Ciao Italy Tours Reviews 

Another amazing trip for my clients in the books.
Thank you Stefania and Guido for your patience and diligence on my clients' trip to Italy.

From the clients:
"Good morning from Rome, the hotel is awesome. The trip to Naples and Pompeii were a hit!!! The guide Maximo was fantastic. Thank you for arranging the trip which is going great so far" .

I recommend Ciao Italy greatly!!!!!

As a travel agent, it is not always what I can do for my travelers, but the support I receive from Stefania and Ciao Italy! My travelers would not have had the experience without Stefania's careful attention to detail and making sure everything was perfect for a large family! See their comments!
"Thanks so much for everything. It was a trip of a lifetime and one we will remember forever. The hotel in Rome is super swank. Also the business class on the trains, and all the airport transfers have been seamless and easy. This trip has just been amazing. Thank you."

Our travel agent put us in touch with Ciao Tours. Everything was great and would absolutely use them again. Great tour guides!

I love working with Stefania to put together wonderful trips for our clients. Always professional and attentive!

Please, you absolutely knew I was not happy. I just didn’t get to this because I’ve been busy moving. A dinner with friends last night where we were discussing this trip triggered me to get back to it. And for the record, that gondola ride in Venice never showed up. Just one more item I could have mentioned. There are others. Also I never, ever discussed budget restrictions with you.

Where do I start...

My wife and I and my two daughters book a trip with this outfit to Venice, Florence, Rome and Positano. Big$$$

Be warned these guys are a tour booking company " NOT" a travel agent. They can't even book flights on their own. They use some travel agent to do that. What does that mean? It means they have no concept of how to organize a trip to make it convenient and enjoyable. Their goal is the sell your tours.

1) I make it more than perfectly clear that I wanted the best accommodations. Now I understand a 5 star hotel in Italy is not quite like 5 star hotels in major US cities. Not even close I understand that. But while I was booked in 4 to 5 star hotels, I was given the absolute lowest class room the hotels could offer. In Venice we our one window overlooked the canal between two buildings maybe 10 ft. apart. With added benefit of being the location where the garbage was thrown out every morning onto barges. Room booked was so small I could pass the bed without squeezing sideways. No way we would fit in there with luggage. Needless to say I had to upgrade at an additional cost. In Florence we had to do the same. In Rome the hotel was at least a little more modern, but my daughters had a room where the shower was open to the room in front of the bed! In Positano we stayed in a beautiful hotel on the beach that overlooked the ocean, but of course our rooms faced a side street and building and again over the area where they flung bags of bottles from the restaurants onto the garbage trucks from 10 ft. high at 3:00 AM. every day. Remember..., save money for tours...

2) Transfers / Transportation

Remember there are 4 of us, 3 woman with luggage for 13 days, plus carry on. These geniuses have us traveling on what is basically a commuter train from city to city! You get dropped in the station and told to watch the board for your train Dragging your luggage around. You are on your own getting your luggage to the car your booked in. We had to fling the luggage from the platform onto the train, hoping it wouldn't start pulling out. These trains are not designed for travelers with luggage. There is nowhere to store luggage except i small overheads designed for brief cases. Image asking 60 year old's and two young girls to hoist 50 lb. bags on to overheads! I called to complain and ended u paying another $2k+ for private transportation. Keep in mind I was already in for $30k to these guys.

3) The tours, the many tours, the too many tours.

These tours are individually booked. For most, no one is picking you up at the hotel. You are on you own finding the meeting places. You get instructions like "meet at the small wooden booth near the post office in St Marks Square". St Marks Square is huge. Plus your dropped by bot nowhere near it. So first, find St Marks Square, the this wooden box. It took 45 minute s of wandering around to find it. Amazing, no one in Italy seems to know where anything is.

The walking tours are endless and exhausting. These guys see no issue in booking 2 in one day. One all day tour in Tuscany started with one of the endless walking tours in Sienna, some other thing and then a tour of a vineyard with dinner. Between these activities there are several 30 to 45 minute cramped van rides. By the time we got to the vineyard it was dark. What could you possible see in the dark in the hills of Tuscany. We needed flashlights just to move around without killing ourselves. Now its around 8:30 and we haven't eating since breakfast. Dinner was a small bowl of fennel and some cheese and bread served family style. We were starving. Again here the goal is to sell you wine, nothing else. We get dropped back around 11:30 at the tour office in the middle of nowhere with no way to get back to the hotel. 12:30 before we made our way back only because the tour driver was kind enough to take us back. After this ordeal Ciao has us booked at 8:15 AM for another tour! This tour said "meet" at 8:15" at another obscure location that the cab driver had trouble finding. We manage to get there at 8:20 only to find the tour left! Where does "meet" mean "we leave"? we managed to call the local tour company who told us "oh your can meet them at the museum, it's only a 1/2 hour walk! All the tours were like that, no consideration of our time or how inconvenient it would be. Just book, book, book. In Positano we gave up and just didn't go anymore. A lot more to that story, I continue on another day.

My travel agent partnered with Ciao Italy to help with our summer vacation to Rome. It was a wonderful experience with timely drivers (in very clean and comfortable cars) and a lovely hotel in central Rome. Highly recommend!

Guido at Ciao Italy made our first trip to Italy go seamlessly perfect! All we had to do was show up! The Amalfi Coast driving tour with our driver, Marco, was absolutely incredible with the most breath taking views! We cannot wait to book another trip!

