Lunch on Private Tours in Europe

[vb,cruisers]

Just wondering.......When you hire a private tour guide in Europe, and you want to stop for lunch, are you responsible for buying lunch for your guide?

[sail7seas]

Maybe you wouldn't strictly be 'responsible' to buy lunch for your guide, but DH and I definitely would.

Others may disagree but that is what we would do/have done.

[san diego sue]

On our private tours, we invited the guide to join us for lunch(we were going to pay), but they declined. One in Florence said he needed to stay with the van, In Monte Carlo our guide said he didn't eat lunch.
I think they like to give us the private time. We did tip them well after the tours.
San Diego Sue

[RuthC]

The guide might also want a bit of down-time from you. No offense, but the guide is working, and we all like our breaks from work.

[mountainmare]

We also invite our guide to join us and the guides have always declined. I agree with RuthC, I think they want some downtime. I think it polite to make the offer, but don't be surprised when they refuse.

[beamteam]

In Turkey our guide owned the restaurant we stopped at for lunch. It was fantastic but he ate with his friends.

[herbshopgirl]

Same here, we offer and all but one has declined. I agree with Ruth C, they probably just want some downtime. It also gives us some time to
recap how the day is going.
We did have one guide in the Shetland Islands that ate with us and we had a great time. We were happy to buy her lunch.

[leoandhugh]

Add us to the group that always offers to buy their lunch; they more often than not decline but we feel we have done what we feel is proper:)

[vb,cruisers]

Thank you for the responses.......I do agree. I would not feel right not offering lunch....to me it would be rude.

[carosave]

I agree--it does seem rude not to offer lunch to the guide, and do expect to do it when we have arranged private tours.

Just be aware, you may be inviting, as we did, a so-so guide who may dine as though it is his/her own dime :o! We had planned a couple of winery stops, with a lunch. As the arranger, I must take responsibility for perhaps not making it clear what we meant by a "quick lunch", as it ended up being a 3.0 hour, 50 Euro minimum a plate lunch, plus a few bottles of wine (at approx. $100 a bottle!!). It was a classic example of inviting the guide and not being aware of what we invited him to! The driver, though, did not eat with us--we had about 8 in our group.