Stephania Abatis

On a scale of 1-5 I would give KimKim a 20!!! They wildly exceeded my expectations. There was 7 of us in our group and everyone in the group could not have been more pleased with everything as well. They let us personalize our itinerary so we had free time when we wanted but every tour they scheduled for us was fantastic. It was an 8 day trip that had us staying 4 days in Sorrento, followed by 2 in Florence, and finishing up with 2 in Venice. The drivers, the tour guides, the people who greeted us were also fantastic. If there was a scheduling change we were notified immediately. The hotels we stayed at were all excellent as well. All of us kept commenting throughout the trip how well everything was going and what a great job KimKim did. At the outset of planning for this trip we gave them a targeted amount we were looking to spend and the package they delivered met our expectations and then some. I cannot recommend them highly enough. Will absolutely use them again in the future! If you make it to Capri it's a must to visit the Blue Grotto!!!

Hotel Reviews

Hotel Villa di Sorrento

Sorrento

The only negative was shower in room was super small. Other than that everything was excellent

Authenticity & Character

Location

Right by the city center. Excellent location. Only a 10 min walk to the water

Staff

Nikola was very hospitable

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel Orto De' Medici

Florence

Authenticity & Character

Location

Close to El Duomo and the Central Market

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel savoia & Jolanda

Venice

Location was perfect. Staff amazing!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Amalfi Coast Boat Tour From Sorrento

Sorrento

What a great trip. Would highly recommend. Our captain Marcos did a wonderful job. After visiting Amalfi and Positano the ability to then swim in Mediterranean sea was a highlight.

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Guides, Drivers and Staff

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Chianti Wine & Olive Oil Tour from Florence

Florence

Quality of Experience

Food

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Venice Private Evening Stroll with Gondola

Venice

Our tour guide Nico was excellent. He provided some many interesting facts about the city. It was obvious he loved what he was doing. I would recommend him highly!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

We had an amazing trip made possible by Stephania and her associates!! Stephania customized an itinerary that we requested within the budget we set and picked fabulous hotels and tours. The hotels were all perfectly located to walk anywhere we wanted and were classy, beautiful, with extraordinary staff. The three tours she selected were fun, informative, in spectacular settings. The most amazing part is the convenience of all our transfers and never experiencing any problems or delays. We met other travelers that complained of not being picked up or not being able to find their drivers. When we arrived in Italy, we were given a new set of travel associates (Travel12) to answer any questions or concerns we may have when we arrive. One of our tours changed a meeting point to which I received a text from that organization and within two minutes the travel 12 group texted me to inform me of the change as well! I really can’t say enough about Stephania and her team to be able to arrange a dream trip! The service is very affordable and worth every penny!

Organisation and booking of the trip through Kimkim and the help of Stephania was easy and straight forward. Kimkim gives you the flexibility to personalise our trip and leave out activities that are either too expensive or not interesting to us.

We went on a 10 day trip to florence, tuscany and the italian riveria. Our favourite stay was in the bed and breakfast in tuscany at Villa di Capovento where the couple that runs the place prepares the best food we had during our trip, the house and surrounding environment was also so peaceful and I am so glad we got to experience their hospitality.

We were fortunate to also stay in Camogli, a small town along the italian riveria. Although this is not part of Cinque terre - we were honestly quite glad that we were booked to stay there instead. Cinque terre is a must visit but I will not recommend staying there as it is filled with tourist. Camgoli on the other hand has nice beaches and was a train ride away from St Margarita and Portofino which was worth a day visit each.

The only down side to our trip was the advice that we got from Kimkim on self driving in Italy . I felt that more local information could have been shared about the difficulty of driving around the italian riveria as we ended up just parking our rental car in Camogli for 2-3 days and taking the train around instead due to the extremely small roads and most roads were also not accessible to rental cars during the day. We only know about this when we arrived and was advised by the hotel staff and our guide when we were visiting Cinque terre. If this information was known beforehand, we could have saved a few days of car rental cost and take a train down from Florence instead.

Kimkim is unable to help you book your rental car, and in italy the other issue is car parking along the italian riveria is very limited - this also has to be booked in advance.

Stephania and the KimKim team planned a 10/10 trip for my fiancé and I. We had a trip from Sunday-Friday all throughout Southern Italy and all of our expectations were met! Every excursion was great, all transfers were easy to find and on time, and hotels were to our liking.

Once again, it was an amazing trip and we would definitely use KimKim again!

