"EUROPE CALLS EVERYONE BACK TO THEIR ROOTS AND IF YOU ANSWER THE CALL YOU WILL NEVER FORGET YOUR TIME THERE!  YOU WILL BE HOOKED AND WANT TO RETURN!"

"Everywhere in Europe it feels like a fairytale land come true!  The beautiful landscapes and cities are amazing.  It is so unbelievable how these old buildings and landmarks along with castles are still standing.  You have to see it for yourself. Taste and enjoy the excellent food and drink from all the local little towns and you will always feel at home", says Gayle Zielke, MCC president of First Choice Travel and Cruise.

To contact one of our First Choice Travel and Cruise's EUROPEAN Specialists call 262-542-5955 and ask for a specialist that is certified by the country/destination you are interested in.  Email    

Here are some of our European Success Stories from our VIP Clients!

Best of Britain: London and Countryside

Our London and the Countryside Small Private Group  was amazing!  Everyone enjoyed the escorted small group experience!

ITALY CELEBRATION OF LIFE

Hi Gayle,

THANK YOU!!  We had a great time in Italy!!  We were up and at ‘em early every day, but we covered a lot of territory, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing!!  Especially glad you recommended going a day early and staying the extra day….next time, maybe a couple more days????

Globus was a wonderful tour company, our Tour Director, Laura, and the bus driver, Bruno, talked of a reunion trip for our whole group in two years to Spain. 

The paintings and architecture did NOT disappoint and I was in awe often. Easter with the Pope was the icing on the cake…the popemobile sighting was phenomenal.  He celebrated Stations of the Cross at the Colloseum on Good Friday…it was so cool to watch that on TV and knew exactly where he was because we had just been there a few days earlier.

Each stop provided more learning and experiences…from shopping, to eating, and photo ops, as you could tell by my posts.  I have soooo many pictures to sort through.

Thank you again for the wonderful memories!!  Please tell Nikki that I’m glad I ended up canceling the gondola excursion I booked online, because it turned out that if I kept it as it was online (Tues. AM the only option), we would’ve missed St. Mark’s Square and the Murano Glass Factory.   We went on the gondola ride Monday evening and it was PERFECT!!  Also, we really really enjoyed the organic farm dinner…atmosphere, ambiance and food were all perfect!

You can use any picture you think is best!   This is not the last trip we’ll be on!!!!

Thanks again,

Terry

Steve said it was TERRY'S trip but I think he loved it too! 
Gayle, Thank you.  It was a trip of a lifetime.  Thanks for making it happen.  You are the best!

ITALY ANNIVERSARY

I'd heard so many people say that they didn't like Venice much (smelly), but it was my favorite stop.  Not smelly at all in October!  Such a magical place.  We added on the optional excursion to Venetian Lagoon, Burano, and we were glad we did...so pretty and full of history (well, all of Italy is full of history, isn't it?:)  I'll attach a pic of the pretty painted houses.  So cool.  

ITALY HONEYMOON

Hello Mary!

Rome was breathtaking. We really liked the location of our Hotel, which was really close to a lot of the sites we wanted to see.

RUSSIA on an Insight Vacation tour for these beautiful LADIES

Hi Gayle. Our trip was fantastic !  Everything went very smooth.  Hotels were excellent, as well as our service. Tour guide was over the top good and sooo nice. We loved Moscow not so much St Petersburg. Two days in St Petersburg would have been sufficient. Our favorite was the Kremlin Place and their malls are beautiful.. We were very impressed and we loved all the history. Would recommend Moscow !!  Thank u for setting up this trip :)  Nancy and Sandy
 

SCOTLAND with GLOBUS

The trip exceeded our expectations.  We were constantly on the move.  Saw a lot of castles (palaces).  We had a wonderful tour guide and driver. 

I would recommend this tour to anyone who wanted to see Scotland in depth. 

Thanks for all your work in putting this tour together.

