Central Europe Tour 2024 - Czechia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland

While surfing through websites to decide on our next family vacation, I came across their page. The web page advertised interesting itinerary so decided to drop them an email. We exchanged over 50 emails each one patiently and promptly responded by Lenka. She customized a tour which suited us as we were travelling with our 9 year old daughter, we wanted a winter holiday in Europe and were hoping to experience snow fall.

Lenka had planned everything perfectly from train tickets, hotels in not so crowded locations, yet walking distance to public transport, knowledgeable tour guides who spoke English fluently, taxi services at railway stations. Then entire holiday was a breeze thanks to Lenka, all we had to focus on was enjoy our trip.

I am amazed that just the two ladies in the company and everything is so professional and very well managed.

We have such cherished memories of our holiday..

I hope they expand their tour portfolio beyond central Europe

Hi Barbora
We are finally home. What a trip!!

Overall we are happy with TravelSlovakia tour but there are things that you need to know to make this type of tour a more consistent 4 star rating. Note: all hotels were very good (4star) except for Banska Stiavnica).

We really enjoyed Katharina. Her knowledge of Slovakia was quite good. I think she has even a deeper knowledge but because of her difficulties with English I believe that some of that knowledge did not shine through all the time. Back on a positive note-She went out of her way to change/adapt the tour which we really appreciated. Katharina is very passionate about Slovakia which contributed to our greater understanding and appreciation of your country. She was a joy to drive around with. Thank you Katharine.

Car transfer from Bratislava to train station - excellent (new Mercedes and on time. 5stars.

Car transfer from Budapest train station to hotel - terrible. Car was old and dirty. 1star rating.

Budapest Hotel-excellent. 4star.

Budapest guide - she was very knowledgeable but 1) her car was dirty and old, 2) she was a lot on the phone with someone, and 3) she was late (something about a road closure but we saw many cars driving in front of our hotel). When it was near the end of the tour, we had not yet seen the two sites on the agenda: I) Matthias church and II) fisherman's bastion. We appreciated seeing everything that we did but time ran short. We adjusted the tour with her and drove up to the Citadel. She then dropped us off near Matthias church. We missed the time to visit inside this church because we were late. I give this 2stars because of her dirty old car, her constant time on the phone and being a poor judge of time.

Car transfer from Budapest hotel to the train station was good. The car was older but clean and the driver was very friendly. 3.5star (0.5 because the driver was very talkative and nice).

Vienna car transfer fro train station to hotel - 4stars very good (Mercedes van).

Vienna tour- we shared a large bus and the guide spoke 2 languages; English & Dutch. It was very difficult to follow him. Not a worthwhile tour. The guide himself was friendly and knowledgeable but his task was to do this tour in both languages. 2stars.

The rest of the trip with Lenka was fabulous and with her very good English language skills, we think she is the right example of the quality level that TravelSlovakia should achieve across all guides.

Transfer from BRNO to Prague was very good and on time. 4stars.

Prague city tour was very good. Just in English. 4stars.

Hope this feedback helps and improves TravelSlovakia.

Dear Barbora - Yes thank you very much, the trip met all expectations especially the time spent with the local single guides/drivers we had in each city. They were incredibly knowledgeable, very accommodating to our suggestions and answering our questions, helping us understand the various cultures and commenting on our observations.
In particular, our guide Katarina who fetched us from Budapest and drove us to Krakov, gave us an excellent insight into beautiful Slovakia and was absolutely superb, mindful and very caring. Slovakia is a lovely country (the parts we saw) and the people we came across were very friendly and open. We love to spend more time there. Perhaps next time:-). Thank you for organising it for us; overall, we would certainly recommend Travel Slovakia to friends as well as Trip Adviser.

The only downside was the accommodation which was placed way out of Budapest historical area. This hotel was in an industrial area, (seemingly for business people) where one couldn't walk around or go down freely to the river for instance in the evenings without taking local transport. There was no convenient store nearby either. Andrea tried to placate us by saying that it was a Wellness Hotel! We don't need to travel all the way to Europe to go to a wellness centre, instead of visiting the many historic sites and other places of interest in the beautiful city of Budapest. When people haven't been to a city, it is rather annoying to have to take so much time to get back and forth via metro and bus however new the transport is. The other hotels were well placed and everything was in easy walking distance to places of interest, local shops/supermarkets and restaurants. A travel agency should be cognisant of this fact for visitors and perhaps you should inform future clients about the distance to and from centres of towns/cities. (...)

I would like to thank you again so much for organising this trip for us. It was indeed very interesting and positive.
Kind regards

Dear Lenka

I wanted to thank you for arranging such a wonderful trip for us! We have departed Budapest with many happy memories of our holiday in Prague-Bratislava-Budapest. Thank you for making it possible and for being immediately available for help when I needed it. The tour guides you arranged were knowledgeable, personable, and able to tailor the tours to our needs. I will certainly recommend your services to my friends and colleagues!

All best,

Lenka,

we were extremely satisfied and impressed with the service provided. Congratulations. You run a good and tight organization, which we hope to use again in the future and will be glad to recommend to others.

Dear Lenka and Barbora,

We just got back to Michigan yesterday and would like to thank you for your thoughtful arrangement of the Central Europe trip that was very much enjoyable. The places we visited are just wonderful. Here are a few highlights of the trip that you helped that made the trip a memorable experience for us:

The itinerary included very detailed information about everything we needed, from the pick-up and drop-off location/time for airport/train/port/hotel to local guides. You are flexible when we were planning the trip. Since we have relatives in Prague so we did not need a tour of Prague, and you considered this in the itinerary. After the trip, we wanted to go to Warsaw on our own, so you even helped purchase Krakow-Warsaw train tickets for us.

