Artisanal Delights to Ancient Life: Luxury Classical Greece

We have traveled the world over for many years, but never have we encountered a travel agent with the skill sets and the attention to detail that our Zicasso trip planner possesses. As a resident of Athens and Crete, she is a guru on Greek culture and knows the very best hotels to stay in and the best places to visit for culture, natural beauty, history, and, of course, food. If you want ultimate luxury, this Zicasso travel partner is for you. Our accommodations in Athens, Santorini, and Crete were top-notch. Our private tour guides were supremely qualified and came with pleasant dispositions.

Our private yacht in Crete was amazing and our private catamaran in Santorini came with a crew that treated us like royalty and showed us the natural beauty of Greece up close and personal. But best of all was our visit to our agent's family farm in Crete, where we had dinner with her and her family, feasting on the fresh ingredients harvested from the farm. We even got to participate in making the meal. In short, it was as if we were members of her family, having a personal experience that was not like a vacation, but gave us a feeling of love and allowed us to truly understand Greek culture and what it is like to live in such a beautiful country with people who are devoted to family and country.

In short, we loved the trip to Greece and highly recommend our travel company to all travelers who not only want the best, but also want a person with a good heart who truly cares about her customers. We will use her services again.

From start to finish, our experience with Zicasso's travel expert was top-notch! To date, it was the best trip we have taken. After talking to our agent on the phone to get what type of trip we were looking for, she put together an itinerary that suited us perfectly. Our trip included Athens, Naxos, and Santorini. All of our vehicle transportation, in-country flights, ferries, hotels, and tour guides were planned out for us. All we had to do was show up. We enjoyed all the tours planned out for us and it kept us from wandering unknowingly into the tourist traps. I can't express enough what a wonderful experience we had, thanks to our agent's expertise. The trip was absolutely seamless!

The trip was fantastic. Zicasso's tour planner organized a great trip that allowed us to experience so much of Greece in two weeks. The cooking lesson and Cretan meal were highlights, allowing us to experience more of the local experience. The private tours were excellent and they managed to help navigate crowds/tour buses well.

When we first spoke and started planning this trip, it seemed like she understood exactly what we wanted for this trip. I explained the importance of quiet hotels, and she said that she understands how I feel, and in the same way. I also expressed that we were limited in time and wanted to make the most of what we had by seeing as much as possible. I explained that we like a full itinerary and expressed concern that we wanted to make sure there was going to be enough to do in Northern Greece. She seemed to understand me and reassured me, which is why we booked with her.

After we booked, things went terribly wrong. We felt that there was a distinct lack of communication on what we were paying for. We were never informed about the 2-hour time limitation on our private tour, that our hotel had to be changed after our deposit was placed, that our “food tour” would just be our guide buying a few items for us, and nothing other than a total price was provided. After looking at the price of the inclusions online, we are confused about where all of our money went. In the end, we were left feeling like we were given the "bait and switch" as the trip was marketed to us as the luxury vacation we asked for, but ended up being very different.

We have been on several luxury trips and this trip was far from the luxury of those previous trips. Several of our hotels were very noisy and we spent most of the trip sleep-deprived because of it. The few hotels that were quiet were quite small, and one even had to have the bed built into the wall to provide enough room. We also experienced several small issues such as door locks and TVs not working in our room or air conditioners draining onto our luggage, but those things can't be planned for. The "luxury" vehicle we were supposed to have was a spacious van, but had no air vents for the back seat, no cup holders, no armrests, only a hard bench seat in the back, and the “door open” light turned on every time we curved or turned left. This was made worse by the large amount of time that we were scheduled to spend in the vehicle. We felt like we spent more time driving around than anything else. This was made worse when we experienced backtracking during our trip. We travelled 1.5 hours to Metsovo and 1.5 hours back to our hotel from Metsovo. The very next morning we had to travel over an hour back the exact same way to go to Zagori. I understand that the driver is limited in his time; however, a quick search showed hotels right there in Metsovo with good reviews and similar prices to our hotel. This would have saved us hours of sitting in the car going back to Meteora. Also, during our private olive oil tour, the tour sent their driver to pick us up and take us back to our hotel, just to have our driver pick us up from our hotel and take us 30 minutes immediately back past the tour location. As pricing was not transparent, we have to assume that we paid additional for their driver to take us around when we were already paying for our driver to take us around. This felt like a waste of time and money.

Multiple days we were dropped off at remote hotel rooms with hours to spend and nothing but a restaurant nearby. If accommodations had been booked in more populated areas, we could have walked around the shops and seen more of Greece, but instead we were trapped in remote villages. We felt that this was poor planning and on one day in particular we missed an anticipated itinerary stop due to a tour being scheduled earlier in the day, which did not allow enough time for us to follow the itinerary. We were asked to leave the hotel earlier than normal that day and we drove 4 hours with only a short bathroom stop in order to make our tour on time. This resulted in us being dropped off at the hotel after our 2-hour tour in the middle of the afternoon (and it was the hotel with nothing around it).

When I expressed my concerns to our travel planner during our trip, it felt like she dismissed my concerns entirely and tried to blame the problems on anyone or anything other than herself. Later in the trip, we contacted her again as we didn't have a time for our dinner reservation and found out that she never booked it. I felt that she wasn’t very professional in responding to my feedback about how we felt the trip was not going well. In the end, it felt like she blamed our poor experience on everyone else, including us.