Activity Reviews

Amalfi Coast Boat Tour From Sorrento

Sorrento

We loved this boat tour. It was great being able to go to two different cities and also seeing the amalfi coast and the scenic views. We also loved the authentic lunch included. Anna, our boat staff, was amazing! Please make sure she knows how great of a job she did

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Guides, Drivers and Staff

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Trastevere Afternoon Food Tour & Wine Experience

Rome

We loved the food and wine tour because it took us to places that we probably would have not gone to on our own. It was nice to see the history behind certain aspects of trastevere and meet new people! Chiara our guide was excellent in showing us around and was very well spoken and kind.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Stephania helped us to include many of our "wish for" experiences on our trip to Rome and the Amalfi Coast. Having the transportation set up in advance was fantastic and our drivers were really more like guides. Rino was the best tour guide we could have asked for. He took great pride in showing us the Amalfi Coast, pointing out the highlights in Positano, Amalfi, Furore and Sorrento. We were fortunate to have an extremely knowledgeable guide for our Vatican tour, whose father is also a guide. In fact, Rebecca was also born in the Vatican City so this was a special place for her share with us and she pointed out all of the "fake news" that the Romans had created centuries ago that is on display in the museum. We took a few boat tours to Capri and along the Amalfi Coast, but the boat tour to Positano was made even better by our Captain who stopped several times to let us jump in and swim near the Grottos. Our stay in Sorrento was made extra special by spending three nights in the Grand Hotel Capodimonte. This 4 Star Hotel has 5 cascading pools, with a view that will take your breath away. The Hotel Modigliani in Rome did not disappoint and is filled with very cool contemporary art and upscale furnishings. We loved it. In hindsight we might have asked to do too much as we were very tired after a 10 hour flight and missed our first ferry to Amalfi because we decided to sleep in. My suggestion would be to give yourself at least one day to just relax before getting into high touring mode!

Most Memorable
1. The cooking classes: Toscana Mia was my favourite! Simonetta and Paola welcomed us into their home and it felt so authentic! The Giglia class in Florence was my second favourite. We did end up preparing the same food as our first class in Rome but the instructor was wonderful.
2. Day trip to Cinque Terre with Tanya. I loved it because we got to experience 3 of the towns. The lunch in Vernazza was excellent. I loved the mini hike and boat ride. Tanya was a pleasant, knowledgeable guide.
3. The Food and Wine walking tour of Trastevere! Excellent guide and delicious food. Eileen was so fun and shared many great cultural food aspects of the area.
4. Wine tour of the Val D’Orcia area with Georgia. This was a lot of driving but we learned so much about wine. Loved the lunch at Il Cocco.
5. The view from our hotel room La Cisterna was breathtaking!
6. Favourite overall hotel was VOI Donna Camilla Savelli in Rome. Best breakfast and most welcoming staff.

Some Issues and Questions
1. Value for our money spent on the trip. I understand that KimKim does not offer an exact breakdown of the separate costs. However, in order recommend KimKim to my friends and family, I would really like to know some general percentages of what we spent on accommodations, private transfers with Icarelimo, the tours and activities.
2. Knowing some names of restaurants nearby our hotels would have been so appreciated.
3. The self-guided aspect when visiting different areas was somewhat vague. For example, In San Gimignano, we ended up booking our own 2 hour walking tour of the town to learn more.
4. I was confused about buying my own tickets to Accademia in Florence. My impression was that I needed to buy these tickets because, as part of the Florence walking tour, we would only pop in to the Accademia. As it turned out, the tour of the Accademia was thorough for us and I felt we I didn’t really need to buy the tickets myself.
5. Buying the tickets to The Colosseum was super confusing, based on the your information. I couldn’t get the tickets ahead of time so I used Viator. When we got there it was so overwhelming and we could have benefitted from a private tour.
6. If I were to plan another trip, I would have built in more down time because the pace of this trip was somewhat hectic. A possible solution would be KimKim asking more about how much we want to walk ( we are 60 and good walkers but still felt exhausted and overwhelmed at times).
7. Of course, nothing KimKim could do about how crowded we found all the places we stayed, except to offer alternative ideas of where to visit when we began our planning.

Hopefully, KimKim appreciates this feedback. Overall, we had a great time in Italy. It was an expensive vacation at a very busy time of the year but we loved our time visiting and learning about all things Italian. The hotels were mostly situated in good places for walkability. I loved having the breakfasts included. The drivers, guides and hotel staff were overall friendly.

Hotel Reviews

VOI Donna Camilla Savelli

Rome

Loved the location in Trastevere. The old monastery and courtyard had a relaxing oasis feel in busy Rome. Great breakfast, lovely room.

Authenticity & Character

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Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Alfieri9 Boutique Hotel Florence

Florence

Small room, no view and a bit far from where we walked each day. Good breakfast and very kind female host.

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Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel La Cisterna

San Gimignano

Amazing views from our window. Bigger room

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

9Hotel Cesari Rome

Rome

Very much in the middle of the heart of Rome. Great walkability but very busy street and some noise. Loved the rooftop patio

Authenticity & Character

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Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Campo Dei Fiori Market Tour & Pasta Making Class

Rome

Great instructor, lovely lunch that we prepared. However we were disappointed that our original tour of market and cooking class were cancelled.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Last minute change(s)

Italy

Quality of Experience

Trastevere Afternoon Food Tour & Wine Experience

Rome

Just excellent. Super personable guide! Wonderful food and cultural insights

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Cinque Terre Day Trip from Florence

Florence

Yes, would totally recommend this because of scenery, lunch, activities and what we learned

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Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Morning Florence Highlights Walking Tour

Florence

Our guide was having difficulty organizing the group.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Private Cooking Class in Florence

