardini Naxos. An optional involving a major southerly diversion to Syracusa was offered but only on the basis that everyone had to take it. The travel time did not allow for some to dropped in Syracusa and the remainder to be taken to the hotel in Giardini Naxos with the coach returning to collect those who had taken the optional. We had to wait almost to the last moment for two couples to finally decide to take the optional.

Aggregating optionals is sometimes the only viable approach. For example, last year in Florence we were offered a morning visit to the Uffizi gallery (not listed in tour documentation). In the afternoon, a visit to Pisa optional was combined with an evening dinner and winetasting at a winery/oil mill in Lucca. It would have been impossible to squeeze a return trip to our hotel in Florence in between these optionals.

It's not a perfect system but with a clear understanding of how it works and budgeting for it along with good communication with the TD, most times the system seems to work well.

phil

The TD was pretty good with the optionals program on our recent Insight Premium Europe tour and in fact went out of her way to accommodate client interests at various points.

Two examples of this:

Slovenia optional - this was advertised online, but the TD did not have it on the list of optionals she was offering. She said she was concerned about weather and timing. When approached by two of us re substituting this for another excursion on her list, she undertook to check interest and come back to us. When 25 out of our group of 30 elected to take the Slovenia trip (5 opted out as they required visas) she set about arranging this for us. This optional was one of the highlights of the tour so I was very pleased with the TD's flexibility on this.

Linderhof optional - we had a whole afternoon & evening free in Munich with no included activities or optionals planned [Phil, you will understand this because you commented on it in your tour report]. Very aware of this situation, the TD tried extremely hard on a number of occasions to entice people to take an afternoon tour to Linderhof Palace. This optional was not listed in any of the pre-departure material, but something additional that the TD thought we might enjoy. She even said that she was surprised when she saw our itinerary that we were not going there as part of the tour.

The TD even bought a postcard featuring the palace so that she could pass it around the coach to enable people to see what we would be visiting on the proposed optional. Some people might view this as pushy, however I believe she was just trying to offer something appropriate to the location and the timing of the tour. Unfortunately, she just could not get the numbers. Interesting then to hear a few grumbles from various people that evening about how they were left to their own devices for too long in Munich that afternoon! Also, again to the TDs credit, when she could not get the numbers, she offered to try to arrange a minibus excursion for the 10 people who were interested.

One thing that amused me though - I was surprised at the post-optional marketing efforts sometimes employed. I could not understand the TD's logic on one occasion when she approached me after one of the only optionals I did not take and told me quite strongly how fantastic it was and that I'd really missed out. Not quite sure what I was meant to do with this information after the fact. Our motivation for not taking this optional was that we had already been to a similar thing elsewhere. Fortunately, we had had a wonderful time doing our own thing that night anyway. This was just one thing I found a bit odd.

Deeda

We took most of the optionals on our tour of UK in 2003 and were disappointed with some of them which seemed over-priced. However, the optionals on our European tour seemed to be value-for-money and had a lot more interest. We have just finished 4 back to back tours with Insight with very few optionals offered. These tours were Splendors of Egypt (yes we did Abu
Simbel), Treasures of Turkey, Golden Explorer and Grecian Delights (the island optionals were not good value but it was really the only way to get around).

I just returned on July 16th from Britain and Ireland. I would recommend spending the extra money on the 1st Class tour. We spent an additional $1000 on extra stuff, and did not have the benefit of centrally located hotels, improved food, or extra leg room. Many of the locations included in the brochure only indicate that you will be taken to the location, but that does not mean that your admission fee is included. It NEVER is included. Bring a lot of extra money for this if you don't want to be standing in another souvenier shop for an hour while others pay the admission to the site. In addition, not all of the excursions are worth the added expense. Don't bother with the jaunting cart ride, the lake cruise, or the country side drive from Dublin. In addition, the food at the cabaret night in Dublin was terrible! I just expected more, I suppose. We spent over $700 doing all the excursions, for two people. Our TD was a bit misleading when explaining the benefit of some excursions, and they turned out to be a waste of time and money. We would have rather had extra time in the city and kept our money. The trip, with excursions, cost about $8,000, with airfare, for 2 people. In some ways it seemed totally worth it, but in others, I felt like we were paying for bad food, hot (out of the way) hotels, and a politically angry and grumpy tour director.

The tour was nice, but our tour director (Peter Staff) was very politically opinionated and did not miss any opportunity to disparage the British Prime Minister or American President. This did not sit well with several passengers. In addition, he was very rude to the bus driver and this became the topic of conversation of the group as we rotated through to the front seat of the bus and witnessed it. Other than that, the tour was as described. You cover 2,700 miles in 2 weeks, so it's a busy schedule with many hours on the cramped bus (no extra leg room on a super saver). Most hotels were nice, but not prepared for the heat. A lack of air conditioning can make a nice hotel miserable. The hotel in London and Glasgow were terrible. The nicer hotels were not usually centrally located, as one would expect from a Super Saver tour. In many cases, we drove through the city, stayed on the outskirts, and never had a chance to explore the city on our own. All dinners were served in the hotel, and the menu changed very little from city to city (chicken or salmon?), so that got really old after a couple of days and I actually opted to leave the group and eat off site. But most hotels are so far from civilization that this was not possible without a cab ride. We really enjoyed the trip, despite some of the quirks. I just think it's good to share with others what we wish would have been different.