Whether at home in your own country or abroad in someone elses, everyone must at some point have had a little tour trip on a coach. Names ticked off a list, not enough time granted to see anything, herded together whilst the guide pretends to know something more than the guidebook about the place you're visiting. Why did you take the seat next to that ghastly pair who know eveything about everything and how can you avoid them at the table where you'll all eat the pre prepared meal together. Yes, you all cheer when the woman who held everyone up by 7.5 minutes haggling over a hat is left behind in the toilets.
Any fun tours to recount, or horror tours? I well remember the days of tourists doing Europe in a week, we've done Scotland today, where is it tomorrow?
[question posted by thea09]
responses and comments:
All of my tours have been solo excursions on which I based my ability to hold my thumb aloft until I received a ride, so nope, no tour bus horror stories here. [The_Lamb_Lies_Down]
I've done that all over the world. I met some really nice people that way. Recived a bunch of lectures too, but that goes with the territory. [TheCatLady]
i have been on lots of buses but so far have successfully avoided any tours. longest trip was the bus to poland (this is true - i was skint and couldn't afford a flight) which took three days. it wasn't really a nightmare at all though because seeing the countries we passed through was lovely, i managed to sleep and the drivers stopped for cigarette breaks roughly every hour. One of the rest stops had some of the best bar stools I've ever seen! I would have liked to stayed there longer, but[jb78000]
no. we got off to go for ciggies and snacks but no long stops. [jb78000]
Dear Thea, I remembered in 1993, I and my hubby had our honeymoon in Central Europe. As you mentioned, it is a fast 'passing through' tour where we covered 10 cities/countries in 15 days. The tour leader asked us to take care of each other by way of , always make sure the fellow tourists behind us are still with the group. This means that our front people need to check whether we are with them. There are 50 of us and only one tour leader. We have to take turns for the seat in the bus as it is fully occupied. The worst seat will be the last back seat. So everyone will have the best front seat and the the last seat too. As the journey in Central Europe are mainly in the bus, everyone hope for the short distance journey if they are to be seated at the back seat.lol I remembered one family have to sit at the back row and that day it is a long journey to another country. The person who sat on the centre can't really sleep. However this guy can really sleep as the bus moved left and right. Really fascinating! [Iriene88]
Hi Iriene, how can you do 15 countries in so many days and get a true feel for any of them? Those are the ones I remember being really popular but always thought were rather strange as I'd hate to be hurried through like that. Oh and all that staying with the group. I hope you enjoyed it though but I couldn't travel like that, my friend and I managed about half a day on a coach trip in Tunisia and after that explored by train or bus. happy [thea09]
Even though I have taken a lot of tour buses when I was young.I was a good boy in all the tours. One tour is still fresh in my mind. We have to cross a river to go to a temple. The bus was standing on the shore. There were three boats for us to cross over,We crossed over, and my mother and another grandmother spent quite a long time in the temple, and when we came out of the temple, horrors of horrors, we found that the boats have left without us, and the bus was also starting.Luckily somebody noticed that we were missing, and the bus came back after a few minutes, and a boat was sent to pick us up. It was a terrifying experience to be all alone in the temple in the Island. Because of this we were in the firing line of all the other tourists.And it was also made clear, that the same thing happened, the bus will leave, and will not come back. [rameshkumaar57]
Hi ramesh, what you describe is exactly why I hate the concept of them, when you want to explore somewhere you want to do it at leisure without the worry of keeping everyone else waiting, or in my case being prompt and being kept waiting by someone else. The trip itself sounds good crossing the river to visit an island temple. [thea09]
Hello, Thea. We've done lots of coach trips, and had some brilliant ones and some nightmares. The best one was for my 40th birthday. 