The Best of Europe with London

Customer Reviews

• A

  Anonymous

  · May 13th, 2025
  I would like to begin this review of my European trip to "7 countries in 7 days" with Cosmos by thanking them immensely for making my family of 7 be in the lobby of our hotel to leave for our 3pm flight out of London at 545am. This has allowed me the time (9 hours, specifically) to truly reflect on our trip and put into words how I felt about our last 11 days. This is going to be a mix of my very honest review and my recommendations, should you choose to go forward with this trip, which I cannot stress enough how much I urge you to reconsider. Day 1 & 2 - London: Our red eye, direct flight to London from Orlando went well and there was someone at the airport to pick us up. She allowed some time for us to go to the restroom, exchange money and get snacks before we loaded up into the van to take us to Novotel London West. Our driver was lovely and even gave recommendations for the area. Once we got to the hotel, there was only 1 of our 3 rooms available, because of how early it was. They kept having us check back with the front desk on the 1st floor every hour from the Cosmos desk in the basement area where our bags were kept. Our 2nd room was ready 1 hour later, and the 3rd room, about an hour and a half after that. Once we freshened up in our rooms, we set out for the day. We opted against the Cosmos London excursions, as we found much cheaper options on our own with TripAdvisor/Viator apps. We used the Big Bus system for 2 days and visited the big locations of London (Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, etc.) The positives for the Big Bus was the audio tour, as I loved learning about the history of the area, but please know that the 1st stop is a pretty good walk from the hotel and it didn't seem to run as often as the other bus options. It also came with walking tours and a boat ride, but they only allowed you to do them on 1 of the 2 days for your ticket and you don't have enough time to try to get to all of the locations via bus because of traffic, so although it SEEMS like the best "bang for your buck", don't expect to be able to reasonably get it all done. Also, DO NOT LOSE YOUR PRINTED TICKET. They will not issue a second one, but they never tell you that. We had very typical rainy, cold London Summer weather. We had rain coats, but a few of my family members had forgotten their umbrellas, so we popped into a shop to grab a few for the rest of the trip. Overall, the London portion of our trip, other than the rooms not being ready, went very well and we had a great time. The hotel itself used to be a hospital and was clean. The breakfast was decent and buffet style. It was included every day we were there. We were not supposed to have the breakfast the 1st day, but due to the confusion with the rooms, they gave us breakfast when we first arrived. If you have the ability to do so, I recommend: Walk the gardens from Buckingham Palace all the way to Westminster Abbey. There is a coffee shop on the way in a wooden building that is lovely. Go on the London Eye. It's definitely a "tourist trap" but the views are spectacular and you won't get it anywhere else. The Graffiti tunnel is nearby and has some amazing artwork and some cool little bars/pubs inside. If you aren't interested in them though, there are more restaurants to eat at on the other side, walking away from the river. Visit the London Tower and go inside for the tour. It will take up a large chunk of your day. Borough Market is a MUST. Try the chocolate covered strawberries (you'll thank me later), get some fresh squeezed juice and get some real food at one of the hundreds of vendors in the area. It's very overwhelming and crowded, but completely worth the mild hassle. My 2 day itinerary Day 1: Walk to the bus stop and ride the bus until the Buckingham Palace stop. There was a protest happening when we visited, so the traffic was awful and a lot of the stops were closed down. Walk down to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey through one of the beautiful Royal Gardens. Stop to look at the swans and MASSIVE white pelicans. From there Walk to the London Eye. Tickets can be bought online or in the shop at the bottom. The wait wasn't too terrible and the view was worth it! Go through graffiti tunnel, grab some food. End the day. We ate at Enough Food to Feed an Elephant, which was very good and the staff was so friendly. Day 2: Ride the bus until the Tower bridge stop. Walk over the bridge until the London Tower. Spend several hours there until lunch time. Walk by the river to the REAL London Bridge. Cross over into Borough Market, eat lunch in the Market. Hop back on to the bus. We went back to Buckingham and walked the gardens a 2nd time and took the route with the coffee shop to Big Ben because we loved it so much. Try one of their many coffee options to pair with their amazing baked goods! We ordered FireAway pizza (very yummy) for the hotel to have a little down time for the night, because we knew the real trip started the next day. London was my favorite as far as learning about the history of the area, because we spent the most time here to explore. Day 3 - Belgium (1st real day of the trip): We woke up super early to get on the bus. Our travel agent had sold this trip to us as a "vip tour" so we weren't expecting too many people more than our 7 person family group...wrong. We were 7 on a 46 person group trip. We were introduced to our guide and driver for the week and headed to the Eurostar to begin the marathon that would be our vacation. Please do not listen to the guide if they say assigned seat numbers do not