THE GOOD. What’s not to love about Italy? Our itinerary covered a lot of area, and certainly included most of the major sites. The cities in June aren’t totally crazy with crowds yet, the air is redolent with jasmine and lilac, and there is a gelato stand on every block, so it’s hard to feel anything but happy.

Having someone else take care of getting skip-the-line tickets to major attractions, and also doing the work of arranging excellent local tour guides, is a real plus.

The Exoticca app, regularly updated and with daily itineraries and necessary flight and tour documents in it, worked really well.

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THE BAD. As in real estate, it’s all about location,location, location, and our hotels left something to be desired in that regard.

It was clear from the brochure description that we’d have lots of independent time, and need to arrange at least some of our own transportation to and from activities during our multi-night stays, BUT … we definitely expected our group leader to have advice and directions. We would have benefitted from clear instructions as to how to access transportation. (For instance, the information that transit is accessible by tapping credit cards, and Uber is nothing like North American Uber). The fact that our leader did not stay with us every night, instead returning to her own home outside Florence (until we were headed for Venice on the last couple of days), also meant that she was only available by WhatsApp if there was an issue. That’s not great for a group whose native language is not that of the country in which they are travelling. Communication within the Whatsapp group was certainly not as detailed as we would have wished.

While the itinerary was excellent, too much was jammed into too few days. We would have loved more time in Orvieto, Assisi, Bologna, and Padua. Plus, Exoticca calls it a 9 day tour with 7 “in destination” although only 6 of those days are actually planned; two are full travel days, and day 2 (the arrival day in Rome after overnight flights from North America) is completely on your own with no group leader or orientation activity.

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Back to the app. It absolutely requires that travellers with Exoticca need to be at least a little bit tech savvy – there’s no hand-holding by the group leader. There’s no doubt that not everyone in our group really understood what was going to be expected of them in the way of taking personal responsibility for ensuring they were in the right place at the right time.

It would also have helped to be forewarned of the need for WhatsApp; we already had it, but not everyone did or was familiar with using it.

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I also felt that Exoticca did a less than stellar job of making our tour group a cohesive one. Without any included dinners together – especially on our first night as a tour group – it took a long time to become acquainted with each other, which also meant we didn’t necessarily know if someone was missing! At no point were group introductions made; we were all just individual travellers sharing bus rides and (some) tours. Adding to that confusion was the fact that travellers from other groups were allowed to “top up” our optional excursions.

THE UGLY. Our initial welcome at our first hotel was abysmal, and could have set a really negative tone for the trip. It could have been avoided by having our tour leader present as we arrived.

More frustrating than that, though, (at least for Ted and for me), was that Exoticca’s optional excursion descriptions, specifically those involving evening events, were just plain misleading.

In both Rome and Florence, “illuminated” night-time city tours were offered. They weren’t cheap. Neither tour happened after the city was illuminated. The excuse given was that it would not be safe after dark. If that were the case, why were the tours offered?

The optional dinner descriptions were also misleading. Why show a picture of a luscious multi-course meal when the reality looks nothing like it in quality or quantity?

BOTTOM LINE. Would we travel with Exoticca again? A solid “maybe”.

We’re experienced enough travellers that the semi-escorted format worked well for us, and tech savvy enough that the app helped keep us on track. We also recognize that things can go wrong; no tour is perfect, so it’s all about how problems are handled as they arise – Exoticca could do better in this regard by having a person always available in the hotels overnight.

As for value for money, given that in 7 days only hotel breakfasts and one lunch were included, and there were out-of-pocket transportation costs involved in all 3 of the major city stops (it’s a good thing we’re comfortable with mass transit and don’t “need” a taxi or Uber), this tour was definitely not any more economical than many all-inclusive tours that look after participants door-to-door.

For us, any future trips with Exoticca would be entirely dependent upon itinerary.