6 of us spent 10 days in the South of France, staying in a static caravan on a 5 star site. It cost £99 each, and that included 3 full day and two half day excursions, and we were allowed a 6 berth caravan for 2 people. One of the trips was to Monaco, and I hoped it would be on my birthday, as I thought it would be great to swim in the sea in Monte Carlo - and it was! Then we had a picnic - with wine - on the beach. Problem was, the welcome party had been rained off the night before, so we had that when we got back, and it wasn't just one glass of disgusting punch, it was 2 hours to drink as much beer and wine as you could manage - so we did. Unfortunately, as everyone on the coach knew it was my 40th, we were all gathering around our 3 statics for a cheese and wine party. Well, around midnight, some of the neighbours came out to complain, so we headed for the disco, taking our own booze with us. We got away with it for an hour, then we got thrown out. Imagine, 40 years old, and it was the first time in my life I'd been thrown out of a disco! There were lots of bad heads the next day - including one of the coach drivers, so they had to break the rules and go on the trip with only one driver. I think my box is a bit full now, so the worst one will have to wait, but I will slip in this quickie. When we were in Germany, we arranged to go on 3 coach trips. Well, I always thought the Germans were well organised, but when they said we could get on any coach coming back, I could see problems, as usually those nearest you pipe up if someone's missing. After a very long but enjoyable day, 6 of us got back to the coach park dead on 3.00pm for departure, to see all 4 coaches pulling out of the museum. The museum staff were great, and took us to the nearest train station - about 20 miles away - so we could get back to base. We arrived back about 3 hours after everyone else. You'd have thought they'd have learned from that, but on the Sunday, they left 29 people behind in Munich after the Oktoberfest Opening Parade! [Sandra1952]
Sandra, you aren't describing a coach trip here, you're describing a drinking fest. I love it when they pull away and leave people behind, such a hoot, plus it means you get to discover public transport is much more fun. Saying that I only think I did one day trip in one and it wasn't at all to my taste, only allowed half an hour to see something then waiting around for the stragglers to turn up. I'm glad to hear that's how you were getting round Munich recently though, after that photo of you with that very large beer.lol [thea09]
hi thea I do recall one tour that we were supposed to go to this castle like house owned by some multimillionaire but it turned out that we were just going to go to a view point where we could see the multimillionaire's house from a distance. as I had been coerced into going on this t our because my dad thought that would distract me from marrying my husband whom he detested for no reason, I was really not in any mood to care about any of the sights. we had planned a weekend together my hubby to be and myself. what made it so funny is the fact that I was thirty, not a kid. Well on this tour I had to sit next to a woman who recounted every trip she had made abroad to me for two hours so going back I did manage to changes seats and sat beside a women who was chinese and knew no English at all. That was heavenly. the next weekend my parents went back to my home state and my hubby to be and myself got married all by ourselves.The marriage my dad thought was doomed lasted 43 years. It only ended with my husbands last heart attack.happyhappy [Hatley]
When you started to recount the trip Hatley I remembered full well you were thirty and not a child, when you wed. I would have thought sticking you next to a younger version of roomie on the trip would have made you want the sancturary of mr Hatleys arms even more. It certainly doesn't sound like the soundest idea I've ever come across to make you change your mind about your husband to be.happy [thea09]
Don't know, don't wanna' go, too cold , don't feel good , don't like totravel. Y'all have fun.rolleyes [ANTIQUELADY]
GIVE hugo a great big ol' birthday hug from his aunty. I hope he has a great day. My birthday is in dec. to so that makes him good folkd, lol. [ANTIQUELADY]
happy1991 India - four days around everything there was to see in Delhi, two days in Jaipur, and one in Agra. The tour party - 25 people, 12 couples (11 man/woman, 1 all-female (who seemed intent in proving how intimate they were at every possible moment)), and me. The guys were pretty roudy, like some of those ultimate cage fighting shows! The tour guides - the team leader was a Kashmiri, who managed somehow to justify both India and Pakistan having a claim simultaneously on his home area. Then expert guides from each of the locations, one of whom was an old civil servant who had served under the British Raj, and spoke disparagingly about the large families that we saw in some of the less salubrious parts of Delhicry. The most exciting moment - the Jamaican guy deciding to take a photo from the top of the fort in Jaipur which was right on the top of a cliff face with a drop of several hundred metres beneath himshocked. The hotels and the food (the good side) - excellent quality, genuine Indian food, and unlike anything that you get in Indian restaurants in England. The hotels and the food (the bad side) - every single member of the party had stomach problems once. I was the last to get it, on the last day there. The sites - amazing just about everywhere: temples and mosques in Delhi, Jaipur was fascinating, the Agra Fort (particularly interesting for Sherlock Holmes fanatics like myself), the Taj Mahal. And then there was being set on everywhere by souvenir hawkers in such numbers you could never get back to the bus unmolested! [astonysh]
