Treasures of the Balkans & Transylvania Reviews

Thoroughly loved this tour. The countries were amazing, such beauty despite their dark past. Our Tour Guide Zsuzsanna and Driver Tamas are a credit to Cosmos. Would recommend this to anyone seeking to explore countries outside the normal European destinations.

A thoroughly enjoyable trip to some lesser known destinations. Itinerary was perfect especially tours of Romania and Bulgaria. Most hotels were great except for the Ibis in Budapest and Yantra where the air conditioning didn’t work! The trip provided a good insight into the history of each area through the various local guides and tour director.

This tour was great. The itinerary was perfect - including most of the tourist attractions in Romania and Bulgaria. The hotels were great and spacious. We had a wonderful tour director who looked after us well and a very professional driver.

This tour gave me a good insight into each country. Our Bulgarian national guide was wonderful. Being a professor of ancient history and linguistics makes her commentary flow out effortlessly; this makes listening to her not only interesting but relaxing.

Novotel Centrum Hotel in Budapest and Sheraton Hotel in Bucharest are the best across-the-board. ...read more The only hotel that let us down was Yantra Hotel in Bulgaria. The room's non-adjustable air conditioner is more like a fan blowing out weak air in a very hot room during a hot day! Most uncomfortable night! If the air conditioner is replaced with a fully functioning one, I would give this hotel a "thumbs-up".

Our Tour Director, Maya, and our driver, Ady, were friendly and helpful. Ady is also a safe driver. Thanks to Jemma for organizing my travel documents and delivered to me in a timely manner.

A thoroughly enjoyable trip to some less well travelled destinations. We were pleasantly surprised by all of the countries we visited. They are still developing as tourist destinations. We thought we would be confronted by poverty, beggars and a lot of depressing architecture. This was far from the situation. The countries are rapidly developing as ...read more destinations and will become increasingly busy in the future. Guide was excellent. Accommodation as good.

Nice paced tour with not too many early starts. Hotels were extremely good for a Cosmos tour. A good amount of free time to explore the towns.

Really enjoyed this Cosmos tour which included more evening meals than expected and great accommodation including a 5 star Sheraton in Bucharest and other hotels with full suites with separate Lounge-rooms. Buffet breakfasts were excellent. Our guide Kristina gave a very good commentary and was always available and helpful. The optional tours were ...read more quite expensive though. We have booked a number of Cosmos Tours through Hannah at Global Journeys and we have always been impressed with her service and expertise.

A very well organised tour travelling through the Balkans. Beautiful scenery, incredible history and enchanting folklore. The meals including the themed/organised dinners were entertaining and plentiful and never rushed. The tour itself was well planned and a good pace, we also had ample time to explore with the included activities, optional tours and ...read more on our own. We were pleasantly surprised at the standard of all the hotels on this tour as we were expecting 3 star but actually stayed in 4-5 star in great city locations.

Our tour director, Orshi, was excellent, she was a young Romanian lady who not only did a wonderful and professional commentary throughout our tour, she also told us of her life as a child growing up in communist Romania. Our driver Bollage was incredible and he made us feel very safe as he skillfully maneuvered his coach along some narrow, steep and winding roads.

A huge thank you to Georgie at Global Journeys for not only booking this amazing tour for us, but Georgie also organised our documentation much earlier than normal as we were leaving Australia two months before the commencement of our tour. Georgie also went out of her way to follow up our past travellers membership which we were having trouble obtaining.

A fairly hectic trip to an interesting part of the world. A good bunch of fellow travellers who all contributed to the success of our tour. The scenery was a pleasant surprise to me, a lot prettier than I had expected. The hectares of sunflowers made a spectacle. The local guides were all knowledgeable with good English however Sandra, our tour leader ...read more was simply exceptional. Credit to Mihaley our driver also. This was the third tour we have taken with Cosmos and would be happy to use them again for our future trips. Thanks also to Leanne Duffield who was excellent to deal with through the whole booking / documentation process.

We had a wonderful tour with Cosmos and highly recommend this trip because it takes you through small villages as well as the main cities, allowing you to mix with the locals. Accommodation ranges from 3 star to 5 star and the optional extras offered were all excellent and worthwhile. Big thank you to Tour Director Sandra and our amazing driver Mihaly ...read more who navigated some narrow roads and streets with very professional driving. This tour gives enough time to also explore the towns and cities by one’s self in addition to the included attractions and local guided places.

Absolutely fantastic, great guide. Experiencing these former eastern block countries was a great time. We had a guide who lived as a child in Romania under communism and Ally told us her personal encounters, thoughts and history on all aspects of these countries. Will visit again.

Destinations were interesting however this trip does involve several long travel days with only 1 attraction. Most morning and afternoon stops were at service stations and in these countries there was often only one toilet available so the stops were very long.

Generally the tour went very well, however we didn't see very much of Serbia, particularly Belgrade which was a little disappointing. All in all it was worth going on this trip.

The stop in Belgrade was a waste of time. Arrived in the late afternoon and you see nothing (lucky I had been before or I would have been annoyed). Tour guides should be more assertive with the seat rotation. Singles should not have a seat to themselves the whole trip, we all pay the same price. Tour guides put it back on the travellers, when they ...read more are the Leaders of the Group.

This was a great tour and terrific value for money. Having a tour guide (Simona) who grew up in Romania added to the quality of the tour. Each day had several highlights and many beautiful cities were experienced. A couple of things need to be looked at. The accommodation was generally very good. However having the final 2 nights in cheap former communist ...read more hotels soured the end of the trip a little. Add $50 to the cost of the tour and upgrade the accommodation on at least one of the final nights of the trip. The last day involved a lot of driving and not many attractions. We drove straight past a salt mine and it would have been fantastic to visit it as my wife enjoyed a similar experience on her Cosmos Poland trip. Again increase the price of the tour or make it an optional excursion. All in all a wonderful holiday leaving us with a lifetime of unforgettable memories. Thank you to Yvonne for making the whole booking procedure such a hassle free exercise.