Keep together now, the tour bus is about to leave.

Don't know, don't wanna' go, too cold , don't feel good , don't like totravel. Y'all have fun.

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.

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.

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...

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 , [i]always make sure the fellow tourists behind us are still with the group[/i]. 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. 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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

Turkey and Greece? 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. 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....

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

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!

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.