Play & Pause: Central Europe Highlights 2024

Great way to see alot on a time constraint.

All in all, great trip! The only downside is the selection of accommodation that could be improved.

Although I would have loved to have some more time in Austria, all the places we visited were amazing and the top deck team ensured that we made the most of our time and that we were well informed as to where to go and what to do

The trip fitted its purpose - it was a taste of a range of different cultures and countries. It was incredible how much we could experience in such a short period of time

A good mix of countries on one trip without feeling rushed.

Europe was of course amazing, no complaints there – amazing cities, incredible food and a lovely experience. The Topdeck tour, however, felt like it was designed to mess with us and ensure that no one ever did a tour with Topdeck again. There were three key issues: 1) the trip leader; 2) the impossible to follow itinerary; and 3) the quality and location of some of the hotels. 1 - The trip leader, Christian, had never done a tour with Topdeck before or this kind of tour and it really showed. He didn't really seem to understand his role and it felt like he thought he was doing us all a favour when he did the most basic of trip leader tasks. He refused to use the Topdeck app to communicate important info, and instead made everyone to download facebook so he could communicate via a facebook page and was snarky when people asked for clarification or information that he had already posted on there (even if he had forgotten to post it). Given that many people didn't have internet reception when they weren't in hotels (e.g. while on the bus) it was extremely unhelpful and as a group we were heavily reliant on each other for figuring out what was happening and when. The bus driver, Danny, also filled in a lot of the gaps when Christian failed to provide any info on where we needed to be and when. Instead of helping Danny out when things went wrong (e.g. the bus needed a spare part or traffic meant Danny needed to find a rest stop to comply with EU driver time laws), Christian left it to the tour participants to provide the support and assistance and often just slept through bus trips with his headphones on. He was also incredibly rude in chastising everyone for not being on time for getting back on the bus (even when it was because people were still waiting in toilet queues or had stomach problems) despite the fact that half the time it was him we were waiting for. Early in the trip he chastised us all for not being on time to the tower in Paris the night before, even though he hadn't told us any particular time to be there. Overall communication and planning was an utter mess - planning of activities was often left to the last minute so split second decisions had to be made about activities we had no detail on. We had to pay for all activities in cash, and didn’t always have the right currency if we on the way to that country and the tour leader wasn’t provided with change or a company credit card. Apparently the system meant that if someone opted in to an activity and pulled out, the tour leader would be financially liable and it would come out of his pocket. Activities were poorly timed and organised – e.g. the Paris bike tour group was told the wrong place to meet and then the bike tour had to be cut short so people could make it to the Seine cruise on time. We often regretted booking activities through topdeck and not just organising them ourselves. Christian took no responsibility for any errors and kept trying to pass the blame onto us as the tour participants, or Topdeck as a separate entity (despite people pointing out to him that he was our Topdeck rep and representing the company). 2 – The impossible to follow itinerary – I don’t know if other tours actually manage to get places on time and it was just a problem our tour had, but the way the itinerary is written and advertised sounds like you arrive in most cities mid-afternoon and have a chance to explore a bit before dinner. In most cases we arrived in cities in the evening and walking tours that were supposed to happen that day had to be postponed to the next day. We arrived in Austria too late, in part due to extreme traffic, so four people missed out on paragliding and the canyoning trip was changed to a shorter course. Apparently most groups leave for Austria an hour earlier than we did and Christian had been debating leaving another a whole hour later – it was unclear whether Topdeck had given Christian a clear schedule to follow or he was just told to wing it. It blew my mind that our trip leader was not legally allowed to give tours in Italy, despite guided tours with the trip leader being in the itinerary for Rome and Venice. It meant we had strange and tense half-***** tours where most info was delivered in strange alleyways, and seems like a major failing on the part of Topdeck. Overall the whole trip felt rushed with short pockets of time to explore cities and full days on the bus for sometimes 12-14 hours. We were never given a clear overview of what to expect in a day (the PDF wasn’t much help as scheduled activities rarely fit in on the travel days and it didn’t include timing), so generally we tried to piece things together ourselves and it always felt a little off balance like we were going to miss a deadline we weren’t told about. 3 – Quality and location of hotels – I just don’t even know where to start. It became a running joke among the group how terrible all the showers were – if you got a bathroom where the shower head was attached to the wall and the room didn’t flood while you showered, it was cause for celebration. Some of the hotels were surprisingly lovely (e.g. Austria), others were well below our already low expectations (e.g. Rome). The hotel in Florence very far out of town right by the airport. Several others were so far from city centres we had to take taxis to get anywhere – please include other transport costs in your budget. Public transport tickets were provided in a couple of cities, but they were usually 2x one-way trips worth provided on the second day in a city and often it was hard to coordinate collecting them from the tour leader. The fact that many hotels refused to give out two plastic key cards for rooms that were being shared by two people who had just met on the trip was absurd. The idea that people should have to coordinate their plans with their roommate was completely inappropriate. In Switzerland one guy couldn’t get into his room at 1am or so because his roommate had fallen asleep and the hotel reception wasn’t staffed. Christian chastised the guy who had fallen asleep and tried to get the whole bus to hate on him like that was an unreasonable thing to do in your own hotel room in the middle of the night. Christian was also very resistant to the idea that hotels ever give out two room keys and did little to advocate for us. Most of the double rooms booked were two single beds pushed together, which is largely fine, though one in Rome was two single beds with separate sheets and doonas and different height mattresses. The hotel claimed they didn’t have any double beds at all and then agreed that they just didn’t have any available and eventually put new sheets on the beds so they at least kind of functioned like one bed. Importantly, Danny the bus driver was great. He was lovely and absolutely went out of his way to make it a great trip for us all, provide info where it was lacking, and answer questions happily and without complaint.

Christian, our tour leader, had no idea. He would read a little script before giving a speal on a new town and sometimes that info was wrong. He slept and used the toilet all the time on the bus and sometimes it was up to us passengers to help the bus driver when a few things went wrong. Early on I asked Christian where it would be good to do washing on the trip ie convenient/reasonable priced. When in Switzerland after seeing the note in the room he told me it could be done there. This was only a couple days in, expensive and we all saw the note in our room. Similiarly from head office they overlooked a few things - training Chrisitian, having at least a few hotels along the way with close/reasonably priced laundry facilities. Most of the motels were terrible and not at all as advertised, sometimes quite a distance out of town so we needed public transport or taxi to get home which was expensive, only 1 key per room which was bad for travellers who had been partnered up, shower heads not attached to the walls, no shower screens/curtain, not terribly clean ect. There was no real thought from head office into how long travel actually takes and there was no time allowed if things happened eg accidents or traffic jams (which happened on multiple days). We were always late getting into a town (we had a great bus driver it wasn't his fault) this meant we didn't really get dinner in Paris as we had to dump our bags and get to the tower for the views, in Austria people missed out on the paragliding as we couldn't get there with enough time, in Amsterdam those going to the sex show got their keys first so they got dump their bags and go yet some still got left behind and just generally we were pushed and rushed on arrival in each city. Even though the itinery said we would arrive and explore the new city in the afternoon, we never got in before dinner time. We were rushed into a club in florence and all got angry and walked out as it was our first night in Italy and wanted to eat Italian, not American. This I believe was because he was friends with the owner of the club. The tour was way to rushed and not at all like it was marketed!!! I knew it would be a lot of travel and might be a bit rushed but nothing like what it was. I have done many tours and this was by far the worst.