FAQs

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Where will my chauffeur meet me?

• Airports: Our drivers wait outside the luggage claim area, right outside of the custom, possibly many people will be holding signs and also your driver will be there posting your name on a board. That’s how you identify your driver.
• Our service and price includes parking and waiting up to one hour after the scheduled landing time.
• Ship: You’ll find the car or van parked right on the pier where your ship docks at the time you set. Your name will be posted on its windshield or if allowed to park the vehicle the driver will walk with the sign at hand to the gangway, but since most large ships have more than 1
  gangways, if you don’t’ see your driver right away, look around for him, ask where chauffeur service vehicles stand, before you get frantic and assume he’s not there.
• Hotel: in particular cases (on reques) we let our driver announce himself to the concierge as he reached the hotel but DO NOT want that the passengers are called in the room to announce that the driver or guide has arrived.
• The assumption is “The passenger knows at what time the service is booked, when he is ready he will come down, don’t disturb the passenger announcing yourself” but the majority of the people will expect that we do announce ourselves when we arrive, and so we will do.
• Train Station: Arriving at the station, just as you come down from the train, follow the flow of the people leaving the train till you get to the head of the train and you’ll see a person with a sign with your name right on the platform where the train pulls in. If you don’t see the
  person right away, please wait a few minutes right there, don’t run around the station to find him, you will NEVER find him this way. Sometimes trains arrive early, sometimes they arrive on a different track than the announced one, it may take a few minutes for the driver to locate where
  you are but he will.

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How long does it take to receive transportation quotes?

• On average most quotes are furnished to you well within 1-3 days.

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We have more than 8 people in our party, how can you take care of us?

• We have minivans and minibuses of different capacity in our fleet. The number of passengers is not a problem for us. We will find a perfect solution for you regardless the number of people in your patry or the destination point.

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Where can I get Travel Insurance?

• As a local transportation company, we normally deal with customers who already have pre-purchased a travel insurance. We don’t deal in this.

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Can I book air / hotels / car rental through you?

• Driving Guide Tours is not a tour operator, so we only provide the chauffeur services, tours guides and travel escort.

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I have not received a reply to my emails, what do I do?

• If you haven’t received any e-mail from us first of all please check your spam folder.
• If there is no our message there as well, please call us.

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Are there discounts for booking more than one tour?

• No, our services have flat, no negotiable rates.

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What languages do you speak?

• All the tours and services provided by Driving Guide Tours are available in English. Upon request, we are able to provide services in Spanish, German, French, Portuguese and Russian.

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Can I book this when I get there?

• We don’t advice to wait till you arrive as per above question. In this case we cannot quarantee you providing the services.

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How early in advance should we book your services?

• We pride ourselves in offering excellent availability, but like every successful business we are indeed quite busy, therefore late requests should not be made by our customers assuming we will accept them.
• If you are not familiar with the high-season periods in Tuscany, the best solution is to always book as soon as you are certain of the dates of the service being booked.
• When you give us your final plan and we email you the Credit Card Authorization Letter for you to sign and fax back to us (See relative question) we will option the services for 7 days, in case you send us the form 8 days after or later we may not be able to confirm the booking and they
  may have to be rescheduled.
• If the booking is for services less than a week away, we will maintain the option for only 24 hrs.
• Upon receipt of your Authorization Letter, we will confirm the booking in writing in timely fashion.
• In case you book services more than 2 months away we will only charge your card about 1 month before the beginning of the services.

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Are there any dates when your service is not available?

• No, we operate 365 days a year, yet on main national holidays because of too many requests we may have shortage of personnel availability, therefore for such dates, early bookings are highly recommended.

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How do I get on a train after you drop me off at the station?

• Florence central station is a transit station, 95% of the trains that international passengers will ever use don’t originate or end in Florence train station Santa Maria Novella (SMN) if you go to Rome, the train may come for Milan or Venice stop in Florence for 8 minutes and continue on
  south.
• If you go to Venice the train will come from Naples or Rome stop in Florence for 8 minutes and continue on north.
• There is no luggage check in on Italian Trains, and trains are not well equipped with luggage storage.
• Porters are not available on the spot at Florence station, they should be booked ahead of time.
• If you are not familiar with our train system, ask for advice to your driver and he will explain you how to handle the train.
• In case of particular needs or uncertainty, assistance can be booked aside so that either the driver will stay with the passenger till they have boarded the train, or we will provide a separate person to do it.