You could do it by public transport now and meet a mylotter in every town. I used to enjoy reading the itineries of those kind of tours, especially around China, just to soak up the places, but in reality it wouldn't be for me. There again neither would back packing. I think for the top three places on my list of where I want to go, car and ferry would probably do it. [thea09]
Hello thea... Sad to say...but this I or we cannot face except rarely.... We just don't go on tours or not very familiar with tours.....I am waiting for the next century to see the changes... But if you want I can come up with a story based upon on a true story..blink [Misterwit]
thumbdownShame, still it reminds me to get the man at the garage to put some air in mine. [thea09]
Nope I have not as I can not use public Transport lol the one time I did I was airlifted to Hospital and I really do not fancy that again [gabs8513]
Lol well I had no intention on riding on a Helicopter as I would not fly by free will lol So if I stay away from public Transplant I should be ok lol [gabs8513]
Awww, I haven't lived! I'll have to do one of these tours just to see, I think. The closest I can think of are the bus trips to various locations when I was at school. One of them was to a "beach" which was about 3 miles away from the town I lived in, lol! I remember on the way home, another girl in the class was challenged by a teacher to show what she had in a bulging plastic carrier bag she was keeping a tight hold of. When it was opened, it contained numerous jelly fish that she had captured, and was determined to take home with her. Eeeewwww! [Louc74]
Hi Lou, I think the guided tours are a bit different to school trips - my son has those and comes back to report who was sick on the way. I don't think you sound like the type who'd like to be herded around in a group, the time my friend and I fell for it once for half a day was when we were told how dangerous it was to travel around on public transport. What tosh, and it saved a fortune. [thea09]
I have never actually done one of these but thought it might be an interesting way to travel....I am so independent though that I don't know if I could sit in a seat and give control to a bus driver....and I would probably be the one that strayed off the path to find something more interesting...I would be a pain in the you know what! [jillhill]
Hi jillhill, if you like to be independant believe me you'd hate them. Quite often I still see coach parties around and its always cries of 'keep together'. They'd be useful for travelling and seeing more of the route from but I'd rather go by slow train with no guide. It's amazing how many of the guides come out here each year and no not a jot about the area which they are meant to be informing their charges about. [thea09]
happy Hi Thea. I've never taken a guided vacation tour by bus, but I've visited places or vacationed where there was a day-trip kind of tour. Fortunately, all went well and were a lot of fun. Karen [PeacefulWmn9]
Hi Karen, glad to hear you escaped some of the horror and instead found them an enjoyable part of your holidays. Obvioulsy you didn't get stuck sitting next to Mrs Crippen from Islington on your trip.happy [thea09]
that's the way they are here.if you're not on the bus when you're supposed to be,enjoy your sidetrip.they will leave you. fun..let's see.. well,i can't say it was fun,but we had a new statewide driver from VA to NYC who: A.got lost onroute B.missed an exit and decided to back up in traffic on the busiest east coast highway C.added 2 hours onto an already 8 hours leg of my trip needless to say i bounded off that bus when it finally reached new york. [scarlet_woman]
i used to take that route often,and i got to know some of the drivers. this one lady,as soon as i saw her i knew we were getting a pitstop for coffee and donuts.lol [scarlet_woman]
Hi thea! I've traveled quite a bit, as you know--and have signed up for tours before, but not once have I ever stuck with them! I've always decided to go off on my own or with friends--and so I'm afraid I don't have any horror stories or fun stories about those. Well, I take that back, I just remembered a tour I took of Alcatraz, off the California coast, when I was about 13. Alcatraz was a famous prison site--was thought to be an "inescapable" prison for many years, as it's on an island. But, human ingenuity being what it is, someone finally found a way to escape and the prison became obsolete. Many famous gangsters, especially from the 1920's to the 1940's had been imprisoned there. I had no choice but to stay with the tour there, as there was absolutely no other place to go and the dungeons were waay too scary! :-) [nyhollyjean]
