I was not sure about the tour but I thoroughly enjoyed the tour. My fellow travelers were really great and easy to get on with. My tour leader was Luke Watson and I cannot fault him at all for the tour as he was quite knowledgeable with his narrations about the upcoming destinations. Also, I have back issues and he was great with making sure that I was comfortable with the walking and would encourage me to take it further. Paulo, our bus driver was the best with his driving skill and his kindness.
Choosing Expat was a great decision. I was a bit apprehensive when I first booked our trip because I did not know much about them, but after the 18 day Europe explorer I am so happy that we made the right decision. We saw everything we expected and a whole lot more. Our tour leader Kevin was great. Nothing was too much trouble and he went out of his way to accommodate every request that was made. He was an absolute pleasure. We have done a few tours with other companies before but this was by far one of the best. Our driver Craig was also amazing. He is an absolute master behind the wheel and we never felt unsafe while he was driving.. Thank you Kev for combining Keukenhof with the other excursion in Amsterdam, this was by far my favourite part and would not have seen this if you did not make an effort for our group to see this amazing wonder. I have nothing negative to say at all. Well done Expat and thank you for making our holiday an unforgettable adventure.
The Christmas aspect of this tour was the cherry on top! Because there isn't much going on in a few of the countries the Christmas markets made each country even more interesting. The Christmas markets were amazing; we visited 11 Christmas markets, each country we visited had a Christmas market, extra on the Berlin because they still had their Christmas market open until Dec. 31st at 1 am. Also, being able to celebrate Christmas in the middle of the Baltic Sea on a ship with entertainment and dancing till 2:45 am in the morning was memorable! Overall tour leader and driver experience: Our tour leader Matt and driver Dennis were both impressive. Our driver Dennis was amazing! Everyone always marveled at how he maneuvered the bus and was impressed by his skills. I do get car sick and I usually can't sleep well on bus rides, but with Dennis driving, I never felt car sick and was able to sleep a majority of the time. And when we were in Berlin Matt talked about the Historical context and background of Berlin, he knew all the detailed facts. I thought he was reading out of a textbook. I am an International Relations student and my focus is on foreign affairs and policy analysis, so when I heard him talk about all the details I appreciated it. I learned all this from the perspective of the American University system, but being able to hear the European/German perspective was awesome. I appreciate his depth of knowledge because when we had the local tour guide in Norway she briefly talked about the 'Norwegian Petroleum Fund' I went up to her to ask her more questions because I wrote a policy analysis paper on it, but she actually didn't know much about it until I realized that I probably know more about it than she does. Overall, I didn't expect our tour leader to be well-versed in the realm of international relations and foreign affairs, but I really did appreciate the knowledge and information he shared. Thank you to both for an amazing experience!