Al & Sharon Marifke

INSIGHT ITALY TRIP

It was a trip of a lifetime but DO hope to go back. Chris and Bob 

Hi Gayle,

Chris and Bob

IRELAND

Good Morning Mary,

Our CIE trip was Marvelous! Everything went so smoothly. Our tour director (Gordon) and both Drivers (John & Garry) made the trip so fun. Gordon (to me, he was a Sean Connery look alike – even Scottish) was full of historical and current information. He was funny too. He also took good care of us, making sure everything ran well.  We learned that our first driver John (who drives for Dixieland tours during the winter), met his wife (from the USA) on one of the tours, so Mary and I joked that we should send our oldest daughter Tiffany on an tour.  

All the hotels were very nice with The Culloden Estate and Spa in Belfast being just amazing. We enjoy all the many Attractions/stops along the way. I have a nice picture kissing the Blarney stone. When Mary and I go on vacation we seem to ask ourselves “What should we do now” That certainly wasn’t the case with this trip. The tour idea was good for us to do. We only wished we could stay longer than one night in some places. We also got along so well with the other group members. It was a smaller group, only 21 of us to start the tour, then 4 individuals went home when we reached Dublin. 

We would definitely go on another CIE tour.

Tom
 

IRELAND Fun for 2 sisters and their husbands!

IRELAND

Go visit and join in the fun in IRELAND like this group did.



We had a magnificent time! What a lovely country and to be able to see it
with family was wonderfu! The tour was great - couldn't think of a thing we
would change. We took Airport Connection to O'Hare and from the minute they
picked us all up at our house till they dropped us off, everything went
perfect. I would recommend CEI tours to anyone! Our tour director Michael
was great - entertaining and very informative and helpful.
Thanks again for all your help with this trip. I included a picture of all
of us that you might enjoy!!
Sharon & Pat
 

Patricia and Richard Rabay

Dennis and Kathleen Skwor and brother Timothy and Susan Blattner

 

 

 

 

Carol O'Loughlin-Smart and the Balicki, Smart family outside cousin Roddy O'Loughlin's
house in Ennistymon, County Clare Ireland June.

 

 

 

"We all are so grateful, you've made many good things happen for us." 

 

 

 

 YOUNG COUPLES WANT TO VISIT IRELAND TOO

 Hi Gayle,

We had an absolutely wonderful time in Ireland! The weather was really great, minus one day where it was rainy and gloomy all day (of course that was the same day as the scenic drive through the Ring of Kerry!). We really enjoyed all of the excursions, especially the National Stud and the Rathburn Farm trip.

I still can't get over how beautiful the country is, and how vibrant all of the shades of green are - no pictures can do it justice! We really enjoyed ourselves. I loved the relaxed culture, and the people were all wonderful. We liked to spend our evenings just wandering around the towns and visiting pubs.

I have tons of pictures to share, I'd love to send some over to you!

If they'd like to, I'd love to talk to the couple directly and answer any questions they may have. Aside from 2 others, we were by far the youngest on the trip - but Justin and I didn't mind that at all!

The only downsides to the trip were that a couple of the hotels were not as nice as we had hoped, especially the one in Killarney (the other travelers all had updated rooms, but we got one that wasn't yet updated). Also, Waterford was a bit of a bust, as the factory is no longer open. Instead of the factory tour, we had a 20-minute walking tour of the city, and that was it. There wasn't much to do in the city in the evening, so we felt a bit disappointed in that part.

It was funny that you emailed me today, as I was just on your website earlier looking at vacation options - I'm getting the itch to travel again!

Hope all is well,

Margaret and Justin Rooney

(with a name like Rooney they might have been looking for their roots and found a lot of fun along the way)

 

 

 MORE FAMILIES ARE VISITING IRELAND 

Finally getting back you on our family’s trip to Ireland.

All went well and all enjoyed the trip.  Comments about accommodations.  Hopefully you have the names because I am a little foggy about those (now):

Dublin – Great place to stay.  Very convenient.  Staff was very helpful and made our stay enjoyable.  We recommended that some friends stay here last month and they found it the same.  Breakfast and the hotel bar were both good.  Good “Irish” feel

Waterford – Good place to stay also.  We were only here for one short day and night.

Kinsale B&B – OK place, since it’s a family’s house, they had some activity of their own too.  Relatively close to town.

Killarney – Good place to stay.  Not a very “Ireland” feel though more American, seemed to be very new.

