Naples tour questions - Francesco?

[cathydev]

Has anyone used Francesco Marrapese for a tour of the Amalfi coast? I have researched this board and he gets very good reviews. Because of that I booked a tour with him for this coming June. (I have all my emails verifying the booking). It turns out someone else I met on cruisecritic has booked a tour with him as well...on the same date.

 

I am wondering if anyone has experienced this? If so, what was the outcome? Perhaps he is sending another driver for either the other party of us...but both of us are under the impression that he is our driver. Or perhaps he made an error and booked us both...

 

I have given him my credit card info. I'm not too worried about that because I can always dispute it if necessary.

 

I have emailed several times over the past week (as has the other person who has reservations) but we've not heard from him. I am assuming he's just on vacation and away from email. At least I hope so.

 

Both of us are eager to see Italy, the Amalfi coast and tour with Francesco. I know he's a great guy so we won't worry yet. But if anyone has any experience similar to this or any feedback we would be grateful.

 

In the meantime I suppose I should be researching other options incase he can't accommodate both of us.

[jerseyjill]

Hi,

I have also booked a private tour with the highly rated Francesco Marrapese. Our tour is from Carnival's Freedom Grand Med.Cruise sailing from Rome on June 3 and due in to the port of Naples on June 4, 2008 beginning at about 8AM that morning until late in the afternoon for a tour of Pompeii, Sorrento and Positano along with another couple.We actually had the pleasure of meeting him while he was coincidentally vacationing near our home in New Jersey this winter. We have been booked since last year with him.He guaranteed me that he would be our personal guide/driver.

When and where exactly is your tour with him? The other woman on my tour is very concerned that Francesco has promised too many people that he will be their personal driver on their tours. Please let me know what cruise line and a ship you will be on and the date he will be driving you around so we can be sure we have him to ourselves. PLEASE email me directly at jillrmenson@yahoo.com. Thank you so much for this anticipated clarification!!!!We are a little bit concerned about this!!!

Jersey Jill

Jill R. Menson

[blambition]

I have him booked for April 25th am a little nervous that he does not respond to emails in a timely manner the way he did at first. I hope everything goes smoothly with our tour. He is supposed to arrange a private guide for Pompeii and I certainly expect him to be our guide on that day without sending someone in his place. I think I will send him another email to verify our plans.

Vicki

[blambition]

It seems to me that our Mr. Marrapese is making a habit of double booking himself. I have been contacted by someone on my roll call telling me that they too have him booked for a tour on the same day that I have him booked. I had already sent him a letter to reconfirm my reservations so I will wait to hear from him. I am very disappointed in this turn of events.

[luvdasea]

I still haven't heard back from him. Have you?? I too am looking at other tour operators. At this point I hope he has someone else that's good lined up to take me if needed-this is one of the biggest days for us!

[threeofus]

I have booked him late June....I think the 26th? Anybody else???

Now I am concerned.

I guess I will send him an email and ask him directly.

 

Thanks for the heads up.

[auntdot]

Hmmm... looks like Mr. Marapese might be busy flying back and forth to NJ and that 'distraction' is causing him to neglect his business!!?? We have heard very good things about Marcello Maresca of see sorrento dot com. he always promises to be the driver for the first party booked. It may be late to inquire for June - but might be worth a try??

 

Good luck and have a great trip!

Dot

[stbogey]

I just cancelled Francesco after hearing that he had booked with another passenger on my cruise for the same day.

 

I have heard good things about Drive Amalfi (Salvatore) and I am booking him instead.

 

Does anyone have any info on Drive Amalfi?

 

Thanks,

 

Susan

 

p.s. I am a little concerned that Francesco has my credit card number.

[blambition]

After talking to Susan, I have inquired to Salvatore as to the rates and availability of his having another driver for our sailing date in April. I believe I will end up cancelling Francesco due to not being able to trust him. I do not like be taken advantage of.

Vicki

[cathydev]

Luvdasea, still have not heard back from him and I've sent him several emails during the past week.

 

Sounds like he has over booked several dates....I am so glad we are all figuring this out NOW and not while standing on the pier in Naples....

 

As soon as I hear back from him I will let others know what he says. Our tour is scheduled for Sat June 28th, 2008.

[luvdasea]

HI Cathy, I still haven't heard. I am tempted to call his cell phone. At this point I hope he at least provides someone else to drive. But I don't like the bait and switch thing. Please let me know if you hear anything. Thanks, Michele

[cathydev]

He called me and left a message on my answering machine this morning. I wish I was home to take the call, but he seemed very sincere and explained that he was having computer problems. (He has a very sultry voice as well and an excellent command of the English language.)

