How much are private tours?

[Florida_cruisers]

How much have you paid on private tours for Florence/Pisa and Rome?

we would like to go with Daniele www.driverinrome.com along with other couples in order to decrease cost.

Are these private tours really much cheaper than the excursions the ship offers?

[Dripps]

Yes private is cheaper. Many on ship excursions were paying twice as much as we were with driverinrome. We had a group of either 11 or 13....usually came to between 70 to 90 dollars....ship excursions were over $200 for some.

[Florida_cruisers]

what is the best way to ensure we have a group to share costs? besides asking for people on these boards.... would the tours take care of adding people to the tours if you request it?

[Live the good life]

I found that it is relatively easy to get interested people from the port of call post and roll call post for one's sailing...Even if you only get 6 people in the group, it is still more cost effective than a comprehensive ship tour (exclusive ship tours cost between $160.00 to $350 per person...). I feel these private tours offer the comprehensiveness, flexibility and advantage in costs (about 450 euros to 575 euros per day depending on the group size). In our case, we preferred to make it really private and flexible by only having the 4 people in our family on the tour, so it was expensive, but worth it...

 

I would only be concerned with private tours only if the guide is not fluent in English, or not willing to narrate on the history and culture of the region, which is not the case with Driver in Rome. The experience could also be enriched by reading up on materials from a guide book ahead of time or during the tour...

 

For recommended guides on other regions, see my previous posts...We did use however Celebrity tour for Dubrovnik, great tour guide/historian, but again, lots of constraint in terms of having to get back to bus on time to join the other 30 people...We did Senerade Gondola ride through Celebrity tour, a memorable experience...For Mykonos, and the rest of Venice, we did it on our own by buying museum tickets ahead of time...