It’s no problem at all! Haha :) I’m pretty antisocial as well, I’d much rather go off on my own and whatnot. I guess it depends what bunch you end up with, although everyone’s been pretty decent overall. You’re not really forced to join in on everything although people tend to talk and try to get to know each other I guess. There are only very few dinners and usually those are the times that you’re all seated in the same area, although initiating a conversation or whatever is really not an obligation, and most people just pass on some friendly small talk here and there. You’re free to sleep on the bus if you don’t feel like gabbing either :))

As for the optional tours, usually the tour director will go through the list of available optionals at the start of the tour, and then he’ll go around and you can sign up for which ones you want to join. After that, tours without enough joiners could get cut—this number depends. Some tours need a few people only to push through, like five people or something. While other optional tours require more people to push through. Sometimes the tour director (if you get a good one or a more senior one) also offers up additional optionals which he/she arranges (for example in Turkey our tour director arranged an optional hot air balloon ride tour for us, which was not included in the original list of optionals).

For trafalgar though, people are usually game to join optional tours, so it’s likelier for them to push through rather than not :)

Aw, you’re very welcome. I’m glad to share whatever i’ve picked up from joining a bunch of these things hahaha

You’ll find that there are lots of parallel tours from each company, the one you’re thinking of is one of those tours. The major additional costs will come from the optional tours and some meals that are not yet included.

Usually all breakfasts are included (buffet breakfast at the hotel—don’t expect too much though it’s not always that good haha), and the brochure indicates how many dinners (ie for a 7 day tour, there will be 7 breakfasts and maybe 4 dinners or so, it depends) are included. Lunches are not included, but you should budget for it because lunch is usually a mid-day pitstop in a town with limited choices, or in the middle of the day while touring, when you’ll probably be more focused on touring and seeing the sights and not on sitting down to eat. Lunch stops are usually 1-2 hours (depending on how much driving you’ll be doing that day), and the tour director will just tell you what time to meet up; eating and sightseeing is basically on your own at this time.

For dinners that are included, they’re usually at the hotel, and sometimes the farewell dinner at the end of the tour is at a local restaurant or something. For dinners not included, it won’t be a problem in major cities, but if it’s a dinner-less Sunday you should be prepared that a lot of places are closed or close early, so buying a sandwich or two ahead of time is a safe bet. You can usually get a pizza toast thing or a sandwich thing at sidewalk cafes for under 5 EUR. Sitting down to eat is more expensive because of service charge. Local supermarkets (like Despar or Sma in Italy) have a pretty good selection of food-to-go and snacks you can buy to bring along, and for cheap.

There are also some optional tours which are meals, or include meals. You need to be careful of these too because they tend to overprice the meals (ie a cruise with lunch can be up to 60eur—but the food will just be so-so and the cruise is actually cheap). Not all tour directors allow this, but you can ask yours if he/she will allow you to go on an optional tour for a lower price to not include the meal. Some places that optional tours cover are great, but become super expensive because they’re packaged with an overpriced meal (ie trip to Burano in Venice is so expensive because they package it usually with a seafood meal—which is usually not that good, or not as good as someplace you could go to on your own). Trafalgar allowed this before, Cosmos did not. But it might also depend on the tour director :) You can also compare the optionals of each company, because often there are similar ones, and a lot of the time Trafalgar’s is actually more affordable, and is less often packaged with meals.

I also usually google the places on the optional tours, just to get an idea as to which ones look worth going to. Sometimes you could be paying way too much for a tourist trap. You don’t need to book these ahead anyhow. The tour director will explain each optional tour and then get bookings on-board the tour bus. If a tour doesn’t have enough signer-uppers, there’s a chance it’ll fall through.

Basically, Cosmos will have a lower base price, but your total cost can be just as expensive as Trafalgar because of all the optional tours. Going on Trafalgar might have a higher base price, but the lower prices of the optional tours (depends) could balance it out with total costs of Cosmos.

I hope these help! Good luck and have fun!

Hi! Yup, I just went on one earlier this year (Central Europe). It’s actually pretty good. Depending on where you’re going (if it’s a place that both Cosmos and Trafalgar go to, or in some cases only Cosmos goes to certain countries) and who you’re going with (by yourself, with friends, or with family), Cosmos is still a good option.

If there is a parallel/comparable tour in Trafalgar, then you should compare the itineraries, optional tours + cost of each optional tour, and the total cost/number of days ratio. Sometimes Trafalgar can come out cheaper (you can try the winter brochure or the cost saver brochure) because more things are included in the itinerary, whereas in Cosmos you have to add XX Euros to add it to your itinerary. But not always. The best value i’ve found so far is to get a first class tour of Trafalgar but from the winter brochure, because they have regular first class tours at a discount for tours which depart in the winter months (November to early April—we usually go for the last departures in April so it’s closest to being Spring), and these prices can be more comparable to the Cosmos prices.

If you’re going by yourself or with friends, Cosmos is OK. It’s actually not as “backpacky” or cheap as I thought. I was expecting to stay in shady cheap-ass hotels but everywhere was really OK. 3 stars at least, and all have been checked out and accredited by the tour company so at least you know it’s legit. If you’re going with your family, Cosmos is still OK, but my folks usually prefer Trafalgar only because they trust it more, having gone with them more often in the past. But even they were pleasantly surprised with Cosmos, so that’s a good sign.

In Cosmos Tours, you usually have for tourmates: teachers, yuppies, students/graduates, solo travellers and generally i guess younger-ish people in general. In Trafalgar, there is a sort of stigma that it’ll be a bunch of old people, and there usually are a lot of them, but there are also lots of couples, solo travellers, families, and whatnot. Size of the coach is about the same. Both have facilities onboard. I would say that the tour directors in Cosmos seem younger, like newbies, whereas the Trafalgar ones are more seasoned/knowledgable.

May I ask what tour you’re thinking of taking? Maybe it’s something I’ve gone on before haha :) Hope these random ramblings help.