Hungary Tours

To everyone at Zicasso's travel agency, thank you, thank you, thank you! The private trip to the most remarkable European metropolises you curated for us was, well, in the words of the countries we visited, csodálatos/wunderbar/wunderbar/and trés magnifique!!!!!

Everything and everyone you arranged for us was not only to our liking, but perfect.

The hotels were as we like, boutique, not large conglomerate chains. Each was nicely situated, with the staff attentive. The one we found best was in Berlin, with the others not far behind.

The drivers were all nice, on time, and helpful. The tour guides were all informative and knowledgeable, and answered our many questions with aplomb. While all were good, we found the two guides in Berlin to be our favorites. And while she knew her subject matter, we found the one in Vienna too religious and opinionated. We suggest maybe not using her as much.

We did not really use any of the restaurant recommendations you supplied because we like to find local eateries close to the hotels. Two we went to twice because the first experience was so good – in Berlin and in Paris.

One note: there were two times we took a cab whose driver, after taking us, said they did not accept cash and passed a card scanner for me to tap. Afterward, I received an alert from Visa that the charge was $98 rather than the $9 quoted in Budapest and $168 rather than the $12 quoted in Paris. We suggest letting everyone know to only take cabs that accept cash or take an Uber.

Once again I would like to thank all of you who endeavored to make this adventure such a pleasant and memorable one.

All the best,

Rick and Barb Boyko

The trip was amazing. The hotel was wonderful and the tours and tour guides were all awesome. The concerts and locations were great and easy to get to. It was easily one of the best trips I have ever had. Our in-country liaison was also fabulous. Zicasso's agent was quick to answer all of my questions and just incredibly helpful. She took away any stress that comes from traveling in a foreign country.

We had a wonderful 11-night trip to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. Zicasso’s tour planner was helpful and proactive with reaching out to us before, during, and after our trip. All the guides during our trip were friendly, spoke English, and were punctual. We have gone on many trips over the years using Zicasso and their tour agency recommendations have always been fantastic. We highly recommend our travel company to anyone thinking about a trip to these areas.

The trip was phenomenal – everything we wanted and more! The Zicasso agents listened to all our requests (type of hotels, excursions and events we were interested in, food limitations, etc.) and designed a tour that ensured we saw all the "can't-miss" sites and had some "this-is-unique" special moments just for us!

All connections went smoothly. Our agent was wonderful about letting us know of any changes in guides or times, and ensuring we didn't have any questions during our trip.

We had a 9 night tour of Budapest - Vienna - Salzburg - Prague, for which we paid $12,500. With the exception of the Salzburg portion of the trip, we had excellent guides and were fully pleased with the tours we took. For the Vienna to Salzburg portion of our trip through the Wachau Valley, we did not receive the guided tour with a Driver-Guide, but instead had a driver only, which was a disappointment, as the driver was not qualified and did not provide the kind of service a guide would have.

Our travel agent provided a refund for our missing out on this experience, and we were grateful for that. It was unclear who was responsible for this mistake, but it obviously should not have happened - though we received the funds in return, we lost that day and the experience it might have brought us.

We found the hotels in Budapest, Vienna and Salzburg to be excellent hotels. The hotel in Prague was, however, a disappointment. The room was clean and well cared for, but the bathroom was very small and there was no elevator to our floor. The hotel provided no complimentary water, as all other hotels did. The breakfast was OK, but unlike the other hotels, there was no food cooked to order available. The entrance to the hotel was flanked by 2 rollaway garbage cans that were picked up at 6 am each day, which wasn't an especially nice way to be awakened. Moreover, one of the nights that we returned to the room, there was a homeless gentleman who was going through the garbage, which was concerning, as we had to enter the door alone. There was no one at the reception desk in the evening, nor a bellman or other employee in that building. When we pointed this out to our agent, when he kindly met with us, his response was that this hotel received a 9.1 rating on bookings.com, so it was acceptable for him. We respectfully disagree on its suitability, for the reasons outlined above.

Finally, we believe that for what we received for our approximately $1,400 per night, the tour was overpriced. We had no meals provided besides the breakfasts each morning and a food tour one day in Vienna. While the hotels, with the exception of the first hotel, were nice, they were not the quality we would have expected for such a daily price.

We did not find our travel company to respond consistently through WhatsApp, but when we used the email that routed through Zicasso, our agents were responsive. When we spoke to our agent's assistant by phone and when we met with our main agent at the end of the trip, we ended up in verbal disagreements that could have been handled with better customer service. I would not characterize the interactions as customer friendly.

Overall, we enjoyed most of this trip and were glad we made the journey to those great cities. I would not recommend our travel company.

We have used Zicasso - associated tour companies for 5 vacations besides this one, and all the other operators were amazing, so this appears to be an unusual circumstance.

We had a fabulous trip to Budapest and Croatia! Zicasso’s travel agency set up a wonderful itinerary and every transfer was on time, every guide (except for one) was well-versed in the region and informative, and the accommodations were unique and exactly what we were looking for. They also did a great job tracking the weather and re-arranging the schedule when a day on the boat would have been very unpleasant.

They went above and beyond to retrieve my husband’s passport when he accidentally left his passport at one of the hotels. They made arrangements for its return such that it did not interrupt our itinerary. 

We had one bad experience with a guide (it was just a one-hour tour in Montenegro). We were going to let the tour company know when we got home. Instead, the driver alerted the tour company. The tour company reached out immediately with apologies and arranged with the hotel for us to receive a complimentary bottle of wine from them at dinner.

My only suggestion would be for a little more communication up front. They answered every question and everything worked out great; I’m just used to a couple more phone calls in advance when working with Zicasso.