 

I do hope the double booking was an isolated. I don't know the exact details of why double bookings were made but mistakes happen and if he gets back to everyone, explains the situation and acknowledges what happens then he has done his best to rectify the situation. Its then up to us as consumers to use him or not.

 

He has had so many wonderful reviews on this website that I do feel he would provide a wonderful tour. He has assured me that he will be our driver for our tour. I feel bad for luvdasea because I think her group now has to choose the option of another driver (hopefully for a discount as previous poster noted) or securing another tour company altogether. Luvdasea, please let me know what he tells you when you from him!

 

Ultimately, I am happy to have heard from him and a telephone call no less.

[cathydev]

Francesco called again to make sure I got his phone message. He was very kind on the phone as well as apologetic and concerned and explained in more detail what happened.

 

He asked me if I knew the other party who was double booked on the same day as me. I told him that I only know of them through cruise critic and did not have their phone number. He wanted to personally call them. He said he was going to send an email to them (perhaps he already has) to explain. He said that if this party still chose to use his services he would make sure the driver he assigns them will be first rate because it would be someone he knows personally.

 

He also said that our group and the other group could share a guide in Pompeii, the rate would still be the same for the private guide whether we had 6 or 12 which is 100 euros. That would cut each of our families cost in half for the guide. He said both of us would have to agree to this. I have never been to Pompeii and a group of 12 doesn't sound too large. Francesco thought it would be fine as well. Especially given that if we went on the cruise tour, their would be 25 - 30 of us with a guide in Pompeii. Does anyone have experience with a guide in Pompeii that can comment on this?

 

I guess this is something I need to think about. luvdasea you can email me at smiemszoo@gmail.com to discuss further. But as of now, I am fine with sharing a guide in Pompeii. (Our group is lively and fun...ages 44 , 43, 19 (M), 18 (F), 18 (M) and 16 (F)...maybe this won't even jive with your group, but we all enjoy meeting new people and having new experiences)

 

Again, he did sound very concerned over what's happened and he is doing his best to rectify the situation. The fact that he has called me twice (from Italy) shows he wants to get things resolved and keep his customers happy.

[luvdasea]

Cathy, I just sent you an email:) I am feeling bad for him!

[I LOVE SUITES]

We used francesco whilst we were staying at the Hilton in Sorrento for a few days, told him then to buy a new computer, the guy is genuine and sincere and a great guide, he could not guide us for one day so a close friend of his stepped in, just as good as francesco, francesco lined up a guide for us in pompei, fantastic time as the guide certainly knew his stuff and for 3 hours kept my kids really entertained with stories etc.

 

So for us francesco is the greatest guide we have ever as he is passionate about giving his clients the most wonderful service, and guess who we will be using later on this year!!!:)

[jerseyjill]

We were booked with Francesco until the other day when the sky fell. Due to all of the bad feelings on the boards, our travel companions got cold feet and "opted" out of our commitment to travel with us and share the tour costs with us so we hastily decided to cancel so we did not have to travel alone. If he had called me to explain what was going on, I might have been able to convince the other couple to "Keep the Faith" and stay with us as originally planned. Instead I recvd an email today wondering why I hadn't called him in Italy before we cancelled. I do feel bad but now we are happy to join our rollcall friends of 1 year online to tour with Salvatore Lucibello from Drive amalfi.I hope he does get a new computer as this whole problem probably caused him many cancellations and lost business. Its too bad this all happened to a nice guy...

[stbogey]

Hi -

 

I am one of the people who was double booked with Francesco - someone on my cruise booked him in November and he then booked us in January. We exchanged many emails including his requests for our specific taste in music.

 

When I found out that we were double booked, I emailed again and did not hear from him so fast.

 

He emailed me today with the same exact email as posted above about the June 28th cruise. However I am on an April cruise. He mentioned the other person on my cruise's booking and offered another driver at a discount.

 

In the meantime, I had looked into another driver from another company and decided to go with them. They got back to me immediately and were very professional.

 

I am going to cancel with Francesco. I was very disappointed in him and had I not discovered the double booking on my own, who knows what would have happened when we got off the ship in Naples?

 

Just letting you know since I am one of the parties involved in the double bookings!!!