Hi Holly, that is another shared interest in common. I have the film 'Papillion' on dvd but the book is something else and the film nowhere near does it justice as it misses out far too much but I saw the author there at the filming on tape. Do you know i also did an almost completely unresponded to discussion about Devil's Island too. I've read a lot about American prisons so know about the new set up for the max cat ones and also the federal holiday camps. I know little about Greek prisons except that most of the detainees are not Greek. The Turkish prison portrayed in 'Midnight Express' gave quite an horrendous view of Turkey, and the Iranian ones just show up the Religion there as a total farce. Maybe you could do a discussion when time allows as mine sadly fell by the wayside. My main interest though in prisons was really started with the Nazi death camps, which then led to a lot of reading about the Japanese prison of war camps, then the Communist political prisons in China, and the Gulags in Russia. My two Harry Wu books about the Chinese prison system never recovered from last years mould which is a great loss to my collection. [thea09]
Hi thea: some of those arranged tours could be ghastly. It happened to me once. I went on this package tour to Singapore, Malaysia and Bangkok. Singapore was our first stop. We were at a certain mall and our tour guide informed us that we could roam around but had to meet here (meaning where we were standing) in half an hours time when the bus would leave. We all dispersed and having spotted some lovely shoes I wanted to buy for my niece, I went there. Having bought the shoes, looking at my watch all the time, yet feeling unsettled since I was alone, I rturned to the spot we were supposed to meet with 15 minutes to spare. I waited and waited but even after the half hour had passed, no one turned up. I waited for one hour and started to get really worried. It was getting dark and I didnt want to be stranded in an unknown place, luckily I had money with me so following instructions posted all over the place, I went to the station and took a ticket on the metro and got off at the correct town. Once again luck was with me since I remembered the route we took and also some land marks which helped me to get back to my hotel on foot. When I got there, there had been frantic messages left at the Reception asking me to call the guide when (if) I got it. You see, I was the only one to have travelled alone, and since it was the start of our tour, none of us knew each other well. the guide had come to the spot from where we were supposed to leave in about 10 minutes and gathered everyone together and left without checking the numbers. They had even informed the police when half way they had realized I was missing. That was indeed a bad experience especially for the Guide since everyone had been screaming at him for not checking. I guess was easily distracted when I was looking to buy Moses baskets as a gift for some family members! [suesan35]
Hi Susan, that's exactly why these tours can be so ghastly, they tell you you've got half an hour which is no time at all and then take off early like that. It's one thing to leave you behind if you're keeping everyone else waiting but not to go off early. I'm glad you found your way back okay but would think singapore is a very safe place to travel in. [thea09]
Hiya Thea, I dislike group tour. I dislike all these itinerary details that I have to adhere to, and I like my own time own target kind of travel. Like today suddenly I wake up and I want to prolong my stay, or I don't want to get out of the hotel room and just spend the time sleeping. Etc2x.. But then again, there are always stories of horror travels like the dangers of traveling alone, as opposed to traveling in a tour. But at the same time, with a group tour anything and everything can go wrong. Nothing is perfect. I just prefer to face the headache alone, hehehehe... [zed_k4]
MysD likes the snowcap one.. wink [zed_k4]
I remember doing a tour of Corsica by bus years ago. The tour was a few hours and the driver who was crazy enough to begin with would drink wine at every stop until he became quite drunk and kept on driving the bus! What was really unnerving was the fact that this inebriated individual was driving around a very narrow road and the people sitting new the windows could see a very steep drop going down a very long way! Nobody was speaking on the bus, we were all hanging on to our seats scared out of our minds as the mad driver was speeding and weaving all over very narrow winding roads! When we reached the restaurant for lunch many refused to board the bus again until they sent another driver who arrived about two hours after we were scheduled to leave!shocked [paula27661]
Hi Paula, great story, and very typically European I might add. It's usually best if the passengers pre arm themselves with something strong so they can sleep through it. Our roads are like that and every week someone goes over the edge. That's the first time I've heard of the group demanding a new driver though, it probably took two hours to sober the new one up. I'd love to see Corsica though. [thea09]
Well thea I can write a blog on my travels most of them package tours with strangers of every hue, size, and what have you and a guide to look after your interests. I am a punctual person but not all and therefore there is always a last minute rush for the bus to leave and sometimes because of this we miss out on certain sights. There used to be one on a particular package where this couple used to take everrything from their room includimg the ironing board a disgrace to the package as a whole!! And there was another always wanting attention at any cost. The last one was where this lady always came late but got up late from her seat blocking everyone.This guy picked fruits from the ship when we were on a cruise of the Bahamas a thing that is banned when yu got off at Florida and this took another hour of our precious time.And then there was my husband in a bad mood on one of our Singapore holidays bah!! I can go on and on Thea!!! But I never got these things to spoil my holidays - I moved with the tide. happyhappyhappy [allknowing]
