You are responsible for organising your own travel (including visas if necessary) to and from the start and end of the trip. You are also responsible for organising your own travel insurance (having travel insurance is a requirement of the trip). Apart from that, everything else is included.
There are many different offers and packages available for Sicily – all with different combinations of half-board/full-board and what is and is not included. As a result, choosing a trip can be very confusing, and choosing a non-inclusive package can easily end up far more expensive than the inclusive option.
Yes, absolutely. If you are a small group of friends and would like us to organise a bespoke tour for you, please do get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.
You make your own way to the airport (usually this will be Catania airport for our Sicily trips) to be met at a pre-arranged rendezvous. (This is timed to coincide with flight arrivals). At the end of the tour, we will take you back to the airport, from whence you travel.
If you choose to arrive in Sicily before the tour start date, we can recommend suitable hotels close to the airport from which we can pick you up at the start of the tour.
It is difficult to pin down a typical Esplora traveller! Sociable and convivial, they might have an interest in perhaps, gastronomy, mediterranean history or culture, art and architecture, or literature.
We choose our hotels very carefully and stay in comfortable 3 or 4 star hotels. In choosing our hotels, we look for somewhere characteristic and convenient – especially to minimise the distances we have to travel – but which is clean and quiet.
We travel with our luggage between hotels and sites in a comfortable, air-conditioned minibus. In the cities and on site we prefer to walk. Some of the sites (and Palermo) can be quite extensive so you should be fit enough to walk around them.
Food in Sicily is abundant and of extremely high quality. We go out of our way to let you taste the large variety and the very best. In Sicily, though, you will only be served food made from ingredients in season.
The tour leader will usually arrange the menu with the restaurant in advance to ensure a good balance of dishes is sampled throughout the tour.
Breakfast is taken in the hotel, lunch is usually a tasty picnic, while for supper we really treat ourselves with the local delicacies and wines.
Yes, we ask that all our guests have adequate travel insurance in place to cover them for the dates of their travels. Esplora Ltd do not sell travel insurance themselves but can offer suggestions of suitable companies for our UK guests. For our other guests, you may well be able to get a better deal locally.
By all means send us an email telling us the dates you would like to travel and the latest date you would need a decision and we will place you on the reserve list. We do occasionally get cancellations so you could well be lucky.
If you or any member of your party have any disabilities, it is extremely important that we make the necessary arrangements to make your holiday go smoothly. We must therefore insist that you contact our offices before completing any reservation to ensure compatibility for the holiday that you chose.
We ask that our guests limit their luggage to one suitcase or holdall and one piece of hand luggage (for example a light day sack). We will assist with luggage in the hotels but we do ask that your suitcase is light enough for your to be able to carry or trolley short distances yourself and to keep the weight of your suitcase below fifteen kilos if at all possible. We do not travel in the cold time of year so it is unlikely that you will need to bring bulky coats or jackets.
Yes, absolutely. Single travellers are very welcome and are accommodated in a “double for single use” room. On some popular tours the number of single passengers may be limited but we will tell you if there are no more single places left on the tour you want to book.
Yes, we are fully compliant with requirements of the Trading Standards Authority for travel operators and your trip payment is protected by the International Passenger Protection scheme. For full details on this scheme, please see here.
Especially with the current frequent changes in government rules and foregin office advice regarding foreign travel, we completely understand if you would like to postpone your departure. If you would like to switch, we will be more than happy to move your booking to a different departure (subject to availability) any time up to 75 days before the departure of your original booking.
If there are no alternative departures for your tour showing in our calendar, we will be happy to move your booking, either to the following year or otherwise to a different tour.
But if you are feeling uncomfortable with your future tour departure and would like to postpone, do get in touch with us and we will do our best to accommodate your preferences.
As travel insurance is specific to the country you are resident in, you would purchase this in your home country. There are many levels of cover for travel insurance, but the most important thing is that it should include emergency illness cover (eg hospitalisation) and repatriation if necessary.
Almost certainly it will include cover for trip curtailment/interruption due to cancelled flights etc, but you may want to check this. Ideally, it should also cover trip cancellation due to being unable to travel due to illness.
Cover for lost luggage, lost personal items, flight delays, etc is nice to have but is of minor importance compared to the above.
Additionally, you may want to include cover for “cancellation for no reason” – this would be if you decide (for whatever reason) not to go ahead with your trip. This would cover you if – for example – you decided not to travel due to the illness of a close family member not connected with your travel plans. This level of cover is more expensive but will buy you complete peace of mind.
Many people have travel insurance included as part of their credit card plan. However, very frequently, this level of cover turns out to be less than ideal and insufficient for the purposes of international travel. If you are intending to use your credit card travel insurance, make sure that it does include all the cover you require.