matter, because they certainly do and caused a lot of unnecessary strain with locals to and from London throughout the trip. You will arrive to Brussles, Belgium in the afternoon and will have some time (1.5-2 hours to walk around the city center area). We ate at Woodpecker, which was a great brunch spot. We were notified of Brussels "Peeing Boy", but were not given any more information than that. We were driven to the hotel, then given the ability to go back into the city center if we would like. We realized that the peeing boy was in the city center, but we missed it, so we walked approximately 30 minutes back into the city center to see it (small but adorable, try to see it on the 1st go around if you can). Our hotel, Moxy (one of my family's favorite hotels on this trip) was right next to the birthplace of Audrey Hepburn, so we definitely took the time to visit that. Pulling in to the hotel, our bus driver went down a tight alleyway where a lady was blocking traffic. He got pretty frustrated and heated, so instead of waiting a little longer, he tried to jump the sidewalk where pedestrian polls were located and slammed into one with the bus. It wasn't a huge deal, but a family felt uncomfortable with his driving after this incident, and decided to part ways with the group shortly after, making us a group of 44. We drove by the palace on the way to the hotel earlier, so we walked back to it once we were released. From there, we walked into the park across the street, got a Belgium waffle from a small vendor, then walked back into the city. I wished that we would have stayed in the city longer the 1st time, because by the time we were allowed to come back into it, places were closing. There was a Belgium Beer World Experience with over 200 drink options that looked interesting, but we missed due to timing, as it closed at 5pm. We ate dinner at O'reilly's Irish Pub, which sounds mental because we were in Belgium, but they had the most amazing beer cheese burger I've ever had. We walked the streets until the sun went down, then grabbed an Uber back to the hotel. * If you hear anyone suggest going to the Red Light District for a bit of fun, please please PLEASE do not go to the one in Brussles. It is genuinely dangerous. * Day 4 - Germany: We were pulled over by the German police almost as soon as we crossed the boarder. They came onto the bus and requested to see the passports of the 2 teens in front of me, as well as my younger brother behind me. No one is quite sure why they pulled us over, but the guide suspected due to extra security during the summertime/with the Olympics coming to France this year. The Rhine River cruise was awesome, but PLEASE pull cash out before you get on the bus! The town you will wait in before you get there only takes cash. If you do not, don't worry because there is an ATM, but you will need to stop there before you take another step into town. The 1st restaurant in the town is highly recommended to eat at. There are tables outside under the umbrellas. The schnitzel is an absolute must. There isn't a whole lot to do before the cruise other than to eat, but you MUST stop into Stefan's Wine Paradise and try the peach brandy! ... then grab several small bottles to take home because they are ADDICTING!!! The river cruise has a bar on board (CASH ONLY), and I recommend sitting up top at a table or grab an empty chair and pull it up to the rail. After the cruise, we got back on the bus (you're going to be on the bus for the majority of this trip) and headed for Frankfurt. We arrived in the evening and stayed at NH Frankfurt Airport West. Not a bad hotel as well, and we were okay with the food. This was the 1st of 3 dinners provided. The dinner wasn't bad (the Alfredo sauce was fantastic), but it had my favorite breakfast buffet of the trip. We took an Uber from the hotel to see the downtown area. Pretty much everything was already closed, but due to the Football games happening, night life was a little busier than usual. They were hosting the 2024 Frankfurt Euro Festival. We stopped in for Gelato and my mom got a crepe (probably the best one on the trip). Day 5 - Germany to Austria: Rothernberg was amazing. We didn't spend enough time there, in my opinion. Must dos are the Christmas shop, the castle garden (with amazing views of the town and the valley below, and getting a snowball at one of the cafe's. A vast majority of today will be spent on the bus, as I said. GRAB A MEAL BEFORE YOU LEAVE ROTHERNBERG! They will tell you that you are stopping for lunch after....its a gas station McDonald's with a condensed menu. The view of the Alps from the bus is amazing and you will stop one time for a photo op. You will get into Austria after everything is closed. There isn't a whole lot to do there, but it's quite frustrating to be somewhere new that you can't actually explore. Here you will have the worst of the included dinners, but you don't have many other options due to what time it is, so enjoy the chicken leg and potato wedges. Soft drinks and coffee are NOT included, no matter how many times the guide may say they are. Walk around the town and visit the Kurpark Igls (Park) with it's weird statues but amazing views of the town from higher up the mountain. I recommend bug spray here if you brought it. The hotel itself was pretty nice, even if the dinner wasn't great. Breakfast was buffet style and better than breakfast though. Day 6 - Venice, Italy: We were late to getting to our boat into the city, but it wasn't a huge deal because there was another boat waiting. Please wear loose clothing, something that covers your shoulders and knees, comfy shoes, use sunscreen and bring water! This was the closest we felt to our horrid Florida summer days and we actually had someone in the group pass out. There are only 4 hours in this city, so you need to plan accordingly. 