How to avoid the disappointment of a vacation

This year we decided to go for a holiday with travel agency. We couldn't find any suitable date for a vacation for whole family and also travelling to Greece or similar destinations with dog ... is quite complicated. So this time I'm going to Italy with my mom - for the first time in our lifes, we are going to just lie on the beach a get tanned. Everytime we come back from our vacation, people ask us why aren't we suntanned. But we travel abroad to get some rest and some memories, not because of the "perfect skin shade" ... This year we realized we just need to leave the city for a while and just "turn off" our brains. So we've decided that we will try to survive sport animations, screaming kids in the swimming pool and czech tourists.

Řecko 2013

3 tips for better experience during summer vacation 

1. Read the reviews

Travel agencies always describe the hote/camp/beach as the most beautiful, most amazing and most attractive. Also the bus is "luxury" according to their description. But it's not always true. So write the name of the accomodation and the travel agency on its own to search engines and look for the review of customers. You can find information like this:

• all customers of the hotel got diarrhea from the food and spent most of the time in the bathroom 
• "luxury buses with air conditioning and toilets" have often malfunction, there is no air conditioning in the bus and the toilet is out of order all the time 
• the traveling agency had several accidents, because the buses are ready to be put into scrap and the drivers are sleepy
• the hotel photos were taken ten years ago
• the "clear sea water" is full of seaweed and garbage 
• photos with empty beaches are taken in November - in fact the beach is full of people and parasols 

Řecko 2013

2. Ask!

The traveling agencies have contact on the website - you can call or write and email and ask whatever you want. The traveling agencies we sent questions must be really "happy", because we were bothering them for a week and in the end we decided for completely different accomodation - in totally different country.

What can you ask (if the information is not given):

• How far is the beach/city centre/grocery store ?
• Can you have more beds in the apartments, how much they cost? 
• Can you use the Internet/pool/parasol for frer (or how much it costs?)
• How much the trips cost? 
• Are there some extra fees? 
• How long the bus transport takes?

Ask for whatever you're interested in and what's important for you to enjoy the best summer vacation :)

3. Prozkoumejte místo na Google mapách

Google street view is an amazing tool. You can visit almost any place on the planet. You can (usually) visit the neighbourhood of your hotel/camp, check the beach etc. The beach that may look perfect on the advertising photos may look completely diffent in reality - due to street view we refused to go to a hotel where wastewater flows across the beach.