As a travel agent it is very important that I work together with an exceptional agent who represents their company with pride and excellence. When I had a request from a client, a grandmother and her grandson traveling to Italy in May, I contacted Ciao Italy and worked with Flavia again. Together we provided my clients with a wonderful trip to Florence, Rome, Naples, Sorrento and Capri. It would be nice if everything went smoothly, but for the minor issues that came up, Flavia was able to assist my clients with answers to their inquiries. My clients returned with precious memories of their vacation time in Italy!

Margie from The Travel Shoppe

A great opportunity to see other areas that are further away from the city of Florence. Took this day excursion to Pisa ,Siena, San Gimignano with lunch included at a local vineyard! All in all it was a lovely day full of wonderful scenery, beautiful buildings and was very well organised from start to finish by our friendly guides .Although a long trip (11) hours the time flew by very quickly. A really good way to see the joys of Tuscany at your leisure. Would definitely recommend this company.

Ciao Italy planned and organized a seamless trip for my luxury clients. Stef was a pleasure to work with, and very patient with the many requests my clients had. She went above and beyond to help make their trip perfect. I can't wait to work with Stef again.

We had a truly wonderful experience. Ciao Italy made all the details of our trip come to fruition. I appreciated the ease of having a driver meet us at our hotels, our guides were so knowledgeable and friendly, and I truly did not have to worry about how we would get to our destinations, purchase tickets, and get the most out of our visit. They took the daunting task of planning a trip out of the country by providing insights and suggestions to make our trip lovely and never left us stranded or unclear on where to go. One of the things I appreciated the most was being accompanied by a guide, making sure we were not lost, and insuring we made it where we needed to go on time. Additionally, they worked really well with my local travel planner; they listened to the places and things I wanted to see and then they took care of all of the details to make sure they happened. It was a true pleasure to have an individual local guide show us their country and provide insights and answer questions along the way. I have already recommended them to many friends that are contemplating traveling to Italy. Many thanks for an epic trip!

Stefania was AMAZING and so very responsive to all my question and many changes, some even during my client's travels. Thank you for all the hard work to make my client's trip the best ever!

Nancy and Renee - we would like to thank you for arranging our amazing family trip to Italy. Our introduction to Rome and Florence could not have been better, the hotels and places we visited exceeded our expectations. You were always available to answer my numerous inquiries. This was our first international trip as well as using a travel agency, I could not have been happier with the service provided. We hope to travel again to Italy and will surely be in touch with you.

Just finished a 10 day trip in Italy. We used Ciao drivers and tour guides almost every day. Every single one of them was fantastic. They were prompt, fun, friendly and so knowledgeable! We can't wait to go back and we will definitely be using Ciao! Thank you!

I would highly recommend CIAO Italy tours to anyone. Our trip to Italy was amazing!! Rome, Florence, Venice every city has its own beauty!! All transfers, all hotels, all tour guides were phenomenal!! The transfer drivers and tour guides were dependable prompt and polite. Very clean vans with great drivers even including water for us to drink and always willing to go an extra mile as well as all the tour guides. We never felt rushed while on our tours and very accommodating to our needs. Each tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and kind. Skipping the long lines at each site was huge. The hotels were fantastic as well. Great locations clean comfortable with outstanding staff at each hotel. CIAO tours made this trip of lifetime so seamless they deserve a 10!!!

What can I say, but that the Italian vacation by Caio Italy tours was phenomenal. From start to finish. Every detail from the hotel accommodations and restaurants were impeccable. Our transportation and schedules for tours were as promised. That was a big concern of mine. This allowed me to feel stress free and enjoy every moment. Our vacation was a magnificent as I hoped it would be. Kudos to my agent, Donna for making it all happen for me and my fiancé. Looking forward to my honeymoon vacation with Caio Italy Tours next year. PS I had the best cooking class ever and Positano. Be sure not to miss it. Cira LaFauci

I'm so happy that I found transportation for my group (24 people) in Italy. Ciao Italy was the perfect company. They are professionals in many aspects like punctuality and keeping you informed of the schedule. The comfort and quality of the bus was so important so we can feel our body relax from a 9 hours flight to arrive to Venice. The drivers were experts in the ability to drive in narrow streets and very polite. I strongly recommend this company.

I am a travel agent. I worked with Stefania at Ciao Italy to create a customized tour of Rome, Venice, & Florence for my client. Shortly before departure, my client's sister decided to join her. Stefania quickly made adjustments to include her sister. Every request I had for Stefania was answered quickly. My clients were amazed at everything about the tour-hotels, tours, transfers. Thanks Stefania & Ciao Italy! I look forward to working with you again.

If I could give Ciao Italy 10 stars I would! 9 days in Puglia. Private driver, private tours and the best hotels. Everything was beyond perfect from mozzerella classes to a private 34’ sailboat sailing around Gollipoli Everything was perfectly timed and the tour guides were very personable and informative This trip was above our expectations.

I wanted to plan a special trip for my wife’s 50th birthday and Ciao Italy made sure everything was absolutely perfect!!!
All the special tours they recommended were spectacular….the Vatican tour, The Colosseum tour, our private boat ride to Capri (her favorite), our driver for the day to see the whole Amalfi Coast was incredible and our drivers to and from the airport were on point!!!
Thank you Ciao Italy for your expertise, you take so much pride in your work and it shows!!!

Grazie Mille,
Thomas e Teresa