Enistimon (sorry about the spelling) – I would not recommend this place or town.  Although it appeared to be the best accommodations in town, there wasn’t much too this town including restaurants.  We did enjoy the pubs here though, very Irish feel so all was not lost.

Dublin – Really enjoyed the big city sights, sounds, museums, eateries and pubs.

Waterford – The crystal tour was well done and very informative.  We were not originally planning on taking it but changed our minds and glad we did.  Had a fun time ourside of town.  Went looking for distant relatives only knowing to find a pub, ask for a certain person who was supposed to direct us to another that would have the “book” containing the history/ancestory of the area.  Only found the pub but asked around and everyone seemed to know someone that knew someone, lots of stories and they broke out in Gaelic songs while we talked, very enjoyable.

Kinsale – Beautiful town and surrounding area.  Wished we had more time here but too much to see and not enough time.  Great dinner spots with pubs, enjoyed the people.  Great fort in town but we spent too much time here.

Killarney – Very busy downtown with lots of restaurants/pubs.  We didn’t do the Ring of Kerry but did drive around the Dingle Penninsula.  Really enjoyed this.  Great scenery.  We ran across a beach, think it was called Inch.  We were able to drive our car on it.  Lots of hills, stone walls, sheep, etc to see. 

Enistimon – Took a ferry out to Aran Islands (the closest one).  I have been on lots of boats but we picked a rough day to take the trip, dreary, windy, wavey but nothing that a few sea sickness bags couldn’t help. Anyway got to the island and we were really sure what to do.   Walked to one of the three pubs and had our first beer by 10am (not our usual schedule). Walked out about an hour later and the same “tour guides” were still waiting for us.  Not knowing what else to do, we took it.   It was very enjoyable and a great way to meet the driver and spend an hour with him.  City of La Hinch seemed like a fun spot, had dinner there.

Roads were better than I imagined.  At the last minute I upgraded to a slightly larger van with automatic.  All went well except on one rainy, dreary day while rounding a left turn/curve on a highway.   Seemed like the weight of the rain made a trees lining the road bend excessively over the road and a car was coming around the curve at the same time, anyway I took the curve a little tight and well the mirror wasn’t the same after that.  No worries, all was ok at check-in.

Take care.

Mike & Deb Czarnecki 
 

EUROPE IS A GREAT PLACE FOR A HONEYMOON!

Hello Tana,

Our honeymoon was great!  We had a great time in Europe.  We will like to share some favorites. 

1. Venice: It was great just walking around the little streets and getting lost.  We really enjoyed that!  The guide was great since she took us to the main attractions in the square.  We arrived during an important celebration in Venice, so we got to see fireworks at the St. Mark Square!

 2. Rome:  Rome is great for sightseeing.  Everything wasn't too far from our hotel and it was easy to take the metro and get around the city.  We visited the Vatican although we had to get there very early in order to not wait in line.  The roman forum and the Coliseum are a must!  FYI, visitors should go to the roman forum first since the ticket for the roman forum is also valid for the Coliseum and the ticket is valid for 24 hrs (the coliseum line is very long, while the roman forum has a much smaller line and less wait).  We spent a lot of time walking the streets of Rome, sightseeing at night is great!  Plaza Naveno is also a great place to hang out and appreciate the artists of Rome. 

3. Paris:  We bought a 2 day pass for about 32 Euros, which includes tons of museums and you're allowed to skip the lines if you have this pass.  The pass allowed us into the Arc del Triumphe, the Louvre Museum, Notre dame, etc.  This helped us save a lot of time in lines and enjoy our trip more.  The Eiffel Tower is a must!  It was very close to the hotel n what we enjoyed the most was buying a glass of wine and some snacks and sitting by the tower and watching it light up at night.  We did go up the tower, although we had to be there extremely early since the wait is extremely long.

 4. Madrid:  The city was amazing and everything was walk able from the hotel.  The Plaza Mayor is very nice, there was a performance when we were there.  The car tour definitely helped us out a lot since we got to see more of the palace and where the bull fights take place.  Shopping is also very accessible, and the nightlife is very fun! 

