Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius Small Group Tour

Mario was our tour for climbing Mt Vesuvius. He was very informative of the history of the volcano and what happened to the people of this area. The climb is steep for those with mobility issues, but the views were spectacular. Teresa was our archeological guide for the Pompei ruins. She really has a passion for what she does and showed us most of Pompei in the little time we had. Both tours were great and memorable.

Mario was a fabulous guide. Very informative and considerate pace up the volcano. A must do activity for the Sorrento area. We combined it with Pompeii in the morning and everything was perfect!

This tour company was difficult to work with, because we exchanged multiple emails, where I asked for a private Pompeii tour, but the company booked my family of 4 adults for a “small group” tour instead. While the title of the payment I made said “small group tour,” when I asked for private and clarified for private, I didn’t double check the fine print. I take some blame here. Moving on… The small group was literally 20 people, and that made for a rough start to the tour inside Pompeii. The guide said it was a particularly busy day at the ruins, so it was also very very crowded. Our tour guide had ear pieces, so when you were within range, you could hear her clearly, but with the size of the ruins, our 20 person group, and the crowds that day, we frequently lost connection. Our guide was very very short, so she was easy to lose in the crowds as well. She carried no flag and wore standard dark colors like everyone else. She had a habit of saying “I’ll give you time for pictures,” then running into the crowd to the next item. The most complicating factor though was our guide liked to talk about things we weren’t next to, as a way to prep us for what we would see in like 10 minutes. When you’re the back of a 20 person crowd and losing connection, I couldn’t tell what she was talking about by the time I got to the spot she was talking or if she was even talking about that spot at all. Our guide, Mario, on the Vesuvius tour was phenomenal though. It was a smaller group— 12-14 people— and he made every effort to keep everyone together. He pointed out significant sights from the hike, including the Pompeii ruins from the rim. The hike is hard and the terrain is like dry sand.