Marianna Leccese

There were several bumps in the road during our 2 week trip. We tried communicating with Marianna but she was slow to respond and in general her responses were not helpful.
I am now in the process of planning another trip to Italy with our 15 year old grandson. Initially I was not going to use KimKim because of our recent experience, but our trip to Ireland with Stephen was so positive, I am willing to try again.
We have not heard from KimKim which is to issue us a rebate for one full day that was totally messed up and we were unable to participate in any of the activities. There was also a booking that was so stressful and dangerous to all 4 of us. It was totally inappropriate for the demographics of our group, being on the top floor of a walk up with a steep and slippery staircase that we avoided going to our room unless absolutely necessary. Marianna's lack of responsiveness added to the stress.
Ellen Thomas

Hotel Reviews

Locanda Sette Fate

Palermo

A lovely B and B. Well located. Lovely staff

Authenticity & Character

Location

easy to walk

Staff

t

Cleanliness & Comfort

Ai Lumi B&B

Trapani

The B&B was so uncommodius. The stairs were awful, no elevator, dangerous. The man who greeted us was rude and singularly unhelpful

Authenticity & Character

looks like its under rennovation but if so its being done poorly

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Villa La Lumia B&B Suites & Apartments

Agrigento

A wonderful B&B. Beautiful location. All family staffed. Lovely people. Had dinner and delicious breakfast

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Villa Boscarino

Ragusa

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Archimede Charm B&B - Historical Palace in Ortigia

siracusa

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel Alberi del Paradiso

Cefalù

great host

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Il Principe Hotel

Catania

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Palermo Sicilian Street Food Tour: Small Group with a Local

Palermo

A historic tour would be better for the first day.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Private full-day excursion to Erice and Marsala from Palermo with wine and olive oil tasting

Palermo

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Ragusa: Sicilian cooking workshop in the countryside

Ragusa

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Etna 2002 Eruption Trail Private 4x4 Summit Experience & Sicilian Street Food

Catania

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Tour of Syracuse and Ortigia by Ape Calessino

Siracusa

good not great

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Ragusa Ibla: Baroque Walking Tour with Guide

Ragusa

great. Wonderful guide

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Catania Highlights Walking Tour With A Guide

Italy

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Marianna went above and beyond in every way! From planning more than a year in advance and answering our countless questions to crafting the perfect Italian adventure filled with nonstop sightseeing, incredible food, and unforgettable experiences, every detail was thoughtfully planned. The pacing was perfect, our transfers were seamless, and every driver was kind, helpful, and welcoming. The entire journey was nothing short of amazing!

Marianna and her team paid exceptional attention to detail, truly listened to what we wanted, and brought the trip of our dreams to life. We couldn’t have asked for a better experience and would absolutely work with Marianna, her team, and kimkim again in a heartbeat.

My wife and I completed an awesome trip to Amsterdam, Florence, Tuscany and Venice. Marianna at KimKim was outstanding, helping me plan the trip, setting it up and being available before and during the trip to deal with any questions I had (and I had plenty). Marianna among other things helped me incorporate some aspects that I used airline miles to book outside KimKim, saving me significant money. Some highlights on the trip included: an informative and romantic private Amsterdam canal cruise on a wonderful boat hosted by a delightful captain Sebi of Sebi Tours; an informative Florence Golf Cart Tour through Florence hosted by Echo Florence Tour; incredible hotels, including Castel Monastero in Tuscany; and a wonderful private tour of St Mark's Basilica in Venice.

I highly recommend KimKim. This was our second trip using KimKim (the other to Portugal 1.5 years ago). I will use KimKi again for our next trip

Review of Road Trip In France
What a great service! Marianna, our local specialist, was wonderful to work with. She was very responsive and had some good insights. Now for some specifics:
Picking up the rental car was seamless. With everything prepared and paid for it took just a few minutes to do the paperwork and drive away. As with every other driving excursion, a quick click on the embedded link brought up a saved Google map with a detailed route right to the exact next location.
Deauville was a good stop for us. It was a short drive after leaving our cruise ship to this wonderful seaside resort that had obviously been visited by many film stars and other well-known people. The Hotel Barriere Le Normandy deserved the 5-star rating – great facilities, great service, wonderful charm.
Another click on an embedded link, and we were off for the drive to Mont-Saint-Michel. This was one of the highlights of the trip. What an inspiring feat to build such a grand abbey on an isolated small island so many centuries ago.
Next stop was Amboise in the Loire valley region. The Hotel Le Clos d’Amboise was a charming converted chateau with a courtyard and inground swimming pool. The reception staff was extremely gracious and helpful. The breakfast included was okay. However, we would not recommend the restaurant for dinner. The servings were small, the service was slow, and the price was way too expensive for what was received.
A major highlight of the trip was the visit to the Clos Luc Castle, the final home of Leonardo da Vinci. It was fascinating to see his drawings and the replicas of machines based on his ideas. What a visionary individual he was!
Now came the only hiccup in the entire experience. Before we took the 30-minute trip to turn in the rental car we called the transfer company that was to give us a ride back to our hotel. The company had the return transfer scheduled for the following day and could not get us a driver for the current day. The hotel staff lined us up with a different transfer. We paid for the transfer, but Kimkim graciously refunded us the charge. Specific instructions on how to return the car to the underground parking garage would have been very helpful as the Avis representative was not in his office and did not speak very good English as he tried to transmit instructions as we circled the train station a few times.
All in all, working with Kimkim exceeded our expectations. We have already recommended them to others and will not hesitate to do so in the future.

