Strasbourg Christmas Market Coach Tours and Breaks

Every autumn, British tour operators sell three and four day breaks to the Alsace Christmas markets. Some run a coach the whole way from the UK, some fly you to a nearby airport and pick you up with a coach at the other end, and some sell you a hotel with a Christmas label and no transport at all.

They are popular, they are barely documented, and they are all judged on the same three lines of the contract: where the hotel actually is, what time the coach leaves the market, and what the price really covers.

We are not going to name operators or quote prices here, because both change every season and a figure printed on a guide page is a figure that will be wrong by November. What does not change is what to look for, and that is what this page is.

The three families of package

Under the heading "Alsace Christmas markets break" you will find three very different products.

• The coach tour from the UK. Departure from a set of pick up points, a long day of travel each way including the Channel crossing, then two or three nights somewhere in the region with free time at one or two markets. The cheapest per head, and the most travel per day.
• The fly and coach break. A flight to a regional airport, then a coach for the transfers and the excursions. Shorter travel days, higher price, and the one most likely to be a protected package under UK rules.
• The hotel only "Christmas market" stay. Sold with festive branding, often in a town some distance away, and with no transport at all. Despite the name it is not an organised trip, it is a hotel booking with a wreath on it, and it is the one that disappoints most often on arrival.

If what you wanted was a trip with the travelling taken care of, only the first two count.

The four traps

1. The hotel is almost never in Strasbourg

This is the point to check before anything else, and the one the brochure is vaguest about. Wording like "in the Strasbourg and Colmar region" covers a great deal of ground, and a coach tour is much cheaper to run from a hotel with its own car park an hour outside the city.

The consequence is concrete. Once the coach has left, you cannot come back to the market in the evening, when it is lit and twice as good. Visitors staying in the centre walk out again after dinner. You will be watching television in a business hotel by a motorway junction.

Ask for the name of the hotel, in writing, before you pay a deposit. If the operator will not give it, that is your answer.

2. The time the coach leaves

Read the itinerary for the departure time from Strasbourg, not the arrival time. The market runs 11.30am to 9pm, the sun sets around 4.35pm in December and the lights come on shortly before, so a coach leaving in the late afternoon takes you away at the exact moment the market becomes worth the journey.

A free afternoon in Strasbourg sounds generous until you work out that the good three hours are the ones after you have gone.

3. The drop off is not at the market

Tour coaches do not enter the centre. The official drop off is at Place de l'Étoile, about fifteen minutes' walk from the first chalets, with the coaches themselves parked out at the Elsau park and ride.

So take half an hour off the free time you have been quoted, for the walk there and back. On a three hour stop that is a sixth of your visit, and the 8 markets are spread across the whole of the Grande Île once you get there.

4. "Free time" means "at your own expense"

On the cheaper breaks the programme often comes down to transport, the nights, breakfast, and free time. Guided tours, boat trips and meals other than breakfast tend to appear only on the longer tours and the group departures.

That is not a fault in itself, but it has to be known before you compare the headline price with the cost of doing it yourself, because a self made weekend includes the same meals at the same prices.

Do the arithmetic on the free time as well. A brochure that promises a full day in Strasbourg often means arrival late morning and departure mid afternoon, minus the walk from Place de l'Étoile at both ends. What is left is shorter than it sounds, and it lands squarely in the busiest slots on the city's own crowd table.

Optional excursions sold on top, to Colmar or a wine village, are the other place where the real price forms. They are usually worth having, since they solve the transport problem the villages create, but price them in before you compare anything.

The questions to ask before you pay a deposit

Send these in writing and keep the reply. An operator that answers all six clearly is usually a good one.

• What is the name and address of the hotel? Not the region, the name. Then look at where it is on a map relative to the Grande Île.
• What time does the coach leave Strasbourg each day, and where does it drop off?
• Which meals are included? Breakfast only, half board, and whether drinks are included, which is where the bill grows.
• What is the single occupancy supplement? This is the line that penalises solo travellers hardest, and on a longer tour it can be substantial.
• Is the departure guaranteed, or does it depend on a minimum number of passengers? A trip that has not reached its threshold can still be cancelled by the operator.
• Is the package financially protected, and under what scheme? See below.

Checking the operator is properly covered

In the United Kingdom, a trip that combines at least two elements, typically transport and accommodation, sold at an inclusive price, is normally a package holiday under the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations. That gives you two things a hotel booking does not.

• Insolvency protection. Your money is protected if the operator fails, and you are brought home if it fails while you are away. Flight inclusive packages are covered by ATOL, and you should receive an ATOL certificate when you book. Coach and rail based packages are protected by other approved schemes, and the operator has to tell you which one.
• A single point of responsibility. The organiser is liable for the package as a whole, not just its own part of it, which matters when a hotel turns out to be nothing like the description.

Membership of a trade association such as ABTA is a further reassurance rather than a substitute for that legal protection. An operator that cannot tell you which protection scheme covers your money is a reason to stop.

Your rights if it goes wrong

Three points worth knowing before you sign anything.

• If you cancel: you can, at any time before departure, but the organiser may keep a reasonable cancellation charge, normally set out on a sliding scale in the terms. The closer to departure, the more you lose, and the scale is usually steep in the final weeks.
• Unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances at the destination: you may cancel without a charge and get your money back, though without additional compensation. This is a narrow test and it is not the same as changing your mind.
• If the operator cancels: you are entitled to a full refund within a set period, or to an equivalent alternative trip. If you accept the alternative you give up the compensation that would otherwise be due. The two do not stack.

You are also entitled to be told about significant changes before departure, such as a change of hotel, and to accept them, take an alternative, or cancel with a refund. That is precisely why getting the hotel name in writing at the outset is worth the email.

When a package is the right answer

We are not against these trips. There are readers for whom they are clearly the best option.

• Travelling alone. A package prices the accommodation per person, which hurts couples and helps nobody more than it helps a solo traveller comparing it with paying for a whole hotel room alone. Check the single supplement first, though, because it can erase the advantage.
• You do not want to organise anything. That is a legitimate reason to pay for it, and the protection that comes with a package has real value.
• A group, a club or a society. Group rates on a coach tour are genuinely hard to beat, and this is where guided visits and boat trips get included rather than sold on.

And when it is not, the answer is usually the same: two people booking a train and one shared hotel room in the centre get a better trip for a similar sum, with the evening market included. Our Christmas market weekend sets out how to build it, and getting here by train covers the journey from Paris and London.

If the villages are what tempted you into a coach tour in the first place, read Alsace Christmas markets from Strasbourg first. Several of them are easier to reach on your own than the brochures suggest.

Sources: publicly listed itineraries and terms of sale of UK tour operators selling Alsace Christmas market breaks, read for structure and inclusions rather than price; noel.strasbourg.eu for the Place de l'Étoile coach drop off; the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations and CAA guidance on ATOL for financial protection and cancellation rights. Prices, departure points and hotels change every season, and none are reproduced here: check them on the operator's own page before you book.