Florence

Fun class! The instructor was very good. A lot of her time was spent on the 5 children in the class

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Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Cooking Class in Chianti

Italy

My favourite!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

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Private Val D’ Orcia Wine Tasting

Italy

Really good day of learning about wine and visiting Montalcino and Montepulciano

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

We used your service because we were very satisfied last time. everything ticked and the whole experience was great.
This time the experience was very different.
The service was less available, less informative, less proactive. And was replaced in the middle of the planning by another representative whose felt inexperienced and unprofessional, she received our questions in a completely incorrect way and even considered canceling (!) the entire planning.
My husband used the service to save time and headache, and none of this happened - on the contrary, he felt uncomfortable throughout the entire planning process in front of you, and each time encountered availability and access problems of the service providers.
During the trip itself we were surprised to find that there were holes that were not addressed or were not told to us.
Part of the reason to use the trip planning and the locals is to get information if the planning is good or not and this is something we felt we should ask everything specifically - instead of feeling that we are taken care of and that we can trust you.
We were very disappointed with the service and realized that next time we will probably skip it.

In order to celebrate her birthday, I invited my lovely daughter Sarit to a week long visit to Florence and Venice. It was very well planned and organized by Stephania from KimKim based on our requests and preferences. I must say it was close to 100% to our expectations. Every detail and guide/driver/museum visit went smoothly and the persons guiding us were always on time. That includes the cars from and to the airport, the hotels, the walking guide Irene in Venice, the boat taxis in Venice, the round trip train tickets from Florence to Venice, the morning breakfast offered in the hotels, the hotel locations and the kindness of the car service drivers. Food: the breakfast was prepared well and was pleasing. I am allergic to gluten therefore I can eat only gluten free which is not easy to find. I must point out that the Florence as well as the Venice hotel had a variety of gluten free items including bread, muffins, donuts and cookies. Disappointment: I would like to point out that the Florence hotel room was dignified located on the river with large windows but the television did not work; the sound when fixed came out of the bathroom (!) and the technician needed assistance as he did not know how to repair it. And there was only one channel in English. In addition, the heated towel racks in the modern bathroom did not turn on at all so all week our towels were cold; here too a technician came, claimed he had repaired the racks but no… they never turned on to warm the towels. The Venice hotel suite for one night was beautiful; there were only towels but no bathrobes. Strange to me….
I would like to complete my review with a huge compliment to Stephania and KimKim for granting us such a high level vacation! We will definitely recommend your services to all our friends. Kind regards, Bella Klein

Hotel Reviews

Hotel Balestri

Florence

Great central location. Great breakfast even for persons allergic to gluten. Very friendly staff.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Al Theatro Palace

Venice

Location good. Close to stores and other hotels, restaurants.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Venice Private Evening Stroll with Gondola

Venice

The English guide Irene was lovely. Spoke well, had a lot of knowledge . She was open, friendly, smiling and we walked and saw different sites we would not have noticed without her.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

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Private Tuscany Day Trip to Siena and San Gimignano

Florence

Large beautiful automobile, very clean and well taken care of. The female driver was friendly and knowledgeable. Two locations we enjoyed.

Quality of Experience

Food

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We had an amazing Italy trip

We traveled around Italy for 11 days with my wife and everything was perfect thanks to Kimkim and Stephania. It was a long planning process during which we changed our minds quite frequently, but I appreciate Stephania for sticking with us and in the end, it was wonderful.

All of our drivers were right on time, everything went according to plan with hotels and activities, and we did not have any problems during our trip. Activities based on our preferences ended up being awesome, so I would like to thank kimkim for making a perfect Italy trip possible.

Hotel Reviews

Milu Hotel

Florence

Great location, great staff, very clean hotel.

Authenticity & Character

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Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel Monte Cenci

Rome

Authenticity & Character

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La Badia

Sorrento

Authenticity & Character

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Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Florence Food Tour & Dinner

Florence

Great experience!

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Cinque Terre and Pisa Day Trip

Florence

Good experience seeing these wonderful villages

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Especially thanks to our driver, was a great man.

Transport

Comfortable

Tuscany Wine and Olive tour

Florence

Unbelievably good!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Our driver (and guide) was really knowledgeable. Special thanks to her

Transport

Trastevere Afternoon Aperitivo & Food Tour

Rome

Quality of Experience

Food

Food was amazing

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Our guide was perfect, so sad we could not leave her a tip as we did not have any cash with us

Transport

Colosseum & Roman Forum Tour

Rome

It was nice seeing the underground/private areas of the Colosseum

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

We walked to Colosseum so there was no transport

Rome With Ape Calessino

Rome

Hands down our best activity of the trip. Our driver was really nice and Rome is fascinating at sunset.

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Vatican Guided Tour

Rome

Nice tour

Quality of Experience

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Guides, Drivers and Staff

Guides, Drivers and Staff

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Transport

Amalfi Coast Boat Tour From Sorrento

Sorrento

Quality of Experience

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Pizza Cooking Class in Napoli

Naples

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Local transfer in Amalfi Coast

Italy

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