Lake Balaton and Herend Porcelain Manufactory from Budapest

Over all this was a great itinerary and well executed for the most part. I was picked up at my hotel by a taxi which I did not expect and was taken about a 1/4 of a mile down the road to the meeting point. Had I known it would have been just as easy for me to walk to the meeting point rather than waste a cab ride. Once at the meeting point we stood waiting for our van for 45 minutes which was unfortunate. The van which carried about 13 of us was very comfortable, air conditioned and very clean. Our driver to the Herend plant was longer than I expected. Once at Herend we spend some time having a lovely cup of coffee, touring the museum and shopping prior to the formal tour which included a wonderful movie and demonstrations of how the china is made. It was extremely well done, professional and to the point. After the Herend plant we drove another hour to Lake Balaton where there were two different stops along two different areas of the lake, both very different. My only complaint would be the actual tour guide who while fluent in several languages did not have a good ability to translate appropriately and on several occasions in an effort to explain something to us did not even make sense. She was difficult to follow and not organized. For example at our first stop at the lake she told us we had an hour an 15 minutes to eat and then we were to return to the van. When we assembled at the van after the lunch period she told us we had an additional 30 minutes to tour the city. Most of us had eaten and toured the little city and did not need more time and were confused as to why she had not just given us the entire time to begin with. Our second stop left us with an hour to roam a small area of the lake. It would have been really nice to make better us of the time an offer an opportunity for a swim in the lake. Outside of the small complaints the tour was lovely.