Good day out but very tiring - make sure it's planned well - Firstly, we booked this trip with Jet2 holidays, whilst we were staying in Sorrento. It was an excellent trip and I would highly recommend it and would have rated it 5*, apart from one slight planning error. After an early pick up from our Hotel at 7:30am, by the mini bus we were advised by our guide, that due to a change with how visits to Vesuvius are now organised, they are limiting numbers, so you are given time slots. When they came to book it for our group, the only time they could get was 1pm. This meant that the wine tasting and lunch which really should have been in the afternoon, was now going to be our first activity. So after our tour of the Cantina Del Vesuvio Vineyard, we sat down to have our lunch at 10-10:30am, along with a glass of Sparkling wine and then 2 different wines per course, 2 white with the starter, 2 red with the main and a dessert wine and grappa with dessert! Food and wine were excellent, but obviously would have been far more enjoyable if it had actually been at lunch time!!! We then had an opportunity to buy some of their wine products, I bought their Red Wine vinegar condiment which is excellent. By now, filled with good food and wine, you can guess we were not really looking forward to trekking up Mount Vesuvius plus being the afternoon, it was getting hotter. We were given 2 hours to get up and down. For anyone with walking difficulties I really would not recommend this trip, it is possible if you take it slowly, but remember what goes up, also has to come down, plus time yourself going up and make sure you allow maybe a bit more time to come down. I have arthritis in my knees and without painkillers I don't think I could have done it. I found going up easier than coming down, as coming down puts more pressure on the knees plus as the surface is rocky/gravelly it is very easy to slip and go over on a stone, so I had to take it more slowly coming down, it took me approx. 25 mins to walk up and approx. 30 mins to walk down. Once you do get to the top the views are amazing, although for us it was a bit of a hazy day. There are a couple of shops at the top and you can buy drinks. There isn't a great deal to see in the crater, don't expect to see any activity, lol. It's more a case of being able to say you have done it. To finish off our tour, our guide got the mini bus to stop off at a Limoncello shop, where the very charismatic owner showed off his huge lemons and gave us free tastings of his Limoncello, Crema Limoncello and Crema Rum made with Mozzarella. We obviously bought some of his products.

Dissatisfied with the communication - Lunch and wine tasting were spectacular which is the only reason I gave 3 stars. The timed entrance tix for the volcano, which were not included, the timing was not communicated until day of tour and were difficult to purchase so late. We ended up with tix at 11:40 for mount Vesuvios so we had to shorten our trip to Pompei. We needed to hire a guide for Pompei since we had to do an abbreviated tour at 9AM. The cost for that was 160 euros. It was not communicated beforehand that a guide for Pompeii was not included with the private tour. The tour is marked private but even for tour of winery, we were combined with other private tours. We did have our own table for lunch. Luck was three courses and was very good and my family enjoyed it. The wine tasting was awesome as well. Only tasted 1 olive oil, based on title, thought there would be more. I would recommend doing the lunch and winery tour but skipping the Mount Vesuvio and Pompeii tours that come with it. They would have been better if done separate from the lunch.

Canceled with no notice 5 minutes after we were supposed to be picked up - Canceled our booking while we were waiting at port in Sorrento for the driver to pick us up. Ruined our whole day