Perfect Luxury Austria Vacation for Seniors

The trip was operationally well planned and the coordination with Zicasso's travel agency was generally very good. Their proposal was significantly more expensive than the competing proposal, so I guess I expected a bit more. I would give it 4.25 or 4.5 stars if the rating system was bit more nuanced.

A few things were sub-optimal. On our first morning, the guide contacted the agent to tell them that they would pick us up at 10am (or at least that is what the guide told us), but our itinerary indicated 9am. At 9.15am, we called the agency and they called us back about five or 10 minutes later to tell us about the new 10am time. Not a great start.

That guide and the one in Munich were what I would describe as average guides – knowledgeable, but without much personality. The guide in Salzburg was outstanding.

From an organization perspective, we went to Salzburg from Lucerne, Switzerland, passing Innsbruck on day four, then trained it back to Innsbruck the very next day, basically adding four hours of driving/training for no real reason. We could have just stayed in Innsbruck on day four and then gone to Salzburg on day five and not backtracked.

Lastly, the hotel in Munich was very dated and the whole feel of the place was drab, including the decor and the lobby.

All that said, the operational people were very responsive and just about every leg happened right on time and the guides were organized. I never heard from the lady who organized it after I booked it, which I told her was odd, especially since I thought a trip to Italy, their specialty, was on the cards for my larger group that I had been with in Ireland the week before this trip.

So, all in all, a good trip, but not a great trip. I am not sure I would use our travel company again, but I have not landed firmly on that just yet.

Thanks, Greg S.

This travel company handled all the arrangements for our trip to Austria and Switzerland in August. I'll focus here mainly on the Austria segment, because they needed to handle much more for us in that segment.

We spent 6 days in Vienna, and 1 in Salzburg. The travel company booked us into the most amazing hotel in Vienna. It was in the older part of Vienna, very central and easy to walk to all the major sights, but on a very quiet street - exactly what we had hoped to get!  The rooms were suites - sparkling clean, comfortable and modern, and the breakfasts were amazing! 

We also booked 2 tours through them - one was a Vienna highlights tour, including entry into Schoenbrunn Palace. The other tour was a Vienna Woods tour. Our tour guide and our driver, who also did the transfers, were absolutely wonderful. Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and gave us great historical and cultural insights we would not have got by ourselves. For both our tours, we actually continued on by ourselves from where we ended the tour (Schonbrunn Palace and Baden respectively) and our agent made sure to tell us how to get back to our hotel. Our driver was terrific all round, and specially helpful on the transfer to the train station, where he showed us how to decode the wagon locations location so we had no trouble with all our other segments in Vienna and Switzerland from there on. He actually waited an hour with us at the train station for the Vienna-Salzburg segment to make sure we had no trouble.

The hotel in Salzburg was also wonderfully central and had a lot of charm, with an amazing breakfast. We did only self-guided touristing that day, but had an efficient and on-time transfer to the train station the next day on our way to Switzerland.

In Switzerland we stayed in Lauterbrunnen for 4 days and in Weggis on Lake Luzern for 3 days. Our hotel in Weggis was amazing, and here again all the train travel and transfers were very efficient and on time. We did not have any guided tours in Switzerland, since we were focused on hiking amidst all the scenic splendors, and there is a wealth of information on hiking trails and how to get to them available online.

I would highly recommend this company for travel to Austria and Switzerland. 

(My sole caveat, unrelated to the travel company, is to go with hotels, not privately owned apartments, as we did in Lauterbrunnen, where we had hosts from hell, who were as inhospitable as it is possible to be.)

Our 12-day trip to Vienna, Salzburg, Hallstatt, Bratislava, and Budapest was planned carefully. All accommodations were excellent and within walking distance of sightseeing attractions and restaurants. All in all, we enjoyed the trip very much and thank our Zicasso travel partner for making this vacation a reality.

Both of our tour operators kept in touch with us throughout the trip and provided updates as needed. It was comfortable to know someone was monitoring our progress.

We thank the folks at our European travel agency for a great two-week trip through Austria and Switzerland.

Prior to preparing an itinerary, our agent carefully asked us about our travel preferences. She then suggested interesting places and activities, and drafted an summary itinerary for our review. Upon our payment, the agency provided specific travel plans - trains, hotels, tours, other activities, restaurants, and music performances. The trip included a great mix of urban activities (tours, museums, city walks) and scenic activities (Alpine hikes, Ice Cave, cog-trains and Mt Pilatus)

All travel and connections went smoothly. Traveling by train was relaxing and scenic. Using public transportation (subways, buses, trams) allowed us to get a close sense of the specific cities and villages.  

Our agency took care of us by reserving: fine hotel rooms with great views and good locations; the best dinner tables at interesting restaurants; and good seats at music venues. The company arranged: superior-quality guides for private tours in Vienna and Salzburg; public tours in Melk, Ice Cave, Luzern, Innsbruck and Zurich; Danube River cruise and train tour; train tour up Jungfraujoch; cruise, train and gondolas at Mt Pilatus. Our days were filled with interesting activities.

As an extra touch, the agency provided us with the use of an iphone pre-loaded with maps and contact information for our hotels, restaurants and attractions. Our agent pleasantly checked in with us daily by text, and graciously offered help as needed. When we missed a train connection, we were able to promptly alert our agent, and she adjusted the transfers to our hotel. It was comforting to know if an issue would arise we could quickly contact our agency.

In summary, we highly recommend our agents at this compnay for travel in Germany and surrounding countries.