Firstly, the group was far too big at 39 (this needs to be capped at an absolute maximum of 30, if not lower). This resulted in many of us having to wait around in the freezing cold at "loo" breaks, losing people on 3 occasions, and many of us ending up with horrendous coughs/colds. Also a thorough check on mobility would be advisable before accepting bookings.

Vienna:- The Best Western Hotel Amedia was too far out of the city, not able to cope with a large group, not a proper bar (only 4 bottles behind the bar, no gin, ran out of wine on several occasions!) and the two evening meals we had were awful, with no choice whatsoever. With such a large group there were inevitably people who couldn't eat the only choice. On the plus side, the rooms were clean, comfortable and quiet, and the breakfast was fine. The hotel was soulless. There is quite a bit of free time on this holiday, so if you are into art, I would thoroughly recommend going to The Belvedere for the world's largest collection of Gustav Klimt's work including the famous "The Kiss". The hotel told me all the museums/art galleries etc. were closed over Christmas - they were not!

We had several walking tours (wrap up very warm as you are on your own for quite a few hours). They split the group into a "fast" and "slow" group which was a good idea. Make sure your guide stops for coffee and cake! One guide informed us she had a "surprise" for us - this was having your photograph taken with random young boys from the Vienna Boys Choir - they didn't even sing for us! At the Schonbrunn Palace you can visit the Christmas market and also the Zoo. The highlight of Christmas Day was the optional Johann Strauss concert which we all enjoyed - we ate in a restaurant that night, still no choice of food.

Boxing Day was a day trip to Bratislava in Slovakia, which was enjoyable - more coffee and cake. The Vienna Woods and tour of the Heiligenkreuz Abbey was a bit of a led down, as we were promised monks singing Gregorian chants - on a television, could only see the tops of their heads and there was a problem with the volume! Wine tasting was OK, Dinner in a "traditional Viennese heurige" was excellent, but not if you are a vegetarian as it was all meat. The wine was cheap though!

Hungary:  The excellent Danubius Health Spa Resort in Heviz. A multitude of treatments/hot thermal baths/saunas etc. etc. Top tip - take a pair of flipflops for the spa (towelling robes supplied).You can swim in their outdoor pool (2C outside) but very warm thermal and therapeutic water - an experience not to miss! You can swim in the lake as well. All the meals were buffet style - hurrah! - and very good. New Year's Eve in particular was superb and we were very well looked after - with free wine all night. We had a day trip to Budapest which was interesting, but very very cold, and we would all have preferred to cut short the 3 hours free time that we were ordered to take! Most of us dived into the nearest bar/restaurant to keep warm! We visited several small towns/villages in Hungary, some more interesting than others. A lot of goulash soup was drunk. Hungary is cheap, Vienna not so.

So, on the whole a good, but cold trip. Xenia our TM was very good and had quite a lot to cope with. We had some good and not so good local guides. If JY can tweak this tour then it should be fine for this year. There were occasions when we were left to our own devices as I'm sure they didn't know what to do with us.

I'm glad to hear that you had an enjoyable time on your trip to Viennese & Lake Balaton at New Year.

Thank you for your feedback. I have forwarded this onto our Customer Care team at JYHQ who will contact you directly.

Kindest Regards,

Amy

I agree that the trip was enjoyable, but indeed still has room for improvement.

JY hasn't learned that 40 really is too large a group. Apart from the waiting around, there's just not many places that are able to accommodate or adequately serve a group of this size!

In addition, I'd like to suggest that JY take group ages into account. It's really hard being the youngest in the group when the average age for everyone else is something like 25-35 years older than me! 

Breaking my review down by day rather than country:

Day 1:

We were met by a JY representative at Heathrow before check-in, who was there to point us to the appropriate check-in counter - somewhat helpful, given the crowd at Heathrow that morning. More helpful would have been if an additional JY representative were waiting for us after Security, so the group would have had a chance to meet up front, rather than on the plane (assuming we hadn't moved seats - I had, so didn't meet anyone else until after we'd landed!)

Tour Manager Greta Taumberger was waiting for us on arrival, and was very efficient about collecting us all, and dealing with the two instances of lost luggage.

