Travel Tip – Always Pre-Book Your Tour
Before departing to your destination we recommend you pre-book your tours with us. Look over our tours with a cup of coffee – at home, Starbucks or Tim Horton’s, or read it over a glass of wine and decide on your day at a Chianti winery thereby not “wasting” your precious vacation time sifting through the many tours offered when you arrive at your hotel. You will have prepaid vouchers with Boutique Escapes including the meeting location, start time and emergency contact numbers all before you leave North America. Book your tour before you leave and spend your time visiting the areas you paid to visit!
Hotels – Location, Location, Location!
We believe the location of your hotel is of utmost importance to experience a city. When you book a Boutique Escapes hotel and we tell you “you are in the heart or core of the city” – you are within a 10 – 20 min (or less in some cases) walk to a major site. In our opinion being a 45 min walk away (to and from the heart) causing you to use the Metro or taxis, defeats the purpose if the intention for you was stay farther out to “save money” on the hotel room. In the end, adding up all the Euros spent “in transit” will end up costing you more money, defeating the purpose of saving money on your trip. We recommend you stay at a charming 3 star hotel in the heart of the city versus the big-box style 4 star near an airport or train station where typically rooms are less (based of course on location) – not wasting money being “in transit” or using your valuable vacation time “in transit” when you could have stepped outside your door for that immediate gratification of being in the heart of a classic European city. Live the charm and book a Boutique Escapes package! One taxi ride to and from a hotel / heart of the city can be the difference of staying in a great location – book with us and see why we have many, many repeat clients.
It really doesn’t matter where I stay, it is just for one night. Ever heard that one before? When staying for “just one night” it is even more important that you stay central. After all if you are jet-lagged or tired, what are the odds you will take a taxi or subway into an unknown center and just walk around, to find a place to eat? Probably not good – you will eat in the hotel and miss the flavor of the European city visited.
We want you to have restaurants, sites and the aura of a city at your finger tips. Whether the Latin Quarter in Paris, the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Las Ramblas in Barcelona or the Plakka in Athens – if you aren’t within a relatively easy walking distance chances are you probably won’t venture there once you’re had a full day touring or wandering the city. What a shame! Every city has a core where locals and tourists gather to enjoy the evening – these sites are within the immediate core – where your Boutique Escapes hotel is. Experience these areas at night when they come alive with people milling about, walking hand in hand and strolling to sit by Notre Dame or throw their coin into the Trevi Fountain….not to mention – the sites look completely different when illuminated in the evening – giving yet another perspective to Europe’s major monuments….the following sites illuminated are outstanding in the evening: Eiffel Tower, Paris Opera Garneir, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Blue Mosque Istanbul, Parthenon, Houses of Parliament & Big Ben, Budapest’s bridges over the Danube and the list goes on.
Boutique Escapes includes most taxes – in some cities room tax cannot be prepaid and you will have a small charge (Euro 3 – 6 per person per night) when you arrive or you check out. Some countries, such as Italy, do not include the daily tax with their room rates. As for breakfast, most of the time breakfast is included with our rate – again no surprises when you check out. Most internet hotel booking sites do not include breakfast and run you from E12 to E28 per day per person. Little things like paying taxes or paying for breakfast where you thought it was included make for a bad experience at the end of a holiday.
Remember – whenever you hang your hat – that’s your home!