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“Florence & Orient Express”

written by suewat on 18/05/2015

We have just come back from this trip which was a week long. What we did not know, and were informed just before leaving, was that road works had taken place in Florence and this meant no coach access to the hotel. However taxi transfers had been arranged for our convenience (Titan's wording in letter). This was true on arriving and leaving with luggage, but every time we went for a tour which was each day, we had a brisk walk of half an hour to the coach. As many people on this tour had different levels of walking difficulties, this caused many problems. We were informed by our courier, that Titan was not eligible for taxis during our stay, and although she informed them of the problems the group were having, had refused to cover cost of taxis. This caused a lot of problems and anger amongst our group and upset several people as the slowest amongst us was made to feel they were holding us up. We were told to hurry on several occasions, and when we complained, were informed that "this was Italy, and was a walking holiday, so we should therefore be prepared to walk and if not should not have booked this type of holiday". After a heated discussion, I informed the courier that walking at our own pace and taking our time was different to being frog marched, both to the coach and on the tours due to time allowances. Also due to the fact that we had to leave a half hour either end of tours, meant we had to leave earlier and got back later. The tours also were very stressful, due to the length of time and being marched around, and by the end of the time in Florence, most of our party, including my husband had swollen legs and were extremely tired. This part of the holiday was not relaxing and if we had not had time in Venice afterwards and then return on the Orient Express, which exceeded all expectations, we would have come home very disapointed, unhappy and tired from this holiday. This holiday should have been listed for the first part, as not suitable for people with walking difficulties due to the pace of the tours. We tried to go on some tours with the idea of dropping out and taking our time, and then meeting back at the coach, but this was not possible, and did not realised that till we got there. On our transfer to Venice, we stopped off at Fererra for a tour to break the journey, but after an hour and a quarter, we were then taken to a restaurant which was another march for half hour. We thought the coach would drive to another area to pick us up, but then were told we would have to walk all the way back we had come. Several people were very hot and tired and with swollen legs, including my husband and myself, found this last bit extremely hard. When we arrived in Venice we were absolutely shattered. A sorry end to this part of the holiday. The rest was excellent, but this was not due to Titan as Venice was our time and the Orient Express a different company. Friends w were with have used Titan many times and said this was the worst they had don organisation wise and it was sad to see people distressed. We feel this was not a restful or enjoyable part of the holiday, and were extremely disappointed and would be very careful about booking this type of holiday again, especially the way we were treated by Titan regarding the transfers.