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Driver for tours in Rome - English speaking driver- Driver-guide - Guide in Rome - Tour of Rome by private car - Shore ex... |
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Why so many different
prices for tours on the web? Are the tours different?
Click and find out! |
Searching the web for shore
excursions for example, you see prices for from 400 to
700 Euros or more, why is that? You get the tour you pay
for and I hope this will explain to you what exactly you
paying for.
Driver-guide or English speaking driver? What's the
difference? It looks like everybody's selling the same
tour and it's only the price that is different. Please
read this thoroughly and you'll understand that the
tours are priced differently because they are different.
Knowing exactly who you're hiring and what kind of tour
they'll give you should be paramount for you.
Please read this, even if you decide to tour with
someone else, you'll know what kind of tour to expect.
When you contract for these tours (especially the cheap
ones) make sure you have no surprise at the end:
additional taxes, credit card commission, driver's
lunch, air-conditioning, motorway tolls, fuel etc..
Gratuities are never included.
Talking about tours of Rome from the port (shore tours),
this is what you get: |
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Tour with
just a driver |
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Tour with an
English speaking driver |
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Tour with an
English speaking driver-guide |
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Tour with a
driver and an English speaking guide |
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Tour with a driver. The cheapest tour, priced from 400 Euros, I would be surprised if it included taxes (10%). In many cases this is not even a real tour. In the best cases you get someone who knows enough English to understand you if you need him to stop for the nearest restrooms. He drives you to the city, takes you to some of the major highlights, and obviously you get no narration or commentary at all. He leaves you free to explore on your own and sets with you a time and a place to meet again to transfer you to the port. When you contract for these cheap tours, make sure you have no surprise at the end: additional taxes, driver's lunch, air-conditioning, motorway tolls, fuel etc. Gratuities are never included.
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Tour with English speaking driver The medium priced tour. Good value for your money. Sold for 5/600 Euros, (does it does include taxes, or will you have a surprise at the end?) Gratuities are never included. An English speaking driver speaks decent English and will take you all over the city's major highlights. Your English speaking driver will take you on a tour which will cover the major highlights and give you some commentary. He's not really an expert in Roman history though, I've heard some driver say that Nero threw the Christians to the lions in the
Colosseum and that
Bernini and
Michelangelo where contemporaries. He'll not go with you inside churches, excavations sites or museums with you. He'll just give you the basic information (right or wrong, would you know?) and let you go off visit on your own and wait outside. You get a pretty good tour anyway and unless you know better, you'll go back to the ship thinking toured with a scholar! There are some places you just can't visit by yourself and on top of their list is the Vatican. The concentration of important artifacts there is notorious as well as it is notorious that visiting the place without a guide is almost a waste of time. An English speaking driver the he'll suggest you to hire a guide for the tour of the Vatican The cost of the guide for a 2-hour tour of the Vatican is an additional cost of about 120/150 Euros for you. This means you end up spending the same, or maybe more, than if you toured with a driver-guide. Of course if you don't know any better you think you made a great choice and saved money, but did you really? |
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Tour with English speaking driver-guide The medium-high priced tour. Good value for your money. Sold from 650 Euros. Normally includes taxes (10%) and everything else: additional taxes, credit card commission, driver's lunch, air-conditioning, motorway tolls, fuel etc. Gratuities are never included. The driving guide, or driver-guide, is a person who has a real passion for his city, he spends a lot of time reading and studying about it and he's often frustrated by the fact that time constraints don't allow him to give all he has to give. His English, though sometimes characterized by an Italian accent, is excellent. The driver-guide constantly narrates, while he drives and after he stops. He'll start narrating as you'll get in his car and when you arrive at a site he'll take the time to tell you all about it before you go and visit it. If time allows it and if he can find a parking space for his car, he'll walk with you into the site and tour you around it. At the Colosseum your driver-guide can't park his car and go with you, there's just no available space for it. Before you go and walk it on your own though, he takes to a panoramic spot you can see the whole area from and he gives you all the correct information about it and its surroundings. The same thing happens at all the other sites where parking is difficult and the visit does not require a detailed explanation on the spot. The driver-guide will tour you inside St. Peter's and/or the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, he'll not wait outside like the English speaking drivers do. There are some places you just can't visit by yourself and on top of their list is the Vatican. The concentration of important artifacts there is notorious as well as it is notorious that visiting the place without a guide is almost a waste of time, but your driving guide will park his car even if difficult or expensive for him and give you a tour inside the place. The cost of the guide for a 2-hour tour of the Vatican is about 120/150 Euros and that's an additional cost you'd have to pay if you do this tour with an English speaking driver, which would make the final cost of a tour with an English speaking driver higher than the cost of the same tour with a driving guide. |
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Tour with Driver and English speaking guide The most expensive way to tour. Priced from 1,000 Euros up. Surely not the tour for first timers. You'll have a vehicle, a driver and an English speaking licensed guide. Licensed guides spend years studying Rome to get their license (some driving guides are licensed) and can tell you all there is to know about their city (and they'll tell you anyway...). With this type of tour you're never left alone. The guide will go with you everywhere while the driver will stay with the car. You walk through areas in the city and the driver will follow you or meet you after you walk from Piazza Navona to the Pantheon for example. The guide can take you through the Vatican or anywhere you want to go and explain everything in details. If this is not your first time in the city a tour like this will bring you deeper into the history and the art of the city you visit and enable to appreciate it more. You visit a smaller number of sites but more accurately. |
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