What tour to take in Florence

[Iowaian]

What tour in Florence was well worth the money.

[cruisemom42]

Most cruise lines offer similar tours. You might get more info by posting this on the Ports of Call board for Italy here on CC.

 

For myself, I find the tours from Livorno are generally pretty overpriced when there is easy and reliable transportation (by train) from Livorno to many other places including Florence and Pisa.

[cruiserking]

We booked a Florence on your own tour thru the cruise line. It included transportation to and from Florence with about four hours to stroll around. It was pretty reasonable at about $40 per person.

 

Jonathan

[chipmaster]

What is best depends on the person. IMHO the best value is private. It has less to do with money than the efficient use of your time and for European port stops time is more valuable than any money spent or saved.

 

What tour in Florence was well worth the money.

[cruisemom42]

What is best depends on the person. IMHO the best value is private. It has less to do with money than the efficient use of your time and for European port stops time is more valuable than any money spent or saved.

 

Well.......yes and no.

 

Yes, a lot of it is about time -- and as I've calculated out many times on the Ports of Call board, you actually get more time in Florence by doing it yourself than on a ship's tour.

 

And no, it's not all to do with money, but certainly that has to be a bit of a consideration. I cannot afford to shell out $600 or more for a private tour for one person in every port. For a family or group who all want to see the same thing, it may be cheaper for a private tour. But still not as cheap as using public transportation and doing a little research in advance. :p

[chipmaster]

Well for one person tour share with other people who have room in their private vehicle and works out to about 100-150 dollars, far cheaper and better than the big bus cattle call of the cruise line tours ;)

 

In my case I had two vehicles and we found 4 people that joined us on several of our ports, great for us and for the 4 that joined us too :D

 

Well.......yes and no.

 

Yes, a lot of it is about time -- and as I've calculated out many times on the Ports of Call board, you actually get more time in Florence by doing it yourself than on a ship's tour.

 

And no, it's not all to do with money, but certainly that has to be a bit of a consideration. I cannot afford to shell out $600 or more for a private tour for one person in every port. For a family or group who all want to see the same thing, it may be cheaper for a private tour. But still not as cheap as using public transportation and doing a little research in advance. :p

[AnDeNo.UK]

What tour in Florence was well worth the money.

 

See if you can get a group together on your roll call. In May, we went as a group of six using Romeinlimo. Had a fantastic tour, were taken to places a large bus couldn't get to. I think the price was about 80 euro each. What Max the driver/guide didn't know about Florence could be written on a postage stamp. :) We also used Romeinlimo for our Rome tour, ( group of 8 ), Stephano was fantastic, again, went to so many places, saw so much. These two tours were the highlight of our cruise. :)

[Keith1010]

What tour in Florence was well worth the money.

 

I recommend a full day tour in Florence whether you do this with the cruise ship or on a private tour.

 

Items to see included visits to the Galleria dell' Academia which houses Michelangelo’s David and a visit to the Uffizi Gallery. Other places to visit include the Duomo of St. Maria del Fiore and the Giotto’s Bell Tower and the Baptistery. Allow time for lunch and also some time to visit some of the shops.

 

I highly recommended doing this in an organized fashion and not just walking around on your own. You will get a lot more from a tour guide who organizes all of this and provides a lot of informative information.

 

Keith

[cruisemom42]

Well for one person tour share with other people who have room in their private vehicle and works out to about 100-150 dollars, far cheaper and better than the big bus cattle call of the cruise line tours ;)

 

In my case I had two vehicles and we found 4 people that joined us on several of our ports, great for us and for the 4 that joined us too :D

 

I have tried to get others to share tours with me, but often I cannot find anyone when there are specific sites I want to visit.

 

 

I highly recommended doing this in an organized fashion and not just walking around on your own. You will get a lot more from a tour guide who organizes all of this and provides a lot of informative information.

 

Keith

 

This may be so for some people, but I do not agree that it is true for everyone. I've talked with any number of people who took private tours and don't remember half of the things the guide told them (and often cannot even name all the sites they visited). Whereas if you do your own research, the information tends to stick with you.

[Keith1010]

I have tried to get others to share tours with me, but often I cannot find anyone when there are specific sites I want to visit.

 

 

 

This may be so for some people, but I do not agree that it is true for everyone. I've talked with any number of people who took private tours and don't remember half of the things the guide told them (and often cannot even name all the sites they visited). Whereas if you do your own research, the information tends to stick with you.

 

We do both. We do research and we then have someone who has lots of expertise take us on a tour. We don't do this everywhere but I will say that in places such as Florence and tours of the Vatican Museum just to name a few we have gained so much from the guide. To this day, I can remember some of the key points that we learned from our tour of the Vatican City.