1st off...skip the gondolas and the glass blowing demonstration. Just trust me. They are major tourist traps and a waste of your short 4 hours there. We went to glass blowing and it cost us our time at the Basicalla. Here is my rundown recommendation: 1. Visit the Basicalla as soon as you're released from the group. You will not be allowed to enter if you do not follow my clothing recommendations, but no one is going to prep you for that before the tripm 2. Eat lunch at La Piazza 3. Visit the Teatro La Fenice (absolutely gorgeous), but try not to spend more than an hour there. Do take the headsets. They will ask for a license or passport per family to ensure they get them back 4. Walk to the Bovolo Staircase. See them, but don't walk them. There is no time. 5. Walk to Rialto Bridge & Grand Canal. Lots of beautiful pictures! 6. Stop in Suso for Gelato 7. See the Statue of Vittorio Emanuele II before getting back on the boat. You need to be quick and constantly move in order to pull this list off, but it's worth it. We stayed just outside of Venice at Hotel Poppi. The hotel room was hot, damp and smelled of mold or mildew. We thought it was just a European hotel. Turns out that our AC unit went out and we were upgraded into the best hotel room of our trip (win). Our 3rd included dinner was at this hotel. It wasn't the worst food, but certainly not the best. Think cheap wedding buffet with cold red noodles and pre-made meatballs. Day 7 - Italy to Switzerland: We stopped in Verona very shortly for today. Visit the colosseum for a small fee. It was the test run/trial for the Roman colosseum and it's still in use today for concerts and events. Also visit Juliette's balcony. Just as you turn to leave from her statue, walk though the shop. They will embroider yours or anyone else's names on their hundreds of items to choose from. Such a cute shop. Sit back and enjoy another ridiculously long bus ride. We got into Lucerne, Switzerland pretty late in the evening, but a lot of their restaurants were still open. We chose not to do the Folklore dinner, which sounded like the best choice, as a lot of people from our group complained about how mediocre the food was from their excursion. My family, however, went in to the town with our free train passes provided by the hotel and had one of the best meals of our trip. I got bratwurst at Pfistern next to the water. Try their beer and iced tea as well! After that, everything was closed...per the usual...., but we walked up to the castle and clock towers, roamed the streets and saw the lion statue. If you choose to do the same, remember which stores you would like to visit during the day time, because you will have some time in the city if you don't do both the boat and mountain excursions. We took the train back to the hotel and called it a night. Day 8 - Lucerne to Dijon, France: As I said from the day before, if you do not do both excursions for today (we skipped the boat), then you have enough time to visit the shops you may have mapped out from the day before (you'll have about 2 hours-ish). Definitely visit Bachmann candy shop for your swiss chocolate needs! We did, as a tour group, visit the lion statue during the day, which was nice, because it was too dark to fully appreciate it the night before. My family decided to do the mountain excursion and skip the boat ride. You could already tell early in the morning that the views were going to be compromised by the fog and cloud coverage, but we signed up before the trip began. The ride up the mountain was pretty neat, being halfway on a train and the other half was in a double decker cable car, but about halfway up the cable car, the clouds swallowed us up and we couldn't see anything. Because it was a pre-planned trip, we were stuck at the top of the viewing deck for 2 hours without being able to see a thing. I will say, a short walk towards the tiptop of the mountain took you to a small encloser for a marmot family and it was definitely the highlight of my day. After, we were scheduled to buy our own lunch at the restaurant up there. The goulash was recommended and was actually pretty good. They gave us a free Cosmos hat included with our trip as well. Then back on the bus for a majority of the day. By this time, everyone was so sick of the bus and traveling for long hours without being able to truly relax, that there was some strain on the bus between different parties. We got to Dijon, France around 7pm. At this time, only the restaurants were open. We visited "Les Trios Bures", which was phenomenal from the food to the service. We also found a historic trail made by the city, where you followed golden owl icons to each significant historical location. Unfortunately, they were all closed because of when our bus arrived, but it was a neat concept. This was the worst hotel in the worst area (although the closest to the downtown area), so we made the decision to try to get back to the hotel before the sun went down. The hotel itself was so disgusting, that I had to put my personal blanket on my pillow, because I didn't feel comfortable putting my face on it. My husband found a half drunken bottle of alcohol in our room, if that's any indication of the "cleaning" done before we got there. Day 9 - Versailles and Paris: So, our trip was supposed to involve Paris more, but due to us arriving on Bastille Day and the Olympics being hosted in Paris the next week, Cosmos canceled our visit to Paris and replaced it with Versailles after we