5. Barcelona:  The city is very big, it required a map and lots of walking.  We visited La Sagrada Familia and we really enjoyed it.  The car tour was also very convenient due to the size of the city, however, we were not able to visit as many attractions due to the traffic.  The city is great for shopping, there are shops everywhere. 

Overall, the hotels were amazing and the trains were great too!  All the food we tried was amazing.

 A quote that would describe our trip:  Trip of a lifetime!  Nothing more romantic than sharing a bottle of wine by the Eiffel Tower.

Thanks for putting all this together for us!

 Thank you.

Jessica and Jesus Aquino

SCOTLAND
 

Have you ever dreamed of a Scotish Wedding?  Kerri Lapointe and Michael Webber tied the knot near a castle in Scotland.  Family and friends joined them for the ceremony and the festivities.  These two sure know how to "live the dream"!!!

Globus's Alpine Countries tour for this fun group

Hi Mary,

I wanted to send you a message to say Thanks!  Thank you so very much for all of your hard work and careful planning for our European adventure.  Every place we stayed was lovely and we had a wonderful time.  I am happy to report that all of our travels went off without a hitch and everyone enjoyed the trip very much.

I think Lido was the favorite…  Hotel and especially the beach!  We spent a whole day just lounging on the beach and swimming and relaxing, which was amazing.  One thing I did want to let you know about the hotel in Lido – they have no ground level floors and they have no elevator.  Susie ended up being just fine, but if someone was traveling with a wheelchair it would be a real problem.  I just wanted to make sure you know for booking in the future that the hotel is lovely and we really enjoyed our time there, but it is absolutely not handicap accessible as the first floor is up two flights of stairs.

Again, thank you so very much we had an amazing time and I know that First Choice Travel and Cruise has some new #1 fans after this vacation. Have a great day!

Best Regards,

Melissa Line

SOUTHERN SPAIN

Everything was great. The time went by way too fast, as always!
Attached is a picture of us in southern Spain, along the Mediterranean. That's Africa in the background!

Thanks for all your help,

Virginia

 A GIFT THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER

Pastor Verne and Lynnette Hagenbeck were given a European trip of a lifetime by their whole First Assembly of God congregation when he retired. 

Verne said it was awesome!  Everything worked out good.  They really enjoyed the Globus tour ( Rome to London) and the trip to Noway before the tour worked out really well.  It was a TROUBLE FREE VACATION!

Verne and Lynnette

 We are sure London and Paris will not be the same after all these women of all ages experienced the trip of a lifetime!

A MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE IS THE WAY TO SEE MANY PORTS OF CALL IN EUROPE 

The Med Cruise group in Mykonos, Greece. A wonderful time was had by all.  We visited all over the Mediterranean and Mykonos was one of our HIGHLIGHTS!  We all totally relaxed and enjoyed the day running around town and we took no tours here.  Sometimes that is the best way to have a great time is to go out and explore on your own.

Don and Nancy Andrews, Audrey Lehner, waiter, Esther Van Lare and Gayle Zielke in Mykonos, Greece.


Pictured below are Gary Zielke, Richard Parrillo,  Andy Lehner and Brian Ewald in Mykonos, Greece.   The women were off shopping again!

Gary and Gayle Zielke, Brian and Betty Ewald, Rich Parrillo and Esther Van Lare, Chris Jahn, Doreen Katers and Audrey (hidden) and Andy Lehner.

Thanks for everything you did to make the cruise a fabulous expericence!
Chris
 

Dear Gayle,
Thank you so much for all your hard work in arranging "the trip of a lifetime".  My beautiful memories of other people and the scenery will last forever!
Thank you,
Coral Wilkens

 
Pictured above is part of the group in Mykonos from our Med Cruise group!

More great Celebrity Cruises




 

Steve and Pat Busalacchi  from Muskego cruised the Mediteranean on Celebrity Cruise Lines in the fall and loved it!  They took hundreds of pictures of scenery.  Every one was better than the last,  but I had a hard time finding one of the both of them.  Here is Pat in Santorini Greece enjoying the sights!  They both agreed that Nice, France (Southern France) was their favorite, Italy was second and Spain was third on the list of many favorites.  It was hard to choose.

