Full day shore excursion to Florence and Pisa from Livorno with tasting

Great tour for the price, the tour guide explained about where we visited on the bus. We had free time to explore on our own.

A comfortable bus and great guide, I cannot remember her name but it was the tour on July 31st. We enjoyed Florence and Pisa and some good information along the ride. She kept everybody on time so we had no worries about making it back to our ship on time.

we were given some info and highlights in Florence then advised that we had 2 hours to look around on our own. same format in pisa for 40 minutes.

A big thank you to Alessandro who was our guide in Florence and Pisa. My traveling companion said his name was Alexander but the card from Shore Emotion said Alessandro. What a wonderful, fun-loving guy who was very patient with 3 older ladies. One of my companions fell after getting off the bus so she was in no shape to do a walking tour of Florence so my two companions were left in front of one of the Cathedrals that had plenty of shopping and restaurants to enjoy while I enjoyed a personal tour with Alessandro who escorted me all over Florence and gave me all the history of the area. Pisa was our next stop with hail and rain but it did not dampen our spirits. I really got some wonderful photos of sunny Florence and rainy Pisa. A big "Thank You" for our wonderful experience on our tour and wish you a lifetime of happiness to you and your new bride!

First of all, let me say that every person on the bus had the same impression I did about what this tour entailed. That is, a guide taking you round the sights of Florence and Pisa, with those little headsets on so that you can hear them properly, and giving you information about what you're seeing. That's NOT what this tour is, despite the fact that it says it's fully guided! When we disembarked at Florence, we had to take a port bus to the meeting point, which cost 5 Euros for a return journey. The bus dropped us off right at the meeting point, and the guides were clearly visible. We did have to wait around 40 minutes because one of the guests was late, which of course meant we had 40 minutes less in Florence! On the coach, we were given some information about Florence but I have to admit that it was hard to stay awake for this. I had expected the coach journey to be around an hour, but it took 1 hour and 40 minutes. When we arrived in Florence, we had to walk about 20 minutes to the starting point. Apparently this is because the coaches can't stop anywhere right in the centre. I'd therefore suggest you consider a small group tour as the smaller buses can then take you in closer. The itinerary had said we'd have a tasting of a cookie in the market after doing the city tour. However, we did the tasting first, and instead of the market, we went to a small restaurant. They considered this an upgrade as instead of just a cookie, you got to taste Tuscan red wine and 2 small dishes (Pappa Al Pomodoro and Panzanella). I didn't consider this an upgrade though as I'd wanted to see the market and I don't drink wine! The guide then took us to the meeting point, just outside the duomo. He told us we had 2 hours to explore and he'd meet us back there. As lots of people had complained about the fact it should be guided, he did take people around some key sights. However, as he wasn't expecting to do this, he wasn't prepared with information, and without the headsets, I couldn't hear him. We therefore decided to just explore on our own. I can't give you the detail of what we did because there aren't enough characters allowed, but you won't be able to go inside any buildings or museums as you don't have enough time given the long queues. It was a 20 minute walk back to the bus, then a 1hr 20min drive to Pisa, followed by 15 min walk. Again, you don't have enough time to go into buildings/climb the tower really.

This was a very good tour with plenty of time to visit Florence and a chance to see the Leaning Tower in Pisa. Alice was very organized and very informative of the history and what was happening. She did a great job keeping track of everyone and got us back to our ship in plenty of time. The only thing I would caution is there really isn't much of a tasting. The portions of food were okay but the wine was barely a swallow, hardly enough to even tell what you were drinking. Overall a good way to sample the two cities.

Karl was great and this tour was fantastic. You get the opportunity to see the city and learn form someone who has lived there and knows there way around. The food was very good and the wine of course is also. This is a nice way to learn about the city and the people who live there not only in Genoa but the area. We had four people on our tour and they all had a great time.