 

If this is your first time to places such as Florence I truly believe you will make far better use of your time on an organized tour.

 

If you have been there other times, then doing it on your own has a lot of benefits.

 

That's my opinion and each of us is certainly entitled to our own opinions.

 

Keith

[cruisemom42]

We do both. We do research and we then have someone who has lots of expertise take us on a tour. We don't do this everywhere but I will say that in places such as Florence and tours of the Vatican Museum just to name a few we have gained so much from the guide. To this day, I can remember some of the key points that we learned from our tour of the Vatican City.

 

If this is your first time to places such as Florence I truly believe you will make far better use of your time on an organized tour.

 

If you have been there other times, then doing it on your own has a lot of benefits.

 

That's my opinion and each of us is certainly entitled to our own opinions.

 

Keith

 

And I think it's true for many people but not for everyone. Just suggesting it may be better to not make sweeping statements.

 

I can only think of one guide in particular and one tour company in general that provided me with information I didn't already glean from my reading in advance of my travel. Most guides just parrot the same information you can find in a good guidebook or two (or three).

 

I've done the Vatican museums with a group tour, a private guide, and on my own. I much prefer the latter.

 

I've spent 6 hours in the Egyptian museum with a guidebook that covered almost every exhibited piece (or group of pieces) there, and I studied all the lesser known things that my previous two guided tours there (one a Princess tour and one a private tour of 7 people) skipped. I came away from the first two experiences frustrated. I loved doing it on my own.

 

I fully realize it's not for everyone and I'm not saying it is. But I wish others would realize that for some people it's possible to have a better experience on your own.

[Keith1010]

I did not make a sweeping statement.

 

I recommended taking a tour. I did not say that is the only way to see the place.

 

Keith

[euro cruiser]

We booked a Florence on your own tour thru the cruise line. It included transportation to and from Florence with about four hours to stroll around. It was pretty reasonable at about $40 per person.

Only four hours? This is my problem with a ship "tour" like this. By road, Florence is about 90 minutes from the port at Livorno. Say two hours to account for traffic, etc. That's four hours of travel time, so how does a twelve hour port stop with four hours of travel, even padding a bit to ensure getting back with a comfortable cushion, only leave you with four hours? It should be at least six, I would think.

[Keith1010]

Only four hours? This is my problem with a ship "tour" like this. By road, Florence is about 90 minutes from the port at Livorno. Say two hours to account for traffic, etc. That's four hours of travel time, so how does a twelve hour port stop with four hours of travel, even padding a bit to ensure getting back with a comfortable cushion, only leave you with four hours? It should be at least six, I would think.

 

Usually the ships tours have two different tours of Florence with one of them being a full day tour of Florence and that is what we did and it was over 10 hours.

 

Keith

[beachchick]

I did not make a sweeping statement.

 

I recommended taking a tour. I did not say that is the only way to see the place.

 

Keith

 

Perhaps not a sweeping statement, but you did write that " You will get a lot more from a tour guide who organizes all of this and provides a lot of informative information" and followed it up with similar sentiments. Certainly you are entitled to your opinions, which are that people will get a lot more out of a port if they take an organized tour their first time (if I'm reading correctly). You even went so far as to say that if people have visited a place before they might benefit from going out on their own. To me that does imply that if I've not visited somewhere before, I will only get the best benefit from organized tours.

 

You may not have said that it was the only way to visit a port, but you did state flalty that people get more out of organized tours than going off on their own. I agree with cruisemom42 that it depends on many factors and that not everyone will benefit most from an organized tour.

 

In any case, Iowaian needs to give us more information before anyone can make a good recommendation. There are so many factors involved: Activity level, ages, preferences, general budget, time of year. IMO, it's far too broad a question to answer "what was worth the money" because that is a personal decision. What I think is a must do could easily be someone else's "are you crazy?"

 

beachchick

[GlendaleCruiser]

I would have the same problem with sharing a tour to Florence as I have with the cruise line bus tours. They take you where THEY want to take you and I would love to spend 10 hours in Florence. I don't want to have to eat lunch when I could easily spend that in Santa Croce or Uffuzi or Duomo.

 

I think next time I will just bite the bullet and get my own ride.

 

With both of my tours in Florence I expressed how important it was for me to see a certain site. I was told, "yes, yes, we will go there" and then we did not. I actually left a cruise line tour to go take 15 minutes on my own at the end of the tour. The tour guides I've had wanted to show us a million things but you cannot appreciate them when you are RUNNING TO SEE ALL OF FLORENCE. I also don't want to hear the history from 1300 to present day.