Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius Day Trip with Lunch and Wine

It was a unavailable time that I had. The information that they gave us was helpful on understand about the way all had transpired back in history.

Mery was great!!! Also gave us plenty of recommendations for our trip! We enjoyed our day very kich!!

Pompeii was fantastic. Our guide was funny and informative. If you have the option to do the wine tasting take it. You sit outside under a pergola with a nice mountain breeze instead of the restaurant which seemed warm inside. The climb to the top of Vesuvius wasn’t easy but well worth the effort. Take it slow. If you have knee issues wear your braces. Carmella was our guide and Giovanni was our driver. Both were excellent.

The activities themselves were good. It's the tour organization, listing promises that were not fulfilled, and the guide that I am taking points off for. First off, the tour listing clearly offers hotel pickup. This was one of the reasons we booked this tour (we had a long day and another tour the previous day - which went amazing, by the way), so we did not want to get up at 6am to run around town catching this tour. Well, fate had other plans. The day before the tour, we were sent a message on WhatsApp advising that the pickup was going to be at the Port (about 20 minute walk + a subway ride away from us, totaling 45 minutes of travel time). I texted back and asked to confirm if they could pick us up at the hotel, as the listing stated. They did not respond to me that evening, which, clearly, would be nice to know when we needed to get up. In the morning, right when it was almost too late for us to leave, they texted that the pickup is at the Port, indeed. Secondly, the listing gave me an option between semi-private and some other type of group size. We paid extra to have the smallest group possible (semi-private). I get that it was not going to be 4 people, but our bus was FULL. Thirdly, whoever came up with the idea of a big lunch (it was very delicious, by the way!!) and a wine tasting followed IMMEDIATELY by the walk to the crater of the volcano - needs to think about it again, or try doing it themselves first :) Maybe the activities can be swapped places in the future, just a thought. Now, all of this I could live with and would leave a 5-star review, IF the tour guide was amazing. With the right attitude and a smile, I truly believe our experience could have been easily transformed into a positive one. But that did not happen. He was not bad, but he was not great (sorry, Marco). Throughout the day we heard him speak maybe for 15 minutes in total. He told us some things but it was very brief. It seems like either he was having a bad day, did not want to be there or being a tour guide is just not his calling. I am saying this so that he can maybe find his true calling and be happy there; and for the company to hire guides who actually enjoy what they are doing and create pleasant positive memories for guests who pay a lot of money for these experiences. Oh almost forgot to add, the listing also mentions that the walk to the crater is accompanied by the volcanologist - there was not such a thing there for us. We were told: we drop you off here, you walk to the crater and back, be back in 2 hours. And off we went (without a volcanologist or a guide or even a pamphlet to tell us anything). We enjoyed ourselves, though, and maximized our time. The views were breathtaking, truly. Oh, the driver was great too, he drove us very safely. We also had a separate tour guide for the Pompei portion, who was pretty amazing (her name was TT). Overall, I would do this activity again but with a different company. For close to $200 per person, I am not sure the return on investment is all there.

The pompeii section was excellent. Our guide Anna was excellent, very knowledgeable and funny with it. The lunch was very good too, much more than I expected. The visit to Vesuvius was ok, too hot for me to climb to the top on time.