The Best of Greece Reviews

This was our first tour as we typically do all the planning ourselves. This time, we incorporated the Best of Greece tour (10 days) into a broader trip (33 days). Overall, the tour gets very high marks and more than met our expectations. We definetly will use Global Journeys for future trips as well as Cosmos.

First, the positives: Booking the read more trip and making the arrangements through Global Journeys was easy and hassle free. I appreciated the updates from Ethan, our travel advisor, and the checklist process they have.

The tour itself was extremely well organized. Our tour guide, Antonis, was very personable and gave us lots of historical and current information on Greece and Greek culture. He also was great at keeping us on schedule without making anyone feel pressured. Major kudos to our bus driver as some locations required real skills to navigate.

One feature of this tour that I really came to appreciate was their strategy of arriving at a location the night before the main sightseeing location (ex: Olympia, Delphi). This meant that we were essentially the first to arrive (before any busses coming from distance or cruise ships) and able to get lots of quality time at the sites.

Bottom line is that they have really honed their tour to maximize where they can. One thing that is important for folks to know is that the time in Athens is just about right to see what you need to see either because of actual tour activities or on your free time. If you're planning on flying into Athens, I wouldn't suggest more than an additional day or two mainly to sync travel and give you an extra evening for shows etc.

I don't have any major negatives for the tour, but do want to highlight something to help set expectations. This tour had 38 people (almost a full bus). Overall the size wasn't an issue (we really met some great people), but the one impact of our size is that when traveling, the bulk of food stops are at places that are catering to tour groups. It isn't that the food was bad, just somewhat limited and a bit mass produced. We did have opportunities to dine on our own (or in smaller groups) at some of our evening locations. If you are a major foodie, you should go in with this understanding.

To go and see the monastery wass always what I wanted to do so I’m so glad that I've done it now, Booking with Hannah makes booking so easy. She is so wonderful and efficient to deal with, not to mention very fast to respond your questions. It was a busy tour and we had 44 of us but we all got along very well, I have been on a few tours with really read more big in group sizes and I remember sometimes I only know the person sitting next to me but in this tour I knew more than 2/3 of group members. Everyone was so friendly. I would book another Cosmos trip again and of course I will use Hannah as my booking agent at Global Journeys. Thank you Hannah.

Excellent Tour. The Tour Director was amazing, handling and organised 44 people extremely well. Excellent accommodation and meals at all overnight stops. My only comment is that a walking tour of Athens should be included in the Itinerary. As a single traveller, Athens was a very busy and an unsafe city for a woman to walk around by herself. The Hotel read more Moxy was an excellent Hotel to stay in Athens but was not in a very safe area. An excellent trip, great towns and sights to see and I enjoyed all the extra excursion's, which were a must if you are going to see the arachnological sights of Greece.

The Cosmos Best of Greece tour was a fantastic trip back in time. You couldn't be but totally in awe of what was built sooooo many years ago! Greece's natural beauty also didn't disappoint. Our Tour Director was fantastic wrangling all of us around the many sights. This was an easy paced tour with mostly a couple of hours in the coach each day, but read more there was plenty of walking to do if you wanted to explore the sights at each stop. Standout area was Meteora. This tour has two free days in Athens on Sundays and unfortunately most of the city is closed. Travelling late May/early June meant we beat the crowds and the heat. All of the accommodation was of good standard. Most of the optional excursions were of good value. The final night dinner at the restaurant was most memorable. Compared to most of Europe we found that Greece was the most friendly to our wallets as food and drink was very reasonable.

I enjoyed the tour on the whole. The sights and destinations were great. Our group all got on very well together which was lucky. The accommodation in Athens was great. However, the accommodation was not so good during the tour. Some of the hotels had things missing or not working in the room e.g: in Olympia the air conditioning! I would rather have read more paid more for the tour to get better accommodation.

The food was not very enjoyable. Some of the buffet breakfasts and dinners were inedible. The hot food was cold and the cold food was warm! The included lunches were at restaurants that didn't cater for everyone. Some of us only felt like a sandwich but only cooked food was ever offered! The 'included' wine was awful.
Most of the optional tours were fine. The driver and tour guide were great.

This was an excellent way to see Ancient Greece. Lambros the tour director was an abundance of knowledge. Dimitri the coach driver was beyond excellent. We were always informed of what to expect each day. Very satisfied.

