Sightseeing Experience at a glance
If you are searching for "Tuscany Experience" thinking it is an agency, stop for a moment. Tuscany Experience is the name of a product, the coach trip "Tuscany Experience: Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano and Chianti". The company that sells and runs it is Sightseeing Experience® s.r.l., based at via Londra 5, in the Bomba industrial area of Cavriglia (AR), VAT number 02193530512. For reviews, complaints and refunds, this is the right name to use.
The company was founded in 2014 and is the official operator of City Sightseeing Italy, the double-decker sightseeing buses that tour Florence. Behind it is the Maddii family, who have been running coaches since 1928. Sightseeing Experience has recently been acquired by Busitalia, part of the FS group. According to the press, the deal covers the whole Fratelli Maddii group. For anyone booking, little changes in the short term: same meeting point, same contacts, same kind of trip.
Sightseeing Experience and the Tuscany Experience day trip: what you are buying
It is the classic "Tuscany in one day" from Florence: four stops in a single day. According to the operator, it works like this:
- departure at 07:30 from Santa Maria Novella, back in the evening, about 11 and a half hours in all;
- a touring coach with Wi-Fi on board;
- stops in Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano and at a wine estate in Chianti;
- at the estate, a light lunch and a tasting of three wines;
- as paid extras, the climb up the Leaning Tower and the guided tour of Siena.
The thing to understand is that four stops in 11 and a half hours, with two or three hours on the road, leave little time in each place. In Pisa you see the Piazza dei Miracoli, take your photo and move on. If you want to climb the Tower, you must have booked it as an extra, because entry is by time slot. In Siena, without the guided tour, you have time for the Campo and not much else. To find out what there is to see at each stop, read our pages on Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano.
Price: where it is cheapest to buy
On the Sightseeing Experience website the basic trip cost about €52 when we last checked. The listing on the regional Visit Tuscany portal says "from €65", but Visit Tuscany sells nothing: it simply sends you to the operator. If you have settled on this trip, the operator's own website is normally the cheapest place to buy it.
If you want to compare, on Tiqets and GetYourGuide you will find the same circuit of stops sold by other operators: none of these trips appears to be run by Sightseeing Experience. They start at a similar or higher price, but some have thousands of reviews and state the cancellation rule clearly in the listing. Prices there change often, and we keep an eye on them.
Pisa, Siena & San Gimignano: Day Trip from Florence + Wine Tasting
(18 reviews) from €64
Book on Tiqets
Florence: Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano Day Trip with Lunch
(11,722 reviews) from €49
Book on GetYourGuide
Florence: Pisa, Siena, S. Gimignano, Chianti Wine & Lunch
(4,961 reviews) from €58.50
Book on GetYourGuideMeeting point, cancellation and support
The meeting point is the strong point. The Sightseeing Experience Visitor Center is inside Santa Maria Novella station, in the ticket hall. You don't have to hunt for a corner of a square or a sign held up in the crowd. The operator asks you to arrive 20 minutes early, so at 07:10.
Cancellation is the weak point of the documentation. The Visit Tuscany listing gives free cancellation up to 24 hours before, while an old reseller page mentioned 72 hours. Before you pay, read the rule written in your confirmation and take a screenshot. One thing is certain: if you don't turn up for the departure, there is no refund.
Customer support answers from 09:00 to 18:00:
- WhatsApp +39 324 811 4807
- phone 055 961237
- email info@sightseeing-experience.com
Sightseeing Experience reviews: what customers say
When we last checked Trustpilot, two very different figures appeared: 3.7 from about 148 reviews and 4.5 from about 145. Which of the two better reflects the service today is impossible to say: for now, the verdict is mixed.
Price remains the main reason people choose it. The complaints, on the other hand, keep coming back in the same form:
- large groups, with reviews mentioning 60 people or more, and so dead time every time everyone gets on and off the coach;
- rushed stops, with little free time in each town;
- some last-minute cancellations by the operator.
The operator's pages give no maximum number of participants, so you don't know in advance how big your group will be. In high season, expect a full coach.
Who it suits and who it doesn't
It suits you if:
- you have just one free day and want to tick off Pisa, Siena and San Gimignano;
- you are travelling on a tight budget and don't drive;
- a first taste is enough for you, and perhaps you will come back at a slower pace on another trip.
Give it a miss if:
- you really want to visit Siena, or climb the Tower without any worries;
- you can't stand large groups and rigid timetables;
- you have two days: in that case Pisa is easy to reach by train, and Siena and San Gimignano deserve a day of their own.
The alternatives
The score is 3 out of 5, one less than Walkabout Tours, which sells a similar trip to the same kind of traveller. The difference comes down to three points you can check: Walkabout publishes a single cancellation rule (24 hours), has a vastly larger volume of reviews and a consistent rating, whereas here the cancellation rule changes depending on the source and the reviews are few and contradictory. Price and meeting point, on the other hand, are in Sightseeing Experience's favour.
If you want a simple meeting point at SMN but prefer a brand with far more reviews, see our appraisal of Walkabout Tours, which leaves from the same station. For smaller groups, with a stated cap on participants, there is Florencetown. If you are buying on a platform instead, first read how refunds and support work on GetYourGuide and Tiqets. All the coach and train options are compared on our page about day trips from Florence.
To plan the day on your own, start from our page on Chianti, where you will find wineries and villages you can reach by bus or by car.