Bourn Giorno

I just wanted to drop you a line to let you know we had a wonderful trip to Italy.  Globus really treats their customers well.  The only complaint we had was they could have gotten us to the airport a good ½ hour earlier for our flight home.  We had a 6:35 a.m. flight and we didn’t get to the airport until 4:50 a.m.  It was a bit tight but we did make it.  An extra ½ hour would have been good.  The sights, wine, countryside, everything was wonderful.  Thanks for helping us with our travel plans and we look forward to using you again sometime in the future.  We had a great time.

Globus was wonderful!!  Oh, the hotels were really good, too.  We actually stayed in Venice.  Our tour guide said the tours are set up that you may stay downtown in Florence - we stayed out of town at a Sheraton which was very nice.  But then the trade off is once you go to Venice, the Sheraton people get to stay in Venice and the downtown Florence people stay in the town on the mainland, I don’t remember the name of it, but it was a bit of a distance.  So we lucked out perfectly.  We were a block off St. Mark’s Square.

We had a wonderful time on our pre, post & Celebrity cruise.  The most educational, cultural, and geographically interesting vacation we've ever done.  The Hotel Sofitel in Venice was wonderful, but it was quite challenging to figure out the best way to get there from the airport.  We wound up on the public bus with our luggage, which was actually the best, especially at 2 Euro each.  There's alot to tell about it all.  We can't pick a favorite time or place as it was all good.  I'd sail on that ship again just to be able to experience the Olympic Restaurant - the extra-charge one.  The best dinner we've ever, ever had.  Our cabin was great.  Our friends' surprises were very fun.  We enjoyed Barcelona in the end despite the rain.  Took in a flamenco show, did a city bus tour, etc.  Celebrated Bill's birthday at the Hard Rock Cafe - so nice after lots of "what-is-this" kind of food! 

 Pat Bonesteel and the gang loved their cruise from Barcelona on Royal Caribbean

Gayle,
We enjoyed our trip very much.  We put on a lot of miles, ate a ton of good food, and visited with many relatives.  Because of this, our pictures mostly consist of people – not interesting to the average tourist.  Thank you very much for handling the travel arraignments, it all ran very smoothly.

Have a good day,  Linda Dschida 

THE WHOLE FAMILY  TOOK A TOUR THROUGHOUT GERMANY

Gayle, We had a great time!  The guide was terrific and the driver also very good.  I would do another Globus tour, even by myself!  We needed more time at some places and less at others, but the hotels were very nice, except one or two, and the food great-except a couple of times. But it was nice with so large a group to have an itinerary planned and times set to be places so no one would gripe or slow everyone else down.  I will send a few of my 847 pictures (and those are mine alone--the kids took lots, too).  Had some rainy days, but the weather generally was great for touring. 
The ride to and from the airport was a Godsend--thanks again!
Long flight overseas, but was able to sleep.  Kids bought me a cuckoo clock as a thank-you!
There were a few people on the tour who were a real hoot! 
Our flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was delayed an hour and a half, so we thought we would miss our ride to the hotel, but the tour director had called the airline and found our flight was late so he waited for us!  That really endeared them to us! 
So, it was a great trip and I would go again in a heartbeat! 

Thanks for everything!

Pam

I received Pam's Christmas Greetings: Our highlight of our family trip to Germany!  I have waited 45 years to go back there, so this summer we all took a tour of Germany.  We visited Frankfurt, Cologne, Berlin, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Rothenburg, Munich, Oberammergau, Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Lindau, The Black Forest, and Heidelberg in 12 days.  It was incredible!!!

CRUISE THE MED

A Celebrity European Med Cruise
We sailed onboard the Millenium from Venice to  Barecelona.  The hotel was very nice and about a 10 minute walk from LasRamblas, which is the area you want to be in or near. 

What a wonderful AUNT to take her nephew on a once a year special cruise like this!

This once a year special cruise departed Southampton, London and cruised Iceland, Norway, the British Isles, and the fjords.  A perfect place to meet up a couple of days before the cruise was London where Diane and Saku took the evening Jack the Ripper tour.  Saku and Diane even met the famous Alice Cooper at breakfast at their hotel.