I had no real issues with the Best Western Amedia Wien. The room was large, quiet, and clean. No bathrobe, but they do provide a kettle in-room. Several of my fellow travellers complained about the lack of a restaurant / bar, but it's of particular note that our welcome drink wasn't waiting for us. There were no options at dinner (stock soup, vegetarian lasagne, and a pastry for dessert), but Greta did manage to ensure that dietary requirements were taken into account - service overall was incredibly slow, but service for those with on special diets took very much longer!

Day 2:

I had no personal issues on this day. The weather wasn't great, resulting us visiting the Belvedere Palace and Hundertwasser Village in the rain. Tip: Pack an umbrella, or a waterproof / water-resistant coat with hood. Kudos to Greta and our local guide, who arranged for us to have lunch at a nice warm restaurant in the city rather than at the Schonbrunn Christmas market. The Rosenberger restaurant was certainly capable of accommodating 40 people, and the food was reasonable, but I found it expensive.

Schonbrunn Palace itself was lovely, and I had a good time exploring the gardens (there wasn't enough time to visit the zoo, likely due to our stop at the restaurant). I highly recommend the walk up to the Gloriette if you're physically fit (it's a bit of a steep climb, but the view is awesome!)

Christmas eve dinner at Restaurant Ottimo was reasonable. It's a very quaint and picturesque restaurant, and the food was passable (no choice again), but service was slow with the limited number of staff working Christmas eve, and paying for our drinks at the end of the meal took forever! 

Day 3:

Christmas day. Many thanks to Greta for the Christmas present and card! 

Another day of pouring rain, chill winds and freezing cold! We split up into two groups for our walking tour of Vienna simply by the simple expedient of who was seated on the left or right side of the bus. This experience was decidedly not fun, given the weather circumstances, and helped not at all by the two local guides who were completely oblivious to our misery and more interested in trying to complete their tours on top of each other (with Vox box signals interfering with each other, making it impossible for us to make out what either guide was saying). Herding us into St Stephen's to get out of the rain was a nice attempt, but I think most of us would have preferred a warm cafe (or several cafes) rather than a freezing cold and crowded church. I think this was the point where the guides started losing us, as some of the group actually wandered off to get out of the rain.

Dinner at the Himmelpforte Restaurant was disappointing. No choice in food, restaurant staff struggled outright to accommodate dietary requirements, and service was incredibly slow, resulting in us nearly being late to the concert (several tables skipped dessert outright as we were rushing). 

The Strauss concert was lovely and I enjoyed it very much. One downside was that we were seated fairly far back in the room, and I would have paid extra for a front row seat in order to actually enjoy the performance. The back of the room seems to be where people get away with whispering to each other, which detracts from the show. Note: Ladies, I do recommend at least smart-casual dresscode for this, as an usher criticised me for being in jeans, hiking boots and carrying a backpack.

Day 4:

Boxing Day in Bratislava was a nice excursion. I think the only downside to this day was that I felt we could have spent more time in Bratislava - maybe actually entering Bratislava castle rather than just seeing it from the outside. Compliments to our local guide here though, since the tour was reasonably interesting. 

We got back to our hotel several hours before dinner, so there was time to kill there (I walked from the hotel down the street to District 1, approx 2km, and back) 

Dinner at the Der Bettelstudent Restaurant was lovely - definitely the best meal to date! Tip: Try the garlic soup! Even service was reasonably quick! The only problem I had with this restaurant was that in order to get to the non-smoking section (upstairs), you had to go through the smoking section, which was a horrible experience! And no matter that we sat in the non-smoking section, clothes still ended up smelling like we'd spent the whole time in the smoking section afterwards!

Day 5:

Heiligenkreuz Abbey was very beautiful from an architectural standpoint, so worth a visit even if you don't get to hear the monks' Gregorian chants in person. Our local guide seemed to be quite knowledgeable on the place, despite her youth!

Baden was a really beautiful town, and I'd have liked to have had a full local guided walking tour of the town rather than just get dropped at the town centre for lunch. I could certainly have done without the wine-tasting at Freigut Thallern (since I don't drink). And no offence meant, but I gathered from my fellow travellers that the wine wasn't enjoyable enough to purchase either! 

Dinner at the Heuriger Bruckberger Spaetrot in Gumpoldskirchen. The food was very good, service came with smiles and jokes, and the live entertainment from the accordionist was good fun.