Hi allknowing, that is the first time I've ever heard of someone stealing an ironing board on a holiday, that is totally ludicrous. I presume they set off with empty cases and filled them up enroute. There's always the attention seekers, those are the ones everyone cheers about when they get left behind. I actually heard about one package tour coming down here where a woman refused to get on the coach from the airport as someone on the plane had been saying how dangerous our mountain road is and she demanded a boat to get her here. That must have cost more than the package holiday.lol I'm glad to hear that none of it ruined your travels though.happy [thea09]
hiya thea happy I went on a boat trip once to see Inchcolm island and you're right, there isn't enough time to see everything, it's very annoying, moreso when you've paid a lot of money! If I had to sit next to the know-it-alls I think I would make something up just to make them aware that they didn't know everything hahahaa I don't think I would cheer to leave someone behind though! that would be quite frightening to be left in a strange place if you weren't used to travelling. I do get irked if the local bus is being held up by someone that can't find their ticket/pass or fumbling around in their pocket for the exact change...why can't they have it ready when they know they are going to use the bus? I must've missed the Scotland trip! Alice happy [Aliceinwebland]
I can't keep up with zed's avatars lol Yes these tour guides treat people like cattle, we're not free to roam, they just want to heard us with their lassoos and get their takings rolleyes [Aliceinwebland]
Turkey and Greece? lol Seriously the only bus tours I've been on were when I was in college in Germany. The university used to sponsor these trips for the foreign students that were heavily subsidized. Some of them were pretty fancy with in car video monitors! The longest one was a trip to Berlin (which was still split at the time) for 60 DM for a week. Talk about a bargain. Everything was covered except for some of our meals. The fun part was crossing the East German border. My passport photo didn't have glasses, so I had to take them off. One girl was in East Berlin, gave her passport to a friend, then they split up. She had to spend the night there until they could come back and bring it to her. Then on the way back somebody dropped a rock from an overpass onto the front windshield of our bus. It shattered and we had to stop at an illegal rest stop (for East Germans only) to put up a tarp. We still froze all the way back.... [dawnald]
Germany is beautiful! And I've seen some pictures of places in Poland where some of my relatives came from (German) that are beautiful also. [dawnald]
Actually this sounds so much fun to me. I wish I could go someplace fun. I am hoping to live many more years so I can do this. I would like to travel by train. [ladygator]
Hi ladygator, I pictured you as a sweet elderly woman when you made the comment about living more years to be able to do it, fooled me. I think a train is a good way to travel around rather than a coach, but either way I'd prefer it with a guidebook than a guide and tour group. Depends if you like being independant or herded if these tours work well for you, certainly plenty enjoy them. [thea09]
We took the Trafalgar tour of the Best of Britain and we enjoyed it. I think the best thing about a bus tour (with a good guide, which we had) is that you see and learn about places and events you would normally just pass by) Britain is so full of history. Another good thing about a bus tour of Britain is that in a bus you are sitting higher, so that you can see over the hedges, whereas driving a car, hedges are the most constant sights and the views are hidden. While I always prefer to drive myself, I appreciated the Best of Britain which allowed us to see much more than we could have done by ourselves in a given time. The hotels and the meals were all first class. The tour guide was exceptional and very knowledgeable and helpful. The fellow tourists were mostly friendly and jovial, but there were a few who were constantly declaring nothing was as good as they had back home, and trying desperately to make everyone else believe they were millionaires. We also took the Trafalgar tour of Europe. It was a whirlwind tour but allowed us to see and do a lot in the short time we had. While driving - or better still, walking - is the better way to tour, a GOOD bus tour with a reputable company and a good guide allows best use of a short time and more coverage of places to visit. Ideally, I would like to use a good bus tour as an introduction and then follow it with a drive myself back to the places I'd like to see more of. [cloudwatcher]