A Perfect 2 Week Tour of England
England
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Mar 13 - Mar 28, 2025
When I first approached Tetiana with the rough concept of what we wanted to accomplish on the trip, she immediately got to work constructing a plan. We essentially wanted a 2 week trip of England that mostly avoided London and took us to as many of the places that we specifically wanted to see as possible. We would not do any driving and wanted all of the connections to be easy. Within a short time, she created a reasonable initial framework and worked with me to adjust a few things. We ended up with a masterful plan that combined train trips, private tours and transfers, and small group tours.
In execution, the plan worked perfectly. Our strongest indicator of the quality of the plan was the stunned reaction of British folks we met along the way to the breadth of what we had seen and done in just 2 weeks.
Hotel Reviews
The hotel was well located near Covent Garden and the theater district and the breakfast buffet was good. Beyond that, I cannot recommend it. The room furnishings were excessively spare. There was no surface designed to house a suitcase. I had to push together the only two chairs in the room to house one bag, and put our other bag on a small cocktail table. Simply inexcusable.
The Clayton Hotel was comfortable and just a couple of hundred feet from the train station. Dinner and the breakfast buffet were fine.
The Indigo is a quirky reuse of a series of historical buildings located in a place that’s within convenient walking distance of Bath’s major attractions. The hotel and room itself have more of a B&B feel than that of a hotel. That’s both good and bad. It gives the place a more unusual feel, but also a less comfortable one. The hotel was generous with complementary wine and soft drinks in the room. Supposedly, the buildings are connected at the garden level, but we were told that this route was not available. As a result, we had to put on jackets and walk around the block outside to get to the breakfast buffet. This annoyance alone prevents me from giving an overall score higher than 3.
The Grand is a wonderful, traditional hotel with old world charm and great service by an attentive staff. An added bonus is its proximity to the York railway station, tour bus pickup points, and the York Minster. Each are within 5 minutes walk. Together with the fine included breakfast, this all makes the Grand the nicest hotel we have visited in quite a while.
I really wanted to like this hotel. A front desk manager spent more than 30 minutes helping me to get the tv working properly. But I can’t recommend this hotel because the room and bathroom are so very TINY. As I write this review, I am at sea on a cruise and staying in a basic stateroom whose size exceeds the Courtyard’s by a considerable degree. There was no convenient place to put luggage or to unpack. Marriott price for a Motel 6 room.
Activity Reviews
We were very fortunate to arrive in Grassington (Darrowby) on a day when the town was dressed for filming!
We were the only 2 passengers on a 16 person tour bus! Our driver/guide was great. Whitby as a very interesting town.
Steve was a friendly and fun guy and we enjoyed our time with him.
We enjoyed the tour very much
Our guide from the city really knew his stuff about Bridgerton and covered a tremendous number of sites in just two hours. He was not excessively friendly.
Andy was a great guy with whom to spend a couple of days.
Once again, Andy was a great companion and guide, but our feeling was that the sites within the range and itinerary of this tour were not as generally interesting as the rest of our tours.