were already halfway through our trip. My brother, husband and myself bought tickets for Disneyland Paris already, so we made it very clear to our guide that we would still be continuing to Paris while the group remained in Versailles. Every day I asked about what time we would get to our hotel near Paris, our guide would change the time from 3pm to 4pm, then finally he said "5pm-ish", so we decided to get our own transportation (train) to Disneyland Paris, while the rest of our family stayed behind to visit the Versailles Palace grounds. Our family said it was very enjoyable and they had headphones for their tour, so they were given lots of information on the palace and said it was gorgeous inside. Out of everything we did, Disneyland Paris was definitely my absolute favorite part of the trip. I HIGHLY recommend it if you are in to Disney and in the area! It's smaller than our American parks, so I suggest the park hopper pass to see both parks if you can. Because it was Bastille Day, Disney had a special fireworks display, which was out of this world. I asked my family if they wanted to meet at the Eiffel Tower after we got out of Disney, but they stated they were told they wouldn't be able to see it, because the "city was closed". This was not true, as my brother, husband and I were able to see the Tower light up at 1am after hopping the train (the train system was pretty easy to navigate, and they had LOTS of helpful employees) again from Disney. Those that wanted to see the Tower were pretty disappointed in missing out after being told they couldn't get to the Tower. They were also originally scheduled to do the Paris dining excursion, but requested a refund when the panoramic bus portion was canceled. We got an Uber back from the city, but the Cosmos app gave an incorrect address for our hotel and it was mislabeled on Google Maps, so we had a bit of a walk to get back to the hotel. This was not the first time the Cosmos app gave incorrect information about our hotel or trip, but it was certainly the biggest inconvenience at 1am trying to get back to the hotel. Day 10 - back to London We requested to stay in Paris for as long as we could given some of my family felt like we missed out on Paris completely when they were told the city was closed. Our guide said he would give us our tickets, but we would need to carry our bags through the city, get our own transportation and it would still be "impossible" to do anything with the Olympics. We chose to go to the train station with the rest of the group... just to find out that we were being dropped off at the train station before 8am and our ride wasn't until noon. Our guide dropped us off at the entrance, where we couldn't even get into because it was too early to go in, but he had his own train ride at 10am, so he left us to catch his ride. My family looked like a homeless camp spread out across the train station floor waiting for 10am to come so we could enter the gates to get to some chairs, then sit and wait longer for the 12pm ride. Our guide also told our group of 20 they didn't have to worry about being split up from their family and to sit "anywhere" on the train, which was completely incorrect and caused multiple issues for people we were traveling with. We made it into London with enough time to get situated for the next day and to eat one last meal together, which felt like another complete waste of a day. Day 11 - Going back home: Our 945am flight was changed to 3pm. Cosmos did not care and still required us to catch their 6am transport to the airport. It was once again way too early to check in or get our tickets, given it was 9 hours before our scheduled flight, but we explained our situation to the nicest lady at the ticket counter and she let us through, so we could at least sit in chairs and eat food in the Heathrow airport, which was more of a mall with an airport in it, for the next 7 hourse to even find out which gate we needed to be at. Much like the severe lack of communication for the rest of the trip, no one had prepared us to fit all of our toiletries in a single ziplock baggie, which this airport made us do. A lot of items were left behind. After all of our delays and issues, we spend 27 hours in airports before making it to the Orlando Airport. Overall, this trip brags you will see multiple locations in such a short time, and you will, but it will feel like running a marathon. You won't actually get to visit or experience hardly any of these places. A majority of the time will be sitting on the bus. There was little to no communication at each place for what was recommended to do, but mostly because the towns/cities were closed when we got there. The hotels were usually decent, but not great. The hotel food was more often terrible than not. Most of the time we preferred to skip the meals we already paid for and get something better outside of the hotel. Our guide even admitted that this is not the trip to enjoy these countries, and was more of a "taste tester" to see which countries you would one day want to come back to and visit....he said that to us... while we were physically in said countries. As if most people can just continue to visit the other side of the world on a regular basis. We had several elderly people on our trip that were not expecting to carry their belongings daily and you could tell the trip took its toll on them. One elderly lady passed out while we were in Venice and an elderly gentleman complained of chest pain and shortness of breath in our final days. In conclusion, please use my review as a warning and do not waste your hard-earned money on Cosmos/Globus!
  Show more
  Trip date: July 2024
• DD

  Deyanira

  · September 18th, 2024
  Not what I expected. To much rush and walking was unbearable
  Show more
  Trip date: August 2024
• A

  Mae Claire

  · July 14th, 2023
  I love our tour director Patricia. Though we have many challenges we encountered during our trip she handled it very well with a positive attitude. We learned a lot from Patricia during the tour. Her wealth of knowledge about each places we visited to were so great and a lot of it. I am very well pleased that she's our guide. I love her enthusiasm and passion on what she does. Cosmos is very blessed to have her.
  Show more
  Trip date: June 2023

  Review collected by Cosmos
• A

  Kyra

  · July 14th, 2023
  My first Euro trip has been made good because of Cosmos.
  Show more
  Trip date: June 2023

  Review collected by Cosmos
• A

  Anonymous

  · July 14th, 2023
  Amazing service
  Show more
  Trip date: April 2023

  Review collected by Cosmos
• A

  Gillian

  · July 11th, 2023
  Both the Tour guide and coach driver went above and beyond Coach was kept very clean.
  Show more
  Trip date: June 2023

  Review collected by Cosmos
• A

  Penelope

  · July 6th, 2023
  The trip was well planned and our tour guide was so knowledgeable. Honestly she made the trip what it was because of her knowledge of the places we were visiting, her preplanning and anticipating saved us time, and her kindness always allowed me to feel safe. Our driver was also amazing I was blown away at how smooth our coach rides were even on very narrow streets. I never sleep on buses like that but I did many times on that one and I think it was because he did such an amazing job.
  Show more
  Trip date: June 2023

  Review collected by Cosmos
• A

  Ng

  · July 5th, 2023
  To many optional tours for the seniors as it is quite hectic but to the younger ones they can cope with it.
  Show more
  Trip date: June 2023

  Review collected by Cosmos
• A

  Clarissa

  · July 3rd, 2023
  We are much cared/looked after by our tour director.
  Show more
  Trip date: June 2023

  Review collected by Cosmos
• A

  Kaye

  · July 2nd, 2023
  Very well organized. Ali was a terrific tour leader and Paolo a great coach driver
  Show more
  Trip date: June 2023

  Review collected by Cosmos