Hotel Reviews

Hôtel Barrière Le Normandy

Deauville1

Great old 5-star hotel in a wonderful seaside resort

Authenticity & Character

Location

Very short walk to the beach.

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Mercure Mont Saint Michel

Le Mont-Saint-Michel

Typical U.S. style basic modern hotel. We wanted to make sure we had A/C, though it was not necessarily needed.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel Le Clos d'Amboise

Amboise

Nice converted old chateau. The reception staff was very good and helpful. The restaurant was OK for breakfast but would not recommend it for dinner.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Visit the châteaux Chenonceau on your own (timed tickets provided)

France

Quality of Experience

Private transfer in town

France

Transfer was scheduled on the wrong day.

KimKim helped us locate wonderful places to stay (given our requirement to have 2 bathrooms for 4 people) and we had amazing guides in every city -- Zurich, Basel, Venice, Naples, Amalfi Coast, and Rome. We had the BEST time. Marianna was generally available while we were traveling, as was High Point Holidays, and it made things much easier to have that constant contact.

I started organizing this trip back in the January time frame and by March we had locked down the details. I am grateful that the KimKim team answered my questions and really listened to our priorities. Our hotels/apartments were all extremely well=located (big priority) and our guides were all so good. My teenage daughters had a great time, despite the epic heat wave hitting Europe and the daily power outages in Italy. All in all, we are so very happy with our trip!

Activity Reviews

Rome with Golf Cart at Night with Pizza & Ice Cream

Rome

Such a fun way to see Rome, esp in the heat of the summer. Seeing the sights at night is a special treat, and the dinner we had was AMAZING.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Such fun!

Private Venetian Foodie Walk

Venice

Maria is a lifelong Venice resident and she taught us so much about Venice - its history, culture, evolution over the past several decades. What a pleasure this tour was! We likely would have not tried cicchetti were it not for this tour, so it really did open our eyes to a Venetian custom.

Quality of Experience

So much fun and so delicious

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Maria was chatty and interesting and incredibly knowledgeable

Transport

We walked!

Overall our trip was amazing! All the transportation service drivers were excellent, especially Ralph in Paris! We had a glitch in Paris with our meeting spot for one outing, the driver had one address, we had another and the ticket had yet another. The driver went above and beyond to get us to the right spot, even went in to make sure we were ok. In London we had some difficulties as there was a strike with the tube- underground. We had the wrong meeting spot for the Tower tour, caused us to miss that tour and had to get an Uber and pay for new tickets ourselves at the right spot. Kim Kim did re-imberse us for the uber which was great! Since the strike was planned and publicized well in advance, we would have appreciated a heads up as getting anywhere was a nightmare! At one point the Toot bus just stopped and took itself out of service for awhile because of gridlock. Our hotels in both London and Paris were wonderful! All of our tours were outstanding!

our advisor Marianna was absolutely fantastic! She assisted us all the way through from beginning to end of trip! The tours were fabulous and our guides for excursions were very knowledgeable and friendly. 5 star all the way!!

Hotel Reviews

Wellington Hotel by Blue Orchid

London

The Wellington is located within walking distance to West Minster Abbey and the Eye and so many incredible things!!! And also close to the Victoria Station tube. The staff were very friendly.

Authenticity & Character

beautiful grounds and architecture

Location

walking distance to everything!!!!

Staff

very friendly!!

Cleanliness & Comfort

The Independent Hotel

Rome

The location is very close to the main bus terminal so makes it easy to get around! We enjoyed our balcony views and the breakfast in the morning is very delicious! I would've given it 5 stars if the bathroom would've had counter space...our bathroom only had a pedestal sink so it made it much more difficult to do daily routine bath things. Other than that it was really good.

Authenticity & Character

Location

close to public transportation

Staff

They were all friendly and helpful and bilingual

Cleanliness & Comfort

Just needed more bathroom counter space

Activity Reviews

Private transfer in Rome

Rome

Private transport to and from the airport is a must! They are super prompt and friendly.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

our guides and drivers were excellent!

