Difference in small group vs standard
Can anyone give the approximate difference in number of individuals between the two? I believe small group is limited to 25? How many people in a standard tour? Is it worth the premium price?
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Can anyone give the approximate difference in number of individuals between the two? I believe small group is limited to 25? How many people in a standard tour? Is it worth the premium price?
Comments
It averages 24 for small group. Per their FAQs "Most of our land journeys average 35 to 44 guests." Its hard to know until the welcome reception how many is on your tour. Our first land tour was theoretically sold out. Turned out there were 28 of us. Whether it is worth the price? Lots of opinions on this which you will no doubt hear. Some like knowing its a smaller group that's easier to get to know, some like the bigger size to "dilute" a potential bad apple. A smaller group has more room to spread out in the coach and a easier time getting everyone loaded up on time. We paid the extra for Ireland but aren't for Switzerland. The delta in price varys for each tour.
On some Small Group starts there are sights you get to see that the bigger groups don't and there may be hotel differences. Read the itinerary carefully.
I’m always saying that it’s not worth paying for the small group...several reasons. One, the big groups are quite often not full....this has happened to us a lot!
Two.....waiting for people to get on the bus....especially in Europe, the bus drivers have to take compulsory timed breaks, it doesn’t matter how many are on the tour or how long to fill the bus.
Three....longer site seeing.....not sure that is true
Four....meeting everyone .....worse...being stuck with fewer people, some who might not be your cup of tea and vice versa of course.
Been on a couple of small group tours...chosen because of the date rather than size of tour
It’s really your personal preference
There have been a number of threads about this over the years. Do a search for more info.
Botswana is a special case- it tops out at 20, though we only had 16!
We have rebooked our Israel and Jordan tour. It will be 40 people. Our prior canceled one was small group. Both were booked purely because the dates suited us. Tours are often not full these days. Clearly, with social disbanding, we will be split into groups, which is usual anyway.
I think our Botswana tour had 13 people.
There are several land tours that are special cases due to lodging, vehicle, etc. limitations, and while listed as small group departures, do not have corresponding regular size group versions. They include Botswana, SA, Zambia = 20, K&T = 30, Wonderland: Yellowstone in Winter = 24, Manitoba: Polar Bear Adventure=30, just to name a few.
Our first Tauck trip was in 2015 which was Imperial Europe (now renamed to Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna & Prague). It was a full standard tour but there were only 18 people on the tour. I believe that the tour did not sell out and there were last minute cancellations. We were expecting to have about 40 people on the tour. Talking with some of the repeat Tauck travelers on the tour it was almost universal in them saying how much more pleasant the smaller group was compared to the full size tours. We decided that if we had double the amount of people on the tour it would definitely not be as good as a smaller group. There was plenty of room on the bus, group meals did not seem to be too confusing, and it was easier to remember people’s names. With the exception of a Tauck river cruise, all of our subsequent tours (5 now) were small group tours. Some of the tours are small group by design. We took the Northern India and Nepal trip and there were 20 people on this trip.
We have 2 upcoming trips scheduled and both are small group. We are doing South Africa Elegant Adventure later this year which indicates the small group will average 24 guests. We also booked Australia Adventure: Adelaide, Tasmania & Sydney for early 2022 which is another by design small group which indicates the average number of guests will be 18.