SAT Group

Owful expwrience at the info centre in Taormina with a lady representing the company while we were trying to book some trips to the Aeolian Islands, to Etna and to Palermo. Very impolite, almost kicking us out and telling us not to go if we have so many questions. Reccommended online booking as the tours are fine.

The German guide on the bus spoke with a very strange and heavy accent and gabbled the poor English with no pauses so her sentences made no sense. On arrival at Etna she became very bad tempered when most people asked her questions as they had not understood her instructions. Also, on booking the tour we were told the guide would point out where it was best to go to see the craters, lava etc. but when I asked her she just shrugged her shoulders and said "the whole park" in a sarcastic manner. She remained completely silent on the return trip when she could have added a few interesting details about the area. You are really only paying for the coach ride there.

I book two excursions with SAT. From the minute I walked in I was welcome with a smile and professionalism. Everything was organised to perfection. I did two tours with them Etna and Alcantara and the Aoilians Island. they were both very well organised. The guide gave us all the information we required. I will definitely re use their services and recommend it to all my friends and everyone who wants to do excursions in that part of Sicily. Definitely the best company to use. Thank you SAT. You are a fantastic company

I had a premium experience touring with SAT. Perfect scheduling, superior service and competence of the entire staff.

We had a nice experience with SAT. We went to Etna and everything was very well organized. The trip started on time and everything went according to the schedule. Very impressed by the guide, a lot of fascinating information, provided in a funny and easy to remember way. Don't miss the high altitude option by jeeps and do came back to the funivia on foot :)

Really a waste of time. Mt. Etna tour was terrible. Note: Mt. Etna itself is awesome and my review there is 5 star. This review is for the tour up to and from Etna. We were happy to hear this tour had a pickup not far from our hotel in Taormina beach. So that was a good start. At 6.45am the bus picked us up so it was all good to start. Once we got everyone we soon realised we had one tour guide to 60 people. Then we found out this tour was in three languages so everything the tour guide said, he had to say 3 times. This meant for the whole tour it was constant talking and we missed so much because he was talking in Italian or German then would switch to English to say something then back to another language. I understand other languages need to be accommodated but this system they use doesn't work. Quick Fix would be either hire more tour guides to speak one to a smaller group or give everyone a headset. Then the guide could speak to the English channel or the German channel and others wouldn't have to listen to it. It was heaven when after 2 hours, he stopped talking. I'm sure his info is great but listening to sometime speak over a PA system for hours on end killed me. Now due to the large tour group, we never got to ask the guide any questions plus there were so many delays waiting for everyone. We ended up running quite late over the day (more to follow on that). The tour started by going to Gole Alcantara. This entry cost isn't included in the tour. I wrote a review on how poor this place is but if you don't want to do this, too bad! SAT literally will tell you to wait for 90mins and do nothing. You have no choice but to waste either time or money here. Then next stop is at a train. We found this strange as the idea was to get on a train, go along and then get off and meet the bus at the end. The train was delayed and we had another delay getting back into the bus and the train ride was literally a normal public train. There was Zero point to it as the bus beat us to the next spot. Why not just save time and stay on the bus? Pointless. So now the tour is running late but after listening to the guide talk constantly again we make it to Etna late. This bus left at 8am and we arrive at Etna at 1pm! 5 hours of time wasted getting there. Instead of the advertised 4 hours at Etna, we now had 3 because SAT can't manage their time. 3 hours isn't long enough. We missed out on seeing some things because we had to be back on the bus. The trip back took an hour. Why did we go the longest path to get to Etna and waste so much time when we could have been there in an hour?!?! Etna is awesome, but find a better way to get there. Hire a car and drive yourself. It will cost the same but will be faster and less annoying.

We were picked up near our hotel in Giardini-Naxos at 6:45am and the double decker bus continued into Taormina to pick up the remaining passengers. The bus was FULL and the tour was conducted in English, German and Italian by the one tour guide. In hindsight this would have been better to have headsets or two languages, one on each floor of the bus as you would tune out the languages that don't concern you and you may miss interesting information when the tour guide starts speaking your language again. Our guide was Francesco and our driver, Enzo. The tour starts about 7am and gets to the first stop, the Alcantara gorges, a canyon created by a lava flow that was cooled rapidly by a flowing river. The area was cool to look at but a natural Park like this should not be charged each just to enter and look at it in our opinion. After 1.5 hours here, we continued to the town of Randazzo to catch the circumetnea train which takes you around the North side of Etna to Adrano. You then meet up again with Enzo to finally make your way up to Etna at 2500 metres. The whole train and circling around Etna is a tease and could have been skipped to be honest. Once at Rifugio Giovanni Sapienza, you have three hours to do as you wish (we thought our ticket said 4 hours so were disappointed). We may have had longer on Etna if it weren't for the delays in the train note on the 60 people getting on and off the bus so many times. You can go up the cable car to 2700metres and then a jeep ride to 2900m where you will meet a volcanologist who will take you to the 2001/2 craters. If you had purchased the cable car as part of your ticket then you do not pay extra. We did not have this option when purchasing our ticket so it cost 60€ each to do cable car and Jeep ride. This is a must do! We review mount Etna separately and give this part of the trip 5 stars. We got back to our bus at 4pm and had rude passengers making us move seats so they could sit at the front and felt as though the trip at mount Etna was too short for our liking. If you just intend on seeing Etna, choose an Etna only tour. 3 hours on Etna vs 10 hour tour is not a great ratio for us. We got home at 6pm.

Went on a tour of Stromboli and Panera. Got picked up by a coach from Taormina bus station. Good tour guide, very knowledgeable and gave lots of information. Had plenty of time on the islands and even got to see a minor eruption from Stromboli at night. Bring warm clothing, can get quite chilly at night on the boat. Overall it was a long day but we had a great time.