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How long in advance should I be picked up for a departure transfer?

• Florence Airport “Amerigo Vespucci” Departure Transfer: Pick Ups for Florence airport night time (from 8.00pm to 7.00am) should be done 1,5 hrs before the flight (with no traffic the airport is only 10 minutes from the center). It is required to report at check in at least 1 hr before
  the departure time of the flight) Pick Ups for Florence airport day time (from 7.00am to 8.00pm) should be done 2 hrs before the flight. (with traffic the airport is 20 to 40 minutes from the center).
• Florence Central Station “Santa Maria Novella” Departure Transfer: Pick Ups for Florence main train station should be done 45 minutes before the train if the hotel is located in the center and 1 hr if it is outside of the center but still in the city of Florence.

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Are there standard pick up locations or times for your services?

• No, we provide only private services, therefore we can pick you up and drop you off wherever and whenever you like.
• If you are not certain what your hotel or pick up / drop off location will be when you make the booking, we can still accept it but it will be your responsibility to provide this information before the starting time of the service.
• We will charge in full for any wasted time deriving for failure of our customer to notify us with the relevant information for carrying out the service.
• Ideally we should be notified of any changed pick up and drop off location at least 24 hrs in advance.

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When and till what time are phone calls welcome?

• Calls to our office phones are welcome from 10.00am to 7.00pm which is our ordinary operation schedule.
• There is normally a minimum of 2 staff in the office during office hrs, but since we are a service company in case of emergency there might be nobody in the office even during office hrs, in such cases feel free to contact the mobile emergency number.
• The mobile emergency number is on 24 Hrs a day 7 days a week, but we don’t have personnel on night shifts, therefore we appreciate if you could postpone a non-urgent call to regular hours.

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Are phone inquiries welcome?

• We invite you to call us in case you are uncertain on what you need.
• It’s often a lot faster for both you an us to go over certain services by phone rather than emailing back and forth many times.
• In a 5 minutes phone call we can normally let you understand our service better and we will understand more what you need and want, than emailing back and forth many times for days.
• Phone calls are welcome from anywhere, if you call from the USA or Canada you may use our international toll free number +1-866-746-4348 (1-866-RINGDGT) dialled as if our office were based in the US.

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Can I book over the telephone?

• In case of last minute urgent bookings, we can record all the info pertaining to the booking by phone, this is extremely important especially to make sure no important information is omitted.
• But we do need the phone call to be followed by immediate payment (see above) we cannot consider a booking finalized unless full payment is received.

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What is your cancellation policy?

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How can I change, amend a booking?

• You may email us at booking@drivingguidetours.com with the specifics, providing we have the availability for the amended booking we will make the needed adjustments on the rates and we’ll send a new confirmation.
• We can accept as amends, variations which don’t decrease the overall chargeable amount of service of more than a 20%, and as long as such requests are received by phone, email or fax at least 48 prior to the beginning of the service being changed.
• In case the decrease exceeds the 20% of the total amount we will apply our cancellation policy (see below).
• For services up Euro 99,99 a variation is considered equal to a cancellation unless it’s notified to us and we have responded at least 4 Hrs before the Service.
• If you send us an email 5 hrs before the service, it is not guaranteed that we will see it right away, therefore if you don’t received an immediate ask sent by a person (not an automated replay) please call to make sure we are aware if the change.
• Example 1: You have booked 2 Full day Tours at the value of Euro 500,00 each for a total chargeable of Euro 1.000,00. you decide to shorten one of the days which would bring your total to Euro 900,00 and request this change 3 days before.
• We will do without any penalty since the change is inferior to a 20% reduction of the total charges.
• Example 2: You booked an Airport arrival Transfer at Euro 90,00 you miss the connection and call us 3 hrs before the schedules arrival, the value of the transfer is lost.
• If you had called us 5 hrs before we would have rescheduled the service with no penalty.

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Are bank wire transfers payments welcome?

• Naturally yes, we prefer this method for payments which exceed Euro 2000,00 but in case you cannot pay by credit card, bank wire transfer can always be used.
• In this case we will email you the bank data necessary for you to process the payment.

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Can I use PayPal with you?

• Yes we do have a PayPal account the related email is dguide@ats.it.