In any other instances, this blog would be filled with the latest Italy travel post by now, 1 week post vacation. Italy was beautiful but this trip was far from relaxing so I wanted to take some time off and with work being pretty busy, it’s taken some time to update.
When finding this trip, I made a few mistakes which created a bit of chaos and stress while we were away. I’ll explain it here.
Mistake #1: Groupon Getaway. As I previously mentioned, I purchased this trip through Groupon Getaway and right off the bat I had to pay an extra 30% to cover for the exchange rate (keep in mind, I read through all the fine print and I continued to be under the impression that Groupon Toronto would redirect me to a page that has Canadian currency). Their CSR team took 5 full days to respond and by then, I had committed to the deal and was not able to get a refund. I also dealt with a pretty sarcastic CSR.
Mistake #2 & #3: Transportation and accommodation. I had mapped out the distance between Rome to Florence, I had accounted for the 3 hour drive from Rome airport to Florence (by burning a 90’s track to get us through the road trip). What Google Map didn’t really tell us and I didn’t do enough research on was the distance between the hotel to the city. I had just assumed that when Great Value Vacations put the package together would’ve thought of that. From where we were at Fattoria Degli Usignoli to Florence took a 15 minute windy drive to the train station and a 45 minute train ride into Florence. In hindsight, this was reasonable but Rome, not so much. From Hotel VM into the city was 1hour+ (drive, train and then metro). The worst part of this trip was that the metro lines in Rome close unbelievably early depending on which line, 9:30pm or 10:30pm. There were 4 instances where we missed the train (did you know that the front end and the back end of the train isn’t always connected??) and had to take a really late night bus or a taxi for 40 Euros.
So to sum it up, 1 day is wasted traveling to Florence from Rome (land at 12pm and drive for 3 hours). Another day is wasted traveling from Rome to Florence (leave at 7am, hit crazy traffic and arrive in Rome at 12pm then commute from hotel to Rome +1hour).
Using Groupon Getaway/Great Value Vacations and finding a pre-packaged “deal” this way saved time, but I calculated and if I had pieced together a similar trip in the city core, Groupon Getaway offered something far worse and much more expensive. I hope you don’t make the same mistakes I did! At least Great Value Vacations did offer responsive customer service which we were pleased with :/
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