Transport

Private transfer to your destination

England

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Rome with Golf Cart at Night with Pizza & Ice Cream

Rome

This was SO MUCH FUN!!!! Our guide took us to so many places!!! our tour ended up being 4 hours long!! That did include dinner and dessert, but she covered almost every square inch of the city for us. To see the coliseum at night was amazing!!!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Our tour guide's name was Flavia and she was amazing!! I highly recommend requesting her!

Transport

Colosseum Underground Tour with Arena, Palatine Hill & Roman Forum

Rome

The Colosseum tour is a MUST!!!! We had our own private tour with Rosanna (??) (Roxi) and she was a treasury of knowledge!!! The tour is a must

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Pasta & Tiramisu Cooking Class in Piazza Navona

Rome

SO MUCH FUN!!!! and we met such a great couple from Italy! and you get to eat the food you make! ;)

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

we took public transport to this activity and my only suggestion is to make sure to give yourself about an hour+ before the class starts cause the bus stops often!! whew!!

Transport

We’ve had the good fortune to have had several bespoke vacations, and, to be honest, most custom travel consists of cobbling together common experiences for a particular itinerary. KimKim created a truly individualized plan for our very complicated trip to France and I couldn’t have orchestrated this trip without them. Our trip focused on traveling to France for Megavalanche, a mountain bike race in Alp d’huez so we were transporting a large mountain bike. We had days in Paris prior to heading to the mountains. We had excellent guides for Paris and Versailles and our hotel was in a great location and had bike storage. We had some issues with the hotel charges and the KimKim team assured use they would address them. KimKim arranged all of our transportation, which necessitated having a private vehicle sufficiently large enough to hold our luggage and the bike and train compartments with bike holds. They arranged a rental van for us in Grenoble; I wouldn’t have been able to easily do this as the online rental options didn’t offer vehicles big enough for the bike and luggage. We had difficulty navigating the unfamiliar train stations and systems. We missed our train from Lyon to Paris and I couldn’t figure out how to operate the ticket kiosks to purchase another ticket. I was able to call KimKim and they secured tickets for us online and sent those to us within minutes. They also called us to check and see how we were doing. I really appreciated the immediate support. We also had a few missed connections with our driver upon arriving at some of the stations, as we came out of different exits than our driver was expecting. I was able to easily contact the KimKim team and we were able to meet the driver who in each case, was waiting for us at the station. Typically, I’ve never had to contact the travel agency for support and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the responsiveness of the team. We spent our last few days in France in Normandy and had excellent guides there as well. We had chosen to have a private guide drive us to Normandy so we could stop at Rouen and Etretat. As part of our trip, we wanted to spend a day at the Tour de France and it was quite a challenge for our driver to locate a route from Bayeux to Vire that didn’t involve road closures. Despite his frustration, our driver remained calm, tried his best, unsuccessfully, to sweet talk the police, and ultimately found other roads to Vire. This was our first time using KimKim and I wasn’t sure what to expect. We received the highest level of assistance in planning and organizing the trip prior to arriving in France and fantastic support while in the country. This was an overall excellent group to work with and we have nothing but the highest praise for them.

Overall we had a good experience, but there were highs and extreme lows (good excursions and they tried and customer service, but logistics and transportation was a nightmare). I go with travel agents when there is a logistically challenging trip I need assistance on to ensure low stress and efficient trips. I can honestly say this was the MOST STRESSFUL trip experience I have ever taken, and we have traveled with 3 generations of family in and out of the USA before.

The Bad:
-We had several logistical issues small, medium, and large. I was very clear that we had an 80 year old with double knee replacements and I am limited to about 10,000 steps max. My steps were mostly spent chasing cabs down in our recurring transportation issues. The travel agent was made aware of this, did not ask the appropriate questions and thus did NOT accommodate properly for this. We had so much stress and wasted time fixing everything.
-Our stadium tour was not booked on the day planned and had to be updated days before the trip.
-Our cooking class was great, but was changed the night before to a town not close to where we were staying. we had a mad scramble to and hours spent figure this out for the next morning. Kim Kim luckily set up a transfer but the address was wrong on the building so we had to walk to each building buzzing the owners until we found them.
-Both of our hotels were in nice historical areas but we could not get a van taxi for 5 people to drop or pick us up at the locations. We had to walk/run to various different places and had several Uber cancelations.
-Several locations we could not get picked up. Two time we had walk to a gas station for a taxi since there were none around and Uber would not pick us up (AS Roma Stadium and Ostia Antica).
-Our Bari rickshaw trip (good once figured out) got scheduled for a walking tour so yet another scramble and wasted time changing that up.
-Our speed boat tour of the caves near Bari was the absolutely wrong location link, yet another mad dash but at this point I had no confidence in our travel logistics and showed up two hours early at the supposed meeting location.
-We needed to get a train from Bari to Rome since we flew out of Rome the morning after so we asked Kim Kim to set up one to make sure we did not miss the train. The driver was told by someone to go to the airport, so once we noticed we were going to the wrong place we got to the train station running with our luggage and my 80yr old mother with two knee replacement to get on the train as the doors closed.
-There were other discrepancies in the itinerary in addition to the location and scheduling conflicts, like one area said breakfast was included and another did not.
-A medium issues was the in the hotel rooms: we had a window that would not close in 100F degree heat that was not fixed, a sink the leaked, a shower drain that would not drain, got put in separate buildings. We would have chose a less historic area if we knew about all of these issues.
-Steps up to the bathroom on 2 of the 3 rooms we stayed, which may mother tripped on at least once...I can't believe no one even asked about steps, safety bars, or anything having to do with all the mobility concerns we told them about...I could not imagine if someone used a walker or wheelchair!
-I HIGHLY recommend setting up more set transportation ahead of time on the itinerary so a lot of the issues would be prevented.

