Koper, Slovenia - Roundabout Tours vs. Four Seasons Travel

Visiting Koper in September and looking to go to Lake Bled. Both offer tours with additional couple of stops that we can decide upon. Does anyone have experience with one or the other. Which should we choose? Currently Four Seasons is 75 euro higher for their total price than Roundabout.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Kathy

Did you ever get comments on Four Seasons? We're on the same cruise and trying to make arrangements while in Koper. Any suggestions on private guides and things to do / see while at this port would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Carrao,

This is my email string with Four Seasons in April ( start fm the bottom).

No one replied on the CC board. Our group of 8 booked with Roundabout, mostly because we would spend more time at Lake Bled.

Hi Kathy,

Thank you for your reply.

Yes the price is fixed regardless of the number of persons travelling.

The wifi hotspot is not 100% guaranteed, some of our minivans have this facility but some not. However, we will do our best to ensure that your minivan has this facility. Furthermore, we recommend that the tour participants take turns to use this to help maintain a reasonable internet speed and also use it only for short periods to check email etc. Otherwise the battery on the hardware device will run down too quickly.

Yes, we can custom make your tour so that you have adequate time to take a boat trip to see the island on Lake Bled. We would need to remove Ljubljana from the itinerary to make this feasible.

I hope that this helps.

Many thanks and kind regards,

Graeme.

On 2014-04-03 13:06, Kathy Lonidier wrote:

Hello Graeme,

Is the pricing of 395 euros for the tour regardless of the number of people? Would it be the same for 5 people? Will the luxury 8 passenger van have the wifi hotspot mentioned on the website?

Also, I would like to go to the church on the island in Lake Bled. I know that means removing something else.

Trying to get all information before presenting to the group the different options and tours.

Thanks,

Kathy

On Thursday, April 3, 2014, Four Seasons Travel, Slovenia. <info@4seasonstravelslovenia.com> wrote:

Dear Kathy,

Thank you for your private cruise/shore tour enquiry.

I am pleased to confirm that we have a luxury 8-seater minivan and an experienced English speaking driver/guide available for your private shore tour on 10th September 2014.

I can also confirm that the price of your private tour is 395.00 euros, working out at 49.00 euros per person for eight persons. If applicable, any entrance fees to visitor attractions during your tour are extra. All of our private tours can be custom made in consideration of your own preferences.

Whether your driver/guide is myself, my wife Helena, or one of my other colleagues, we can certainly guarantee a high standard of vehicle and a driver/guide who will be knowledgeable, informative, courteous and who will understand and speak good English language. We operate a maximum of just four minibuses on each shore tour day and our objective is to ensure that we keep our service standards consistently high. Please be assured that we will do everything we can to meet and exceed your expectations of our service delivery.

There are many tour options available but I would particularly like to recommend our most popular shore tour which is our combined Ljubljana, Lake Bled and Vintgar Gorge tour. The details of your tour itinerary would be as follows:

08:30 depart Port of Koper.

09:45 arrive Ljubljana City Centre (including a 60 minutes guided walking tour of the old town).

10:45 depart Ljubljana.

11:40 arrive Bled Castle* (entrance fees 8.00 euros per person, 40 minutes guided tour).

12:20 depart Bled Castle.

12:30 arrive Vintgar Gorge (entrance fees 4.00 euros per person, 45 minutes free time to explore the upper section of the gorge by foot).

13:15 depart Vintgar Gorge.

13:30 arrive in Lake Bled resort centre where you will enjoy some free time for a lakeside stroll or perhaps a quick lunch or coffee and cakes by the lake. .

14:15 depart Lake Bled.

16:00 arrive Port of Koper.

* Please be aware that at Bled Castle, there is a steep, cobbled footpath leading up to the castle entrance. This can potentially be unsuitable for persons with walking difficulties or a medical condition. At your request we can remove this from the itinerary and you can enjoy more free time in Bled.

There are many other tour combinations available so please let me know if you have some alternative preferences for inclusion in your custom built tour.

