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Contiki Optional Excursions

I took Contiki’s “European Experience” tour in spring 20006, and I was generally very happy with it. However, when it came to the optional excursions, I felt that I’d have been happier if I knew more about what was going on. Although the tour you go on may be different than mine, a lot of the trip stops and these excursions will be the same.

You sign up for excursion at the start of the tour, and they tell you that if you are “iffy” to just sign up and cancel later. The catch is that you need to give 48 hours notice for a cancel, which is reasonable since they can’t have fickly 20-somethings all dropping out at the last second. Anyway, if you’re “iffy” about one, sign up the day of, they never have a problem with that.

I know there is always this worry that you don’t want to be the only one who isn’t doing something and feel like a loner, but that only really happens with the rafting and crystal museum. Besides, if you were the “only one”, you just just sign up at the last second.
Paris

Les Noces des Jeanette, 33 Euro, This is billed as a traditional french restaurant with a three course meal. Overall it was decent and came with free wine, but as with all “optional dinners” you will see the overall trend that you seem to be paying a lot for something you could have gotten for half the price if you went to a similar restaurant (or even the same one) on your own. About half my tour went to this.

Nouvelle Eve, 62 Euro, A “Moulin Rouge” type event. It was right after the dinner, but a lot of the people who were at dinner didn’t go, including myself. Although there weren’t many people complaining about it being a rip-off, there were other far cheaper ways to spend the night.

Florence

Souvenir Group Photo, 11 Euro, Florence was kind of a low point for optional excursions, and this photo turned out really good, so I’d say this is the best optional there. It’s a large photo that’s professional. I know you think someone will just scan it and you can get it for free, but realistic about the logistics of that when you probably won’t see the people on your tour again.

Tuscan Meal, 27 Euro, this was the turning point for a lot of people in terms of the optional meal. We were crammed into a restaurant, got one bottle of wine at a table (which didn’t go very far for 4 heavyweights) with a tin-foil cork (a little sketchy), and left rather unsatisfied. Again, you could have gotten the same for about have the cost locally. About half the tour was at this. After this dinner, a lot of people began cancelling the remainder of the optional dinners on the tour.
Space Electronic Disco, 11 Euro, right after dinner was the space disco, which I can best describe as “30 year old greasy Italians trying to pick up early-20’s contiki girls”. A few contiki groups were at this, but a lot of the locals made people uncomfortable. I’m also not convinced there was a cover charge, so I don’t know what the 11 euro was for, I’m convinced if you just went in on your own you wouldn’t have to pay anything. You also have to cab back to the campsite (about 5 euro a person in a full cab). This with the “Tuscan” dinner made a lot of people thinking twice about all their optionals. Overall I had a good time, just think I could have went a half hour after my group did to the same place and gotten in without paying.

Rome

Guided Imperial Tour, 10 Euro, I didn’t like this one all too much but it was for reasons outside of anyones control. Normally, this tour doesn’t take you inside the colosseum, so a few of us went in, paid a few euro to skip the line (it was free that day because of an italian holiday) and did ou own tour. We mostly paid to skip the line because we didn’t have much time before this tour started. However, because it was free, the tour guide took the group inside the colosseum, which we just paid to see anyway. It was nobodys fauly really, and a one day a year problem. Also, as soon as we met up with the tour when they were done with the colosseum it started raining for the rest of the tour. I had a bad experience, but I think any other day it would have been fine. I’d recommend it.

Venice

Gondola Ride, 21 Euro, Get the vision of you and your loved one alone in a gondola as some italian guy sings behind you out of your head. There will be six people packed in a gondola, for which you could do for 12 euro a person if you don’t go with contiki. I enjoyed this, but finding a gondola in venice is like finding a hot dog vendor in downtown Toronto, there are plenty. Do a little research before hand to see if you still want to do it.

Austria

White Water Rafting, 37 Euro, up until this point the optionals seemed to be a little sketchy and over-priced. Things began to turn around with white-water rafting. There is a special stop for this on the tour, so if you don’t do it, you’re pretty much just sitting on the bus while practically everyone else takes part. The bus drops you off upstream, you raft down and it picks you up. It isn’t that intense, and really good for beginners. This is one of the things I remember most about the tour.

Mountain Biking, 28.50, A pretty decent lunch is included in this along with a biking tour guide. You are also allowed to keep the bike for the rest of the afternoon which came in handy to get around the small village you stay in. I’d only recommend this if you are pretty competent on a bike though, otherwise you’ll end up taking the “easy path” and I doubt you’d get your money’s worth. Overall, I liked this optional a lot, but I’m a pretty avid biker.

Tandem Paragliding, 110 Euro, a little hardcore for my insurance coverage, only 3 or 4 people on the tour did it, but they say it was great.

Crystal Museum, 6.50 Euro, it’s actually a lot cooler than it sounds. And the price is cheaper than anything you’d pay if you went on your own (SHOCK). This is also the other one of those trips that if you don’t go on, you’ll just be waiting on the bus for everyone else to get back. Worth it.

Munich

Bavarian Beerhall, 20 Euro, The turnout for this event from our group was lower than the other ones (little less than half) because a lot dropped out after the florence fiasco. Which is a shame since it was really worth it. You get dinner and a beer, beer being a FREAKING LITRE. If you’re a non-drinker, I can see skipping this, otherwise it was great. Once you factor in the cost of getting a cab to another beer hall from the hostel you’d have to pay if you didn’t do this, it’s actually a pretty good deal. Call it the exception to the rule that contiki optional dinners suck.

Swiss Alps

Jungfrau Mountain, 125 Francs (around 80 euro), I didn’t go on this mostly because of sticker shock and the fact that snow isn’t exacly “new” to me. Just over half the group did this and they seemed happy with it. I just spent 25 francs and rented a mountain bike from the campsite, took it up a gondola (11 francs) and rode around the first level of the moutain by myself.

St. Goar, Germany

Wine tasting, 8 Euro, This was a nice little optional where we got to try a few of the local wines of the Rhine region of Germany and even got to keep the tasting glass. I ended up buying a bottle of one of the types we tried. I enjoyed this one, but if you opt not to go to it there is a nice town around the area we stopped at to browse around. Most of the tour did this stop. Germany only has white wine though, it doesn’t have the consistent weather needed to grow the grapes for red.

Amsterdam

Canal Bike Tour, 12.50 Euro, This was a fun way of seeing the canals of Amsterdam, I didn’t get a look at what the alternative price would have been to do it on your own, but I didn’t feel ripped off on this one. If you go on this I would advise you to bring a large bottle of water. We ended up making a pit stop since it was a really hot day and you sweat a lot with the peddling. Although in hindsight I may not have done this, mostly because we only had one day in Amsterdam to see a few things and I had to choose afterwards between the Anne Frank house and the Heineken factory tour. Since you can see the canals on the cruise, I really saw them twice.

Evening Canal Cruise, 19 Euro, Most of the tour went on this event, and even a few of the people who cancelled it were adding at the last minute. It’s a nice way to end off the tour, since we knew most people weren’t going to the optional dinner afterwards. Really, if you only do one optional in Amsterdam (which I advise), do this one. It’s really great if the rest of your tour goes along too.

Tai Hu Restaurant, 25 Euro, Most of us had given up on optional dinners at this point so I didn’t actually go. They bill it as “a memorable way to finish your tour”, but half of us just went to one of the many other chinese food restaurants in Amsterdam. Again, ended up spending about half of this and got pretty much the same experience. The “last chance for everyone to still be together” is really the canal cruise, so don’t feel obligated to go to this.