For a naive guy like myself....I didn't realize the add-ons. For example....if you wanted a higher-class three-star hotel....it was another $50. If you wanted the wine tour on day two....it was $12. If you wanted the bullfight trip on day three, it was $35. The real tour....with everything added up, with food money and beverage funding....would have been closer to $300 for five days. That was 1995 costs.
So I signed up for the "trip to hell". The bus leaves on Friday night at midnight. Half the folks meeting up at the pick-up site....had an abundance of wine and booze. So they drank heavily for the first three hours, and the bus didn't quiet down until 3AM. Naturally two or three folks got sick.....threw up either in the aisle or in the bathroom of the bus. That funny smell that lingered? Well....you just had to get used to that.
Along about 7AM, we were deep into France and stopped at some roadside gas station cafe. You had to pay in French money....but they'd accept German marks or US dollars.....it's just that the exchange rate was lousy (as much as the food choice). I think I paid around five bucks for a Coke and a candybar.
Somewhere around 1PM on Saturday afternoon....roughly 13 hours into the trip....we finally started to enter the area. We stopped at the three-star hotel where everyone except me and two other folks....got off. It was a nice-looking hotel.
The bus drove on for half-a-mile and the tour lady dumped us at some corner, and we had to walk a hundred feet to our little hotel....a marginal two-star. The room consisted of one wood chair.....a crappy old bed (with a 15-year old mattress), a lamp, and a window which looked out onto another building (maybe five feet away). There was no AC, no air circulation, and I think the temp at 2PM was around 94 degrees.
Breakfast at the hotel consisted of one cup of coffee....two Spanish pastry items, and a couple pieces of fruit. A bottle of funny tasting water ran around a buck per bottle.
By the next morning....I'd come to realize this was a lousy trip. It only got worse.
The wine tour on the second day? Well.....they basically drove us around for 45 minutes in some rural area.....then dumped us at a local flea market for two hours. We mostly stood there....wondering what the heck we needed to do at some flea market. When they picked us up....we were all fairly thirsty. So onto the wine tour. Basically.....we got some ticket to enter the place, and sip little small shot glasses for an hour. They expected us (Americans) to buy two or three bottles of wine after we'd tasted some. Well.....we mostly took to a shot-a-minute strategy.....tasting around sixty wines in sixty minutes. Even with a shot-glass....you can get pretty loaded....if you briskly march through the place. It's safe to say that most of the tour group was fairly loaded after leaving the wine tour.
Day three? Some trip to the Barcelona bull fight stadium. It was around 95 degrees, and the key word of advice as we got off the bus.....be here twenty minutes after the last bull fight.....or we leave you behind. Well...I got separated from the group, got there at twenty-four minutes after the fight, and missed the dang bus. I then learned that most Spaniards don't speak English, and you need know where the local train station is.....to get back to the hotel (forty miles away).
By mid-morning on the fifth day....we were done and on the bus. Several folks were heavily sun-burned and suffering terribly. Some folks had gotten into love arguments with their beloved while on the tour, and weren't willing to sit with them on the way back.
My funds? Well....I pretty much spent every single penny I had on me, and kinda wondered where the money went.
Why this comes up now? Well....the spring bus travel booklets are coming out, and I ended up with a bus tour package in my mailbox. I naturally surveyed the package and found this neat tour to Costa Brava. The cost? 229 Euro (roughly $300, twice what I paid in 1995). The extras? Oh, they put them in there and let you know.
The deal? Well....you can only get a three-star hotel. I guess the tour guys learned it's best not to even offer a two-star deal. So, what you get? The hotel for four nights, a full-up breakfast for each day, a dinner each evening, and some option tours (which all cost money). You can figure....for five days....you need to spend a total of 500 Euro (for the travel package, beverages, food, and tour-options). That basically covers five lousy days on a bus tour. That's around $650....or double what it was in 1984.
Part of me would like to go back to Costa Brava....because of lessons learned (I'd skip all the optional tours). Part of me says it'd be awful foolish to ever step on a five-day bus tour ever again. The crazy thing? It's probably ten bucks now at a French rest stop for a lousy Coke and a candy bar.
No comments:
Post a Comment