No, Tips in Italy are not mandatory, but it’s customary to give them in proportion to the quality of the service received.
It’s not a fixed percentage as it is in many countries such as in the US, we could say it’s proportional to how much the service fulfils or exceeds the expectations.
So it’s not given in case of a mediocre service, it’s minimal in case of average and rises from there in a proportion the client decides. It is actually embarrassing to be asked how much tip is owed.
Airports: Our drivers wait outside the luggage claim area, right outside of the customs area, possibly many people will be holding signs and also your driver will be there holding your name on a board. That’s how you identify your driver. Our service and price includes parking and waiting up to one hour after the scheduled landing time. Our passengers should be able to reach us or the agency they book us through since you never know what can happen when you are on planes… in a crowded and chaotic airports. It can take about 20/30 minutes from the time when the plane lands until you actually get to the public lounge. If it takes longer, for example due to lost luggage, passengers should come out for a second to tell the driver they will be late. We normally start getting restless after 45 minutes and we don’t wait any longer than one hour from planes landing time. If you carry a cell phone registered outside of Italy you also need to dial the country code +39 so the whole sequence should be: +39 0586 211 442 or +39 339 615 8852
Ship: You’ll find the car or van parked right on the pier where your ship docks at the time you set. Your name will be posted on its windshield or if allowed to park the vehicle the driver will walk with the sign at hand to the gangway, but since most large ships have more than 1 gangway, if you don’t’ see your driver right away, look around for him, ask where chauffeur service vehicles stand, before you get frantic and assume he’s not there.
Hotel: Some companies or agencies who deal with particularly important people, instruct us to let our driver announce himself to the concierge when he arrives at the hotel but DO NOT want passengers to be called in the room to announce that the driver or guide has arrived. The assumption is “The passenger knows at what time the service is booked, when he is ready he will come down, don’t disturb the passenger announcing yourself” but the majority of the people will expect that we do announce ourselves when we arrive, and so we will do. The concierges of the small hotels know each and everyone of their guests so when we go in and ask for our clients they have no problem addressing me to them, but that doesn’t always work when clients stay in a big hotel. In this case it’s a lot easier for the clients to spot the driver than it is for the driver to spot them.
Train Station: Arriving at the station, just as you come down from the train, follow the flow of the people leaving the train till you get to the head of the train and you’ll see a person with a sign with your name right on the platform where the train pulls in. If you don’t see the person right away, please wait a few minutes right there, don’t run around the station to find him, you will NEVER find him this way. Sometimes trains arrive early, sometimes they arrive on a different track than the announced one, it may take a few minutes for the driver to locate where you are but he will.
Having operated as tour guides for years and years, our owners had the chance to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of travelling with busses versus minivans.
Since our activity primarily revolves around Tuscany Touring, Enjoytuscany has decided to own vehicles only up to 8 passengers, since this is what we consider ideal in our area, but we could certainly book bus services with one of our most trusted associate bus companies, for those parties of 9 or more persons who want to travel in a single minibus or bus, but before you request a bus, we suggest you read through the following points.
Ideal Touring Solution: There are certain areas of Tuscany which are best visited using small vehicles therefore you may consider dividing your group between 2 or 3 minivans. There are areas where you can also easily use a bus. We will advice case by case what’s best to do depending on your needs and preference, but since the factors involved in such a choice are too many to list them all, if you are interested in evaluating the specific advantages of using multiple minivans versus a bus, please call us and we will help you to understand the best solution for you. This type of evaluation would take too long if done by email and would not take into account all the needed factors. Nevertheless in the following point we will give you an idea of what you may want to consider.
Less Walking. More Sightseeing, Less Stress and Tiredness. Licensed Limo Service Minivans up to 8 Passengers, per our traffic law are considered equivalent to taxis, can enter all the restricted areas of each city center all throughout Italy, reducing to zero the walking time otherwise required to go from the Bus Pick Up/Drop Off Point to the city centers, and vice versa at each visit. This is HUGE advantage when you go to places like Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa. where using a 16 seater or bigger, passengers would be forced to walk long distances to just reach the center from the drop off point and back for the pickup. This means a lot of saved time therefore more sightseeing within the same number of touring hours.
Guidance and Assistance. Enjoytuscany as a company has always believed that the best way to tour Tuscany is indeed with a Driving Guide but in Italy Driving Guides can only drive minivans up to 8 passenger, there are no Driving Guides in this country licensed to drive busses, because for traffic reason is too impractical to be done. A guide needs to follow the group at all times, and while it’s relatively simple to park a minivan, a bus driver due to all the drop off, pick up and parking regulations cannot leave the bus park/unattended near a city center and is forced to stay with the bus at all time (or almost), and could never escort his passengers once they reach a destination.
More flexibility. Dividing 10 to 16 people between 2 vehicles, since they may be different families or groups of friends with different needs will give more options for each party to do whatever they want without needing to compromise the rest. For example on a day where the plan was to visit A, B and C, it may be that one minivan would do only A and B and the other B and C making everybody happy.
Economy. Cost-wise there is no major advantage in using 1 x 16 seaters versus 2 x 6/8 seaters since 6/8 seaters don’t pay pick up and drop off permits which are charged by most municipalities in Tuscany and main art cities in Italy only to 16 seaters or larger busses. For instance on a typical tour to Siena and San Gimignano: a 16 passenger Minibus would pay = euro 100 Siena permit + euro 30 San Gimignano permit. Since 6/8 seaters don’t pay such permits, doing a tour to Siena and San Gimignano in total would cost only a little more than 1 single 16 seater.