The drivers and guides are very friendly, professional, and knowledgeable. They introduced their countries to us with great pride and we learned quite a bit from them about the culture, history, tradition, struggle, and challenges of their countries and cities. A great learning experience!

The hotels picked by you are very good, particularly the ones in Bratislava and Kosice. In Bratislava, the Crowne Plaza (that was planned) had some technique problems (due to heavy thunderstorm the night before) so they could not accommodate us, so they transferred us to Grand Hotel River Park (a 5-star hotel). You immediately rearranged the pick-up of tour guide next day to the changed hotel. In Kosice, the City Residence Apartment Hotel is the best, not only it is very near the old town square, but also the rooms/service of the hotel are excellent. We had a 2-bedroom apartment with large living room, kitchen and bathroom. There are 4 TVs and even a sauna room.

We would like particularly mention the guide Jon Bukovcak who drove us from Kosice to Krakow. He is a young college student, working in the summer months after studying in regular semester. He was very easy going, telling us a lot of stories about his family in a village in central Slovakia. We also went to the Salt Mine on our way to Krakow that was not planned in the itinerary. This delayed his return to Slovakia several hours but he said don't worry. The visit to the Mine was a wonderful experience.

All things went well and we enjoyed a lot!

The only thing we regretted was that we did not have a chance to go to the Mozart concert in the Opera House in Vienna. We went to a Strauss & Mozart concert in Kursalon on the day of arrival in Vienna without knowing that there was no performance in the Opera House the next day. Well, we should do the homework earlier.

Again, thank you for providing us the opportunity to visit the beautiful places in central Europe.

Best regards,

Hi Lenka,
Thank you for organizing our wonderful vacation. The accommodations, transfers and guides couldn't have been better. Everything went so smoothly, and everyone was so nice. We can't thank you enough for doing such a spectacular job.
Blessings,

Hello Lenka;
cc Lucia, Anikó, Ewa

Thank you so much for your excellent and thoughtful organization in planning on memorable trip to Bratislava, Budapest, Krakow and Prague; and, all the interesting stops and tours along the way. Your careful attention to detail and all aspects including the drivers, accommodation, tours and tour guides was very much appreciated, and allowed us to focus on learning and delighting in the local history, culture and environment.
I would like to express our particular appreciation in meeting Lucia, Anicó and Ewa. Their pride and knowledge of their countries was evident, and instilled in us a further interest to learn more about their particular cities.
It would be our pleasure to recommend your services to all clients, and I will broadcast the use of your services while travelling abroad.

Warmest regards,

Lenka,

I am at airport waiting to fly back to New York.

I know I have been repeating myself - thank you so much again for the seamless and perfect arrangement throughout the trip. I really appreciate it. I have enjoyed a lot and vote of thanks to the local guides and drivers as well; everyone has been very nice and helpful.

I will recommend this trip and your company to my family and friends if they want to visit Central Europe.

Thank you and all the best in 2015!

Best regards,

Dear Lenka,

I am VERY satisfied with my trip! It was wonderful! Life changing. First, I want to comment on on how I felt safe travelling knowing that transportation would be looking for me and all my itinerary was planned. Second, you gave me just enough alone time to explore the cities and towns we visited. Third, our tour guide Miro was professional, informative, helpful and a delight to travel with. And, thanks to Miro, we not only met with relatives in Fricovce but he went out of his way to surprise us.

I assume you would like to hear constructive criticism as well... Our driver from the Hotel President to the train station started out taking us to the airport. Fortunately, he realized this after 25 or more minutes and was able to get us to the train station on time. Not knowing the area, I was concerned I would be running for a train. Everything went fine.... no running.

The Hotel Stella in Kosice seemed run down and fixtures in the bathroom (hand shower would not hang, toilet seat needed repairing, and there was now wifi available in room). This was mentioned this to the front desk but no repairs were made and we were told the walls were too thick for wifi.

Overall, I am so happy with my trip using Travel Slovakia. I am recommending your company and Slovakia as a travel destination to all. If possible, I am considering another trip to discover more family:)

Sincerely,

We feel very fortunate that Lenka and TravelSlovakia is the company we found to help plan and book our custom trip to Slovakia as well as three other countries. Taking our Dad for his 80th birthday to explore where his father and grandfather emigrated from has been a longtime goal of our family and we were able to put together a very excellent itinerary only with their help. Lenka was instrumental from the start in helping to plan our itinerary and never failed to answer our questions promptly and with great insight and advice. TravelSlovakia was also helpful in both planning tours with partner companies in Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. They coordinated every detail from our arrival in Vienna on August 2nd until our departure on the 14th.

Based on family records we sent Lenka, she not only provided translations of some documents, but also found the church where our grandfather was baptized in 1888. Additionally, she found a likely relative in the town where he was from and arranged to have our family info passed along to her and coordinated a visit for our day there where we were able to exchange information and were hosted for a great meal and hospitality.

Lucia, our guide, was outstanding. Filling the multiple roles of driver, Slovakia native and expert, translator and guide was great fun for the eight days we spent with her. She made the trip very memorable and we consider her part of our family now too! She was very knowledgeable and had an answer for most everything we wanted to know about. I would not hesitate to use the services of TravelSlovakia in the event I am lucky enough to return for a future trip!

Thanks for everything!!