 

I don't think that the discount is worth the anxiety of not knowing what will happen when we reach Naples. Also, just a note, he did not call me from Italy.......He wrote the same generic email that he sent to everyone.

 

Susan

[cathydev]

That was my understanding from his phone call that there were two dates involved with double bookings. An April date (yours) and June 28 (mine). I did not mention my knowledge of that in a previous post because I figured he would be in contact with all you either by email or phone. Perhaps the reason he called me was because I asked him too in my emails.

 

I was most frustrated with the lack of response to my emails this past week. And you are right, being stranded on the dock would be no fun at all. However, I do believe he is sincere in his efforts to remedy the situation. Because of his great reviews throughout the years the other party on June 28 and my group are still planning on using his services. She will use a partner of his and we will have Francesco. We will share a guide in Pompeii. For us I am confident it will work out and I will certainly report back when our trip is over as to my satisfaction.

 

As for you, I am very glad you were able to book with someone else this close to departure. All the tour guides depend on tourists (like us) and I'm sure they all strive for customer service because their livelihoods depend on it. Please let us all know how your excursion went when you return home. Safe travels!

[blambition]

As of now we are still booked to use Francesco. While I was very disappointed in learning about the double booking the other party and myself discussed it and I decided to stay with my original plans. I did however decide to leave Pompeii off the itinerary as one of my group may not be quite up to that much walking. This will leave us more time to explore the lovely towns and linger over lunch. I really hope that he lives up to his past reviews and continues to earns praises. I was sort of hoping that his business was doing so well that he was going to expand and needed to add a second driver in which case he just needed to be upfront about it to those that book him after he already has a booking. I too received an email today with the same explanation. He may very well be having trouble with the PC as he asked me to remind him which ship we were on and how many in our party. Leads one to think that details are getting lost in the computer. I hope he might consider using a paper back-up for now.

Vicki

[threeofus]

Francesco emailed me back after I asked him about the situation. Yes it was a computer error - and not his way of doing business. He was very sorry and he sounded very sincere. He has been trying to get back to everyone who emailed him but it is taking time.

 

I think he learned a valuable lesson. We've all made mistakes and thankfully no one missed out on their tour.

 

I am keeping my reservation.

I have heard so many good reports on him I am not going to change my mind over an isolated incident.

Personally, I think once someone makes an error they are more carefu,l so I have no worries at all.

[I LOVE SUITES]

Francesco emailed me back after I asked him about the situation. Yes it was a computer error - and not his way of doing business. He was very sorry and he sounded very sincere. He has been trying to get back to everyone who emailed him but it is taking time.

 

I think he learned a valuable lesson. We've all made mistakes and thankfully no one missed out on their tour.

 

I am keeping my reservation.

I have heard so many good reports on him I am not going to change my mind over an isolated incident.

Personally, I think once someone makes an error they are more carefu,l so I have no worries at all.

 

Good for you, you will enjoy his company. :cool:

[luvdasea]

We are still disappointed that Francesco won't be our guide, although he did try to rectify the situation. If it weren't for cruise critic, we wouldn't have known about the double bookings...

[blambition]

I would like to add that I am one of the people that were affected by the double booking and I have chosen to keep my booking with Francesco. I believe that this was a mistake and that it will not happen again. I am sure we will have a wonderful tour and expect that it will be a highlight of our European vacation.

I will post after we get back in the beginning of May. I leave for Rome in less than 3 weeks WooHoo!!!!

Vicki

[jxn123]

I HAVE marcello booked for Wednesday, June 4th! His company that is, but not him as a driver. He already had a booking for this day so he gave us someone else, which I dont mind! I am just looking for a ride to a from all the stops I want to see. Actually, Marcello gave us a REALLY GOOD price for the 2 of us as we were getting worried about having to find others to share with us. He explained to me that the price you pay for tours is for a perfect english speaking guide, etc! well, i have been reading books on naples, amalfi coast, and positano for the last year! so i really do not need someone to tell me in english something i already know! We are getting a driver that is english speaking, but not 100%! truthfully, i really dont mind! Marcello was WONDERFUL to communicate with and a delight! i cannot wait for our tour. FYI our rate for 2 people is under $275 Euros! for 9 hours!!! The guide is expensive...not that car! We are very excited and relieved that we do not have to look for others to share with us!

[kathy16]

I am having difficulty finding anyone to share a tour from Oceania Insignia May 10, 2008,- will be in Amalfi area may 19,2008, so I am looking for a less expensive, but still comprehensive tour for two. But, we need an English speaking guide. Still looking.