Other popular tour combinations include for example, Lake Bled & Vintgar Gorge, Postojna Caves & Predjama Castle, Postojna Caves & Ljubljana, Skocjan Caves & Piran, Goriska Brda (the 'Tuscany of Slovenia) & wine tasting. Please be aware that the entrance fees to visitor attractions such as Bled Castle, Vintgar Gorge, Škocjan Caves, Lipica, Postojna Caves and Predjama Castle are not included within our tour prices.

The booking and payment arrangements for your private cruise/shore tour are as follows:

Acting as the group leader, you will take full responsibility for confirming your booking and arranging the payments in two lump sums. We will please require a deposit payment of 200.00 euros to secure your booking. We have an account with PayPal which enables us to offer our clients a safe and secure internet payments facility. Once you have confirmed your booking intention we will email you via PayPal with a credit card payment request. PayPal will automatically provide you with a receipt for your payment and we will also email you again to confirm that your payment has been received. We do not charge any credit card handling fees, the credit card fees which we are charged by PayPal are covered by us.

Your balance payment of 195.00 euros should be paid in cash please on the day of your tour. Alternatively you can pay the full amount of 395.00 euros in advance if you would prefer.

For more details regarding our booking terms and conditions please use this link to our website. http://www.slovenia-transfers-tours.com/contact-us/payments-terms/

What are the meeting arrangements on the day and at what time will we be back in port?.

You will disembark the cruise ship on to the quayside and walk the short distance to a white marquee where the passport control is normally located. Proceed straight through and walk straight on past the main exit gate. You will come into a small area where there are a few souvenir stands and we will be waiting on your left hand side by the barriers which separate this area from the main road. We will be holding a sign with your name on it so that we can be easily recognised.

For the final part of your tour returning back to the cruise ship, we need to allow some contingency time for the journey back to the Port of Koper. We normally aim to arrive back in Koper no later than 90 minutes before your deadline for getting back on board (the deadline for boarding is normally 30 minutes before the ship is scheduled to depart). This would also allow you sufficient time to take a short walk around the old town of Koper which is located directly adjacent to where the cruise ships berth. We can provide you with some directions here at the time we drop you off at the quayside.

Finally, thank you again for making your enquiry. I realise that there is a lot of information here to digest but I hope that I have managed to proactively answer most of your questions at this stage.

If you have any further questions or you would like to confirm your booking intention, please come back to me again at your earliest convenience.

I very much hope that you will choose Four Seasons Travel for your cruise/shore tour when you visit Slovenia and I hope to hear from you again in the near future.

Many thanks and kind regards,

Graeme.

On 2014-04-03 06:43, Kathy Lonidier wrote:

Hello,

We will be visiting Koper on Wednesday, September 10, 2014 and would like information about possible excursions while in port that include Lake Bled and pricing. There are 8 of us in our group, but I\'m not sure everyone will participate. I\'ll know once I receive your information about the tours. And the timeline / schedule of the day if we are able to go to Lake Bled.

P.S. Having Wifi in the van is really great!

Looking forward to your reply,

Thank you very much,

Kathy

We just are back from a stop in Koper. we used Roundabout and they were very good. 8 people in a minivan with excellent driver/guide. We went to Lake Bled, castle and boat to church. Then on to Ljublijana to walk around and lunch (sausages) on the run. The guide was very flexible and kept an eye on the time. Everyone loved the tour.

Hi Carrao,

We are on the same cruise and just wondering whether you have made any arrangements for Koper yet. Me and my husband are interested on going to Lake Bled and Ljubljana and looking for people to join the tour. I am trying to arrange the tour with Four Seasons as they have quite a good reputation. Let me know whether you are interested in joining us.

Caroline

I organized a group of 8 on a Roundabout Tour in May that included Bled and Ljubljana. Our original plan was to also take the side trip to Vintgar Gorge, but we decided when we started the tour to substitute a short stop at Predjama Castle on the way to Bled instead of the gorge. The castle is simply stunning, and we were very happy with the overall tour. Our guide was amazing, Roundabout was very easy to communicate with leading up to the tour, and reasonably priced. Based on our experience, Roundabout would be my top choice.

Sam