The Good:
-Our travel agent was pleasant to work with and had good excursion recommendations.
-The excursions were good to excellent.
-The travel agency made a good effort to resolve the issues.

Activity Reviews

Welcome to Rome

Rome

Colosseum Underground Tour with Arena, Palatine Hill & Roman Forum

Rome

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Hadrian's Villa and Villa d'Este Half-Day Tour from Rome

Rome

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Ostia Antica Tour | Half Day Trip

Rome

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Golf Cart Tour of Rome

Rome

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Vatican Highlights Tour: Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums with Skip-the-Line Tickets

Rome

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Guided tour of Bari and the old city with street food tasting - By Rickshaw

Bari

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Discover the "Sassi" of Matera and all the traditiones

Italy

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Full Day Tour to Alberobello, Monopoli and Locorotondo from Bari

Italy

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Pasta & Tiramisu Cooking Class at a Local's Home

Bari

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Bari by boat

Bari

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Polignano a Mare: Speedboat Cruise to Caves with Aperitif

Bari

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

This was our first experience with KimKim. We worked with Marianna for months planning our trip to Europe. We ended up going only to Italy. Marianna was very responsive every time we had questions or wanted to make changes. She helped us secure private and semi private tours that were absolutely perfect. The guides were knowledgeable and helpful. Allessandro was our guide for the Vatican tour and he was outstanding. Raphaella was also wonderful for our tour through Tuscany. Brenda was our tour guide for the Uffizi, while Ishmael took us on a walking tour of Florence. Both were so knowledgeable and kind. Our evening golf cart tour was great and really hit the highlights of Rome.

In addition to the tours, all our train tickets were perfect and ground transportation companies were on time and most pleasant.

Activity Reviews

Vatican, Sistine Chapel & St. Peter's Skip-the-Line Tour

Rome

Alessandro was our tour guide for this activity. It was the most important thing to us on our trip to Italy. We could not have asked for a more informative, enjoyable, organized tour guide. He created this tour so that we felt like we almost had the Vatican to ourselves. He had visual guides with his iPad that really explained what we were seeing and the history behind all. His English was perfect - he was just amazing!

Quality of Experience

Alessandro!

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Alessandro!

Transport

Florence Walking Tour City Highlights with David & Duomo | Semi-Private

Florence

This was a great tour and tour guide. Our only comment was that it was about 3-4 hours long without any breaks. For example, when walking through the market area, it would have been great to have some time to explore there instead of stopping at so many sites that were somewhat forgettable.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Siena & San Gimignano Day Trip with Lunch & Wine

Florence

We didn't realize we would have a driver and tour guide. This was so helpful because parking was difficult and it really helped our guide, Raphaella, to be able to concentrate on the tour itself.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Masterpieces of the Renaissance: Uffizi Gallery Tour | Semi-Private

Florence

Brenda was wonderful, informative and kind.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Welcome to Rome

Rome

Our guide was not waiting for us in the airport but I guess waiting until we were actually done and instead trying to connect via the What's App. It was right as we came into Rome and created a bit of stress thinking he/she forgot us. If he would have at least been waiting in the airport with a sign with our name, it would have been appreciated, but instead he was waiting in his car and we worried that we had been forgotten. In addition, our understanding was that the driver would give us a bit of history and overview of Rome. Unfortunately, he did not speak really any English. This was the only part of the trip that was disappointing.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

He/She really should have at least been waiting for us in the airport with a sign with our name. It took at least 10 minutes or longer until we finally made a connection with him via What's App., and he spoke very little English. It was hard to communicate with him, but he was kind.

Rome with Golf Cart at Night with Pizza & Ice Cream

Rome

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Private transfer in Rome

Rome

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Private transfer

Italy

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport