Imperial Highlights

Customer Reviews

• JT

  JULIA

  · September 18th, 2024
  We had a great time on our tour. The itinerary was intense but very good. Our tour guide and the coach driver were both amazing!
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  Costsaver commented on this review

  Thank you for taking the time to write your review. We are thrilled that our On The Road Team enhanced your guided vacation experience. Our Product Team will look into adjusting the pace of this dynamic tour to ensure a more balanced experience for our... Show more
  Trip date: September 2024
• S

  Sally

  · October 10th, 2023
  It has been a few years since we were on a cost saver tour. The difference this time is we spent more time on the bus travelling rather than exploring. We were left with very little time in each city to explore and it seemed too rushed to then spend hours on a bus to get to the next destination and do the same thing. (1-2 hours to explore a new city and eat lunch is not acceptable). If you don't purchase the optional excursions, you are sometimes left in a hotel not the closest to the city center or knowing your way around. Another difference this time is the additional costs of more tips for the driver and tour guide, extra guides in each city, and quite expensive optional excursions. Our tour guide and driver were the best, the hotels were just ok. I realize they are small in Europe, but two people could hardly move around in most of them. For the amount paid for the tour you would think fort drinks, coffee or tea would be included in the dinners included in the hotels, but they aren't. For the amount cost saver is receiving per person, this was ridiculous. I felt we were nickel and dimed this time for everything. Not sure we would book again with Cost Saver or Trafalgar. Prices and extras seem to increasingly rise without making sense.
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  Costsaver commented on this review

  Thank you for your review. It concerns us to read that there were certain aspects of your journey that you felt could have been improved, including the amount of time spent driving; however, exploring these beautiful countries in a condensed amount of... Show more
  Trip date: August 2023
• JM

  JM

  · August 17th, 2023
  CostSaver Imperial Highlights 10 days. I would highly recommend this trip. We traveled in July 2023. This is the less expensive sister company to Trafalgar. We traveled to Munich, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, and Salzburg, and a few other smaller cities. The trip was about $1600, not including airfare and additional optional experiences. We had an excellent tour director, Judith Lee. There were 33 people on the tour from all over the world including Australia, South Africa, Canada, United States, Malaysia and other countries. We had the option of 12 additional optional experiences. If you did all of them, it would cost you an additional 841 Euros. We did 9 of the 12 optional tours. I would not recommend any of the optional dinners (except one- see below), as the food choices were limited and I felt like the venues were tourist traps. I also did not like the day trip to Szentendre (63 Euros) just outside Budapest. It was just a tiny city with nothing but outdoor shopping and a few eateries. Nowhere to escape the heat. It included a light lunch, which was hot goulash (like a broth soup) and strudel, no air conditioning. I felt like this was a tourist trap. I really did not like the optional dinner just outside Vienna at Marchfelderhof restaurant for 72 Euros. Every square inch of the restaurant was filled with useless tchotchkes, which we did not find amusing, and it was a 45 minute drive outside the city. it was only filled with group tours when we went. We had a choice of three food options for dinner. We did like some of the food, but not everyone might like the limited options. They played American music and sometimes they have a fortune teller come around to the tables as well. I would have rather stayed in the city and spent that money on a nice restaurant in the city. We really liked the optional night tour in Prague, the lunch cruise in Prague, the Sound of Music tour, the tour to Eagle’s Nest, and our favorite was the dinner cruise in Budapest. However, because this is a fast paced tour, doing the optional tours did take away from other things you could do on your own in the city. If you have time to do research before your trip, you may find other things you’d prefer to see, but we didn’t do that. The trip included tours of each major city with local guides who were all excellent. The trip had 3 included dinners- 2 of which were terrible, so you may want to skip it and spend time in the city. The hotels were all outside the city center, but we were able to take public transport into the cities. We felt safe everywhere we traveled, but never stayed out past about 9:30pm. The hotels were small European hotel chains. Rooms are typical European- small, but clean, and all included free wifi. They all seemed to have good soundproofing as well. All had hair dryers, but only one had a refrigerator and coffee machine. No other amenities in the rooms. Europe has a new restriction on air conditioning, so we did not always get a good night’s sleep due to hot, stuffy rooms. Plus they only had thick comforters on the bed, not even a top sheet. I don’t think the AC was on in any hotel, so you may want to ask for a room change to the north side of the building if possible- might be cooler. If it was hotter out, maybe they would have turned on the AC. I read online that some American brand hotels might be more likely to have AC, but I cannot verify that. Trafalgar does the same trip, but it’s a few hundred more, but they stay in Hyatt and Holiday Inn etc, so there might be better AC in those hotels- so check it out if AC is a priority. Breakfast was included at each hotel and there was usually a pretty good selection of food. We purchased a European sim card and unlimited data online through Holafly before we left home and activated it once we got to Munich. It cost $35 for 10 days and it worked perfectly everywhere we traveled. We used WhatsApp to communicate with loved ones at home, as you can text and call using only data. Also, our tour director used WhatsApp to send us tour details and the seating assignments on the bus. Everyone in our tour group was very nice. We had travelers from 10 years old to people in their 70s. There were five single travelers as well from 18 years old to someone in her 60s. Most people dressed very casually and wore sneakers most of the time, as you’ll be doing a great deal of walking. Bring layers and an umbrella, and a light rain jacket. We had days from 55 degrees fahrenheit to 85 degrees, and several days of rain. It was difficult to find money exchange places, but most places accepted credit cards. I've read it's best to use an ATM machine vs money exchange, as the money exchange will charge you a fee. Some smaller stores only accepted cash- most only in Euros, but some touristy areas also accepted US and Australian dollars. Uber was available in most cities. We used Google Maps for getting around and it was accurate when looking up directions for public transportation as well. We will definitely book another trip with either CostSaver or Trafalgar- might spend the extra money if we know Trafalgar goes to hotels that definitely have AC.
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  Costsaver commented on this review

  Thank you for your detailed feedback during your Imperial Highlights trips. We take pride in our trips and want to give our travellers a lifetime experience that they will never forget. We appreciate your comments as we aim to provide the best travel... Show more
  Trip date: July 2023
• LP

  Leticia

  · August 23rd, 2022
  The tour director and driver were excellent! Whichever department was handling the information dissemination didn’t do a good job. I never received the travel info up to the time that I left for Munich. I thought that when I got to the Terminal that somebody would be there with the sign “Oberammergau” or whatever sign. My friend and I didn’t have that info. So I made multiple calls to Tourradar and at the same time was chatting with someone from Costsaver. Nobody seemed to know the details of the travel. So here we were at the airport from 10:30am to 2pm with nobody to pick us up until finally someone from the chat gave me the hotel (which I had to ask for) in Munich which I had to google myself coz nobody could give me the phone no. To Hotel Leonardo and finally I got a hold of the tour director. This was very frustrating. Never experienced this in my previous tours. This says a lot about Tourradar and Costsaver. I know that we are just 2 of their clients but I won’t be using them again. I finally received the travel information the next day (8/6/22). It was too late.
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  Costsaver commented on this review

  Thank you for sharing your experience here with us. We share your disappointment that you weren't sent the necessary documents prior to the start of your trip, as you certainly should have. This was a rare and unfortunate administrative error, that has... Show more
  Trip date: August 2022
• EF

  Elaine

  · July 11th, 2022
  The places we saw were amazing! However, there are several communication issues throughout the tour. Moreover, the tour director did not guide us on the various whether conditions. I was freezing cold at the Oberammergau play, and was soaking wet in two other city tours.
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  Costsaver commented on this review

  Thank you for your feedback. We are sorry to read that certain aspects of your itinerary did not meet your expectations, mainly due to inclement weather conditions, and you might not have found our Travel Director to have been as personable as you would... Show more
  Trip date: June 2022
• JD

  Joseph

  · July 4th, 2022
  Arrangements were all in place and executed seamlessly. Optional experiences were mostly value for money. Our only setback was receiving info about accomm and day 1 arrangements rather late in the piece, so it did not align very well for us personally. Other than that it was an enjoyable experience.????
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  Costsaver commented on this review

  We appreciate your comments. We hope you got to enjoy the cathedrals, castles, and cobbled lanes that these beautiful countries offer. We understand your disappointment that specific details may have differed from your original itinerary, which may have... Show more
  Trip date: June 2022
• SH

  Sylvester

  · June 10th, 2022
  Excellent. Casper the tour guide one of the best
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  Trip date: May 2022
• BC

  Balbino

  · June 8th, 2022
  It was all perfect with an amazing tour director like Gasper and excellent driver like Frank…we couldn’t ask for more
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  Trip date: May 2022
• 

  Cathy

  · June 28th, 2020
  Suspect it would have been great if it had actually happened. Probably need to delete automatic surveys for tours that were cancelled and for which refunds not given.
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  Costsaver commented on this review

  Cathy, we certainly wish that we could have hosted you on our Imperial Highlights guided holiday this year. Sadly, this simply hasn't been possible yet, however we do genuinely look forward to travelling together soon once journeying becomes safe again.
  Trip date: May 2020
• EA

  Emilia

  · September 4th, 2019
  It was a pleasant and wonderful experience.
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  Costsaver commented on this review

  We are very pleased to hear that our staff made your time on the Imperial Highlights tour an enjoyable one. On top of that, we hope that you were able to go back home with some amazing memories of your time on the road with us.
  Trip date: August 2019