Day 6:

Nothing much to say about this day, since it was spent travelling from Vienna to Heviz, via Gyor. There was a short stop at a rest-station, which was also where our driver recommended that we change our Euros for Hungarian Forints (HUFs), rather than at the border as originally planned - thanks Jula! 

Request to JY: Please don't take the "scenic" route via Gyor, which adds on hours to the trip. We'd really rather arrive sooner rather than sit in the bus for the better part of the day! 

Arrival at the Danubius Thermal Health Spa Resort in Heviz was a relief. Staff there were very welcoming and helpful. Hotel rooms are a bit smaller than at the Best Western Amedia, and design is very old-fashioned (think floral chintz, and curtains matching bedspreads). Bathrobe is provided, but you have to request a kettle (assuming it's available), and the mattress is hard and pillows are horribly flat! Tip: If you're not travelling with a friend, request a room without the adjoining door. The room soundproofing leaves a LOT to be desired!

Day 7:

Our day trip to Keszthely was rather uninspiring. I found the local guide to be very monotonous and difficult to listen to. I'd have liked more time to actually explore the town, rather than spend it standing around listening to her rattle off uninspiring 'facts'. Post her spiel, we had barely enough free time to get lunch before going back to the hotel. 

On the other hand, I did appreciate the free four hours in the afternoon to luxuriate in the hotel's lovely heated swimming pools before dinner!

Day 8:

A very long drive to Budapest, followed by too much time stuck in Budapest's traffic while our local guide tried to give us a city tour. The trip to Gellert Hill (the highest point in the city) for photo opportunities was lovely, but not actually getting off the bus to see anything of the city itself apart from the Matthias church and the city centre where we were dropped off for lunch was an utter waste of the hours spent travelling to Budapest and back. 

Day 9:

Very unfortunately (for me, at least!), we ended up with the same monotonously boring local guide as on Day 7. Compound this by the fact that she managed to convince some of us that we ought to stop for coffee at her family's cafe when we picked her up in the morning (completely unplanned, and somewhat less than ethical), and I started the day distinctly unhappy. 

We had a bus tour of Balatonfured, with a short (45 minutes) stop at the lake's edge esplanade to take photos or have coffee. The local guide had informed us that most shops would not be open (hence the stop at her family's cafe before that), but we didn't find this to be the case on arrival. Also, we have eyes. Pointing out every four- and five-star hotel in town does not impress anyone. Neither does pointing out the bus station. And I'll note that none of these were even architecturally interesting!

We then moved on to Tihany, which I personally found to be very quaint and beautiful, but again we didn't have much time there, even less time than we had at Balatonfured! Our local guide had also completely neglected to account for time for lunch. We had been informed up front that we would be back at the hotel for lunch, before 13:00 CET. Several of the group had scheduled massages accordingly. We didn't get back to the hotel until nearly 15:00 CET, and that certainly didn't include any stops for lunch! 

On the bright side, the New Year's Eve Gala Dinner was very festive. Food was certainly much better than the previous nights, but queues with the other hotel guests were a bit awkward. The evening goes on very long, so be prepared for that. Several people enjoyed the free-flowing alcohol that evening (although I think they enjoyed it a good deal less the next morning!) Tip: This is very much a dress-up event! I felt completely out of place again in jeans and hiking boots.

Day 10: 

This day is entirely your own. I'd booked two massages for this morning, and spent the afternoon in and by the thermal pools.

Day 11:

Home sweet home after nearly 12 hours of travelling! 

Request to JY: This is a very taxing day, and it was longer still for my fellow travellers who were not based in London. Flying out of Budapest might make more sense than the long drive back to Vienna? 

Overall, a good trip if all one wants is a very general overview of a particular city or town. There are some places I'd return to, just to see more of those particular cities / towns in particular. 

Plus points to our TM Greta for managing us all so well throughout the trip (missing luggage, illnesses, forgotten items and all!)

I'm not sure if I'd do a repeat trip with JY though. No disrespect meant to either JY or my fellow travellers, but although I met some rather nice people (and some less nice people), I felt too out of place in general with this group and will probably look for a different travel agency which caters to a younger audience.