Cosmos Reviews 3.425

Highlight of tour: Our AMAZING Tour Director: Sonja Felstead!! She made our tour an incredible, happy adventure that we will remember always.

The tour manager we had John was exceptional in looking after us and informing us of what we were seeing. In the time frame we had we saw a lot and experienced a great deal. Key areas we saw was Sun records, Graceland, The ole opra and the country hall of fame.

Hawaiian Islands:
Cosmos documents were timely and accurate.
Tour guide, hotels (locations and staff), and included sightseeing tours (motor coaches and drivers) were excellent.
What could be improved:
Daily Breakfasts should be included.
We did not have enough time on the Big Island and too much time on Maui. Swap a day.
Offer more sightseeing tours and fewer dinner cruises.

Flight from Miami to Rio – Layover Challenges in Peru
Our journey from Miami to Rio included a layover in Peru that proved quite difficult. With only one hour between flights, we didn’t have enough time to clear migration and other required checkpoints. By the time we reached our connecting gate, the plane had already departed.

We had to go through passport control, return to the main terminal, and advocate for a solution. Thankfully, we were rebooked for the next available flight at 8:30 a.m. but that meant waiting in the airport for over ten hours. Our group of five ranged in age from 66 to 88, so this extended delay was especially taxing.

Recommendation: Based on our experience, we suggest that Cosmos allow more time for layovers in Peru. The process is lengthy and complex, and a longer buffer would help travelers, especially older adults navigate it more comfortably.

Local Guide in Chile – Training Needed

We’d also like to share feedback about one of the local guides. In Chile, our guide Jorge was warm, courteous, and attentive. However, he made a few statements that seemed inaccurate or exaggerated.

He mentioned that 85% of cars in Chile are electric vehicles and that most Chileans are no longer interested in the Catholic Church, instead converting to Islam. These claims did not align with what we observed or understood about the region.

We appreciated Jorge’s hospitality, but we recommend ensuring that guides share accurate, culturally sensitive information with travelers.

Overall Experience
Despite these challenges, our time in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile was truly memorable. My family and I had a wonderful experience exploring these vibrant countries and deeply appreciated the opportunity to travel together.

Your truly,

Jose & Martha Montes de Oca
Booking Reference No. 407013

Our guide was very knowledgeable and answered all our questions

It give us the over all of UK seeing most of what is beauty on the country. It was very heavy (full on) but wonderfull way to see most of UK

In general, this was a very good tour, with a few areas which could be improved upon. One of the weakest areas was the hotel; the rooms were really very basic, and I don't think my bathroom had been decorated or updated for about 40 years! Breakfasts were fine but the choices didn't really vary at all over the course of the week, and there wasn't a great variety anyway, so it got quite monotonous by the end. However, the welcome dinner, and, especially, the farewell dinner at the hotel were both very good.
Don't waste your money on the optional farmhouse dinner excursion! Apart from dessert, the food was literally the same as at the welcome dinner in the hotel the night before, and, rather than being a nice atmospheric taste of the Tuscan countryside, we were crammed into an old wine cellar with as many other people they could squeeze in, including in our case another very large group who were incredibly raucous and very drunk indeed (the aim of the evening did seem to be to just get guests so drunk that they would have a good time regardless).
Other excursions were very nice, although some timings were a little off (we really needed at least an hour's more free time in Lucca, for example, and also more time in Vinci, and the scheduling of two wine tastings the day after the optional dinner with huge amounts of wine seemed very peculiar!). The marble quarry optional excursion was very interesting and worth doing. The cooking class and dinner in the Tuscan farmhouse was one of the highlights of the whole trip: exactly what I had thought it might be like and a total contrast to the earlier evening Tuscan farmhouse experience!
Having Montecatini Terme as a base was ideal as it is a great location for the other places visited as well as having some interest of its own; make sure you go up to Montecatini Alto on the funicular and also visit the Tetuccio spa complex.
Lorena our tour director and Alessandro our driver were both lovely people and excellent at their jobs; the coach was very comfortable. Both my airport transfers ran like clockwork.
You definitely need comfortable shoes every day, ideally with good grip as some of the paths are uneven and potentially slippery. We had rain most days in our mid-late October tour and really did need both a waterproof coat and an umbrella to avoid getting soaked. You don't really need to bring any separate "smart" clothes, although you might want to just freshen up with a slightly less everyday outfit for the provided hotel dinners. Bring a small day bag for tours and a small water bottle might be useful - tap water is perfectly fine to drink.

Where do we begin? well over all we would not recommend anyone take this tour, the whole situation went from bad to worse somehow Covid went through the whole bus (40 people) coughing and sneezing over each other, we are still sick one month after getting home to Canada. Bus bathroom was never cleaned daily and the guild was douse never really had the group engaged just non shell about many things just passing through a lot of sites. To short of time visiting a lot of sites and we noticed a lot of changes from past visits to Ireland now it seems tourist $$$ interest paying extra for site shuttles etc. best to stay home visit a documentary of the old country things have changed and not for the better. Long and short tourism has become $$$ only no one gives a hoot, at least that was the impression we experienced this trip, never again! stay home smoke a Big fatty...bus trip suck Cosmos Does

Saw beautiful and intriguing sites. Tour guide supplied comprehensive information for each visit.

Fantastic trip exceeded all expectations

good food well run tour

Tour pace and knowledgeable tour guide made my travel experience exciting and pleasurable.

Trip was a comprehensive summary of Italy.

Very good organised trip lots of great places to visit and explore and enjoy
In forgetful times

Stay away from this budget tour!! They don’t care about customer service and refused to give my friend a single room and put her with a stranger. Corporate gives zero poops about this and wanted more money from us. Hotels are FAR from city center and mediocre at best. Breakfast is tasteless and the hotel we are currently staying in Spain has shutoff the AC for the season!!! Even with the windows open we cannot cool down. I normally use Globus. Plus, you have to carry your own luggage on these tours. No one expected this.

I have joined several tours with Cosmos and they have all been great!

Love loved this trip! It has been a dream
trip for years and I finally got to see Italy. I am so glad I did this with Cosmos. Everything was seamless, airport transfers, hotel accommodations, excursions, and meals. Our tour director was superb! Oana took care of everything and everyone. She was so pleasant, shared interesting facts about the places we visited, and knowledgeable. We had lots of questions and she was able to answer them all. The architecture and history was incredible! We ate delicious foods, tried amazing gelato and met some wonderful new friends. This is a “must do” trip!!

We’re all been taking care of

Tour guide was great and the people were friendly