Comfort. 6/8 seaters are more comfortable and better air conditioned than 16/25 seaters and can reach places in Tuscany (especially in Chianti) where 16 seaters cannot, or even where certain places could be reached by a 16 seater, sometimes the roads are so narrow that the driving time increases tremendously with such as vehicle, and the ride gets much more uncomfortable for the passengers.
Limousine Chauffeur versus Bus Driver. Even if you don’t want a but just a chauffeur service, it has to be clear that there is a substantial difference in the personability and customer care level of a bus driver versus a limousine chauffer. Chauffeur service drivers are trained and used to dealing with the needs of the most discriminating and demanding clientele, since they mostly deal with wealthy travelers who travel at 5 star level and expect the best of every service. While a bus driver, is primarily there to “conduct the bus” a chauffeur is there to primarily “take care of the clients’ needs while driving”.
We are not a travel agency, but a Transportation and Guide Service company. We can organize everything that falls in the category of “ground service”: transport of all kinds, guiding assistance etc. but are not legally established to reserve hotels, this is what agencies and tour operators do. If you need an Italian Tour Operator to book hotels and restaurant we will put you in contact with one of the companies we work with and we feel is the most suitable to your needs, most competitive and competent in the areas where you will be staying. Often a Local Tour Operator knows the hotels better than someone thousands of miles away and can get better deals for you, but we don’t want to be involved in hotel bookings nor want to be held responsible for any outcome of any advice we may give on them.
Some email internet providers can mark general emails of “unknown” accounts such as “spam” – please check your spam folder for previous email replies. If you have your spam filter set on the highest ranking, only emails from senders in your address box will go into your inbox. Any other emails (such as replies from internet sites you have booked on) will go into a “spam” folder. These emails can sit in this folder for many days, but eventually your email system may automatically delete them.
If in doubt, please call us at: +39 0586 211442 or on our mobile at: +39 339 615 8852
Our prices are already as low as our market place and wages of our personnel allow them to be. We can offer you further discounts only when you reserve with Enjoytuscany more than one service and the discount will be considered at that time. We have state of the art vehicles and top class personnel, we offer competitive prices but if we told you that we are the lowest it would not and could not be true. Best does not go along with cheapest, in no industry in no product. You always pay for what you get and get what you paid for. We endeavour to keep prices as low as possible but with the quality of what we offer we could never be the cheapest on the marketplace.
All the tours and services provided by Enjoytuscany are available in English. Upon request, we are able to provide services in Spanish, German, French, Portuguese and Russian.
No, we provide only private services, therefore we can pick you up and drop you off wherever and whenever you like.
If you are not certain what your hotel or pick up / drop off location will be when you make the booking, we can still accept it but it will be your responsibility to provide this information before the starting time of the service. We will charge in full for any wasted time deriving from failure of our customer to notify us with the relevant information for carrying out the service. Ideally we should be notified of any changed pick up and drop off location at least 24 hrs in advance.
Calls to our office phones are welcome from 10.00am to 7.00pm which is our ordinary operation schedule. There is normally a minimum of 1 staff in the office during office hrs, but since we are a service company in case of emergency there might be nobody in the office even during office hrs, in such cases feel free to contact the mobile emergency number. The mobile emergency number is on 24 Hrs a day 7 days a week, but we don’t have personnel on night shifts, therefore we appreciate if you could postpone a non-urgent call to regular hours.
- For Services up to 99,99 euro at least 4 Hrs before the Service: 0% Penalty
- For Services up to 99,99 euro less than 4 Hrs before the Service: 100% Penalty
- For Services of 100 euro or more Cancellation at least 1 week before the services: 10% penalty
- Cancellation at least 72 hours before the services: 30% penalty
- Cancellation at least 24 hours before the services: 50% penalty
- Cancellation less than 24 hours before the beginning of services or No Show: 100% penalty
We reserve the right to change above policy when we may deem necessary, in which case we will notify the customer before the customer confirms the booking
Yes we do have a PayPal account the related email is reservations@enjoytuscany.net
Once you have chosen the service or services you would like to book with us, there are three options for confirmation and payment:
- Send a confirmation deposit of 25% by PayPal to our account with the following email reference: reservations@enjoytuscany.net (please note that a PayPal fee of 4% of the deposit amount is applicable). The balance should be paid in cash to the driver on the day of the service.
- Fill out our BOOKING FORM, including details of a credit card to guarantee the reservation, and send in PDF format to reservations@enjoytuscany.net or by fax to +39 0586 210163. Full payment should be made in cash to the driver on the day of the service, or may also be made in advance by credit card (for which we will need advanced authorisation by the
- Call our office directly on +39 0586 210163 with your credit card details in order to confirm the booking. This card will not be charged, and will only be used to guarantee the booking. Full payment should be made in cash to the driver on the day of the service, or may also be made in advance by credit card (for which we will need advanced authorisation by the credit card holder, to be included on the booking form).
No, we operate 365 days a year, yet on main national holidays we may have shortage of personnel availability, therefore for these dates, early bookings are highly recommended.