Fabulous tour guide, Margarita, knowledgeable and kind. Lots of good humour and banter on the bus, and she always ensured that people with any disablilites were taken care of. Although some of the options should really have been included in the overall trip, they were well priced and enjoyable. The trip included many of the sights that are “musts” i read moren Greece, and overall, we loved the entire experience.

The tour director Mereika, was amazing, so knowledgeable, thoughtful and really gave us an insight into the culture and vast history of Greece. The places we visited were all very interesting, and the tour was planned really well in regards to timing. The bus was very comfortable and the driver very professional and safe. The accommodation on the whole read more was very good. We would highly recommend this tour to anyone that would like to see many of the wonderful historic sites of Greece, and experience their culture. We went on all the optional excursions, they really made our holiday special.

Overall the trip was good thanks in a large part to the efficiency of the guide and bus driver & fellow passengers. They were excellent. Accommodation left a lot to be desired especially the bathrooms in Sparta, Olympia & Delphi. They were well below standard.

There was mould in the bathrooms, the water was never contained in the shower area and read more bathroom floors were flooded especially in Sparta as the shower pointed away from the catchment area. The exception was the Golden Age where accommodation, bar/restaurant & staff were great. Accommodation location was very good. Food - breakfasts as a whole were generally good once you adapted to what was on offer (European Style).

Fellow traveller - overall they were friendly and we got on with the majority of the them which added to a good experience. We could not understand why some people (approx. 20%) opted for this tour as there was a lot of climbing and steps to negotiate which was well beyond their physical capacity and they missed out on some amazing sights. Some struggled to negotiate the steps into the bus.

More information for the optional tour to the 3 islands on the second day would have been useful. It was a very long 12 hour day which included 7 hours of sailing in rather warm weather. We would have had second thoughts about doing this if we were better informed. Going in September with temps in the low 30's was an ideal time. On a scale of 10 we would give it 6 mainly due to the poor quality of accommodation, otherwise we would rank it as a 9.

My first tour experience was much as I expected: easy and pleasant with some less pleasant side effects. The guide and driver were terrific, as were my fellow travellers, and of course Greece itself. The early mornings, heat and exertion all took their toll by week's end but that made the rooftop pool at Meteora even more welcome. The hotels and their read more food were uneven in quality but all except one had excellent staff. I would prefer to have more choice of venues for lunch: being trapped in large impersonal 'restaurants' selling expensive poor quality food to sometimes as many as 3 coaches for an hour or so became the lowlight of my days. A small town with a few shops/café choices would have suited me and at least half a dozen of my fellow travellers much better.

I thoroughly enjoyed the tour. Our tour guide was fantastic. He was a fountain of knowledge. He was extremely good to deal with. Nothing was too much trouble. He had a very happy disposition which made the tour very enjoyable. The sights were very good and the optional tours were excellent. The only thing that was a bit below par were a few of the read more hotels. The one in Kalambaka was very ordinary. Also the one in Olympia was just ok. The hotel in Athens was very good and the hotel in Nauplia was exceptional.

I gave this the top rating because of my interest in ancient and medieval Greek history, which the tour provided very well. However, we were shocked to see the graffiti and the poor state of buildings and open spaces in Athens. We had some problems with our Athens accommodation after the tour, which gave the impression that they had given up under the read more economic pressures they face. Greece could become an unreliable destination in the near future. We opted out of optional tours which were essentially food tours, for meals in local restaurants. Our Tour Director and the bus driver were excellent.

Greece was a beautiful country to visit, the tour was well paced, global journeys made the whole booking process seamless and competitively priced, highly recommended. I travelled as a single female and had a holiday I could not have fully appreciated if I travelled independently.

The tour was at a nice pace. Accommodation and coach travel were comfortable. The only part of the tour I would recommend changing is the lunch arrangements. As lunch was rarely an included meal, I would have preferred to make my own arrangements to suit my own tastes and budget, rather than eat at a forced restaurant stop. Many times there was nothing read more on the menu which I would have chosen to eat and would have liked more choice.

We had a wonderful (Greek/Argentinian) young lady as our tour guide and a great driver. We took this Cosmos tour on 26th March as a substitute for the Globus Footsteps of St. Paul tour which was cancelled. Obviously the content was not what we originally wished for and the tour did not go to Thesalonika, however, our guide was such a happy positive read more person and really attempted to make all the archeological ruins come alive and each day of travel a happy one.