In my opinion, you can do Bulgaria on your own. There really isn't much history that a tour guide gives you.

The Bucharest tour is a good Regent tour if you are into 12 hour tours.

All the Regent tours are very good. We did them all in every port. We have been told that Lesvos can be done on your own. We will be doing just that. You need to get a Visa for Sochi.

The only problem with Regent tours is that they are large. If you can round up 10 folks, you can do better by doing a private tour even through Regent or through some other high quality company that some other folks used.

I usually decide to do a private tour if there are a couple of tours and I want to do something from one tour and something from another tour and customizing a tour makes the most sense or if I can get a group together.

The Regent Trabzon tour is great. There really is no need to do a private tour, unless you decide you want to just do the monestary and be on your own at your own pace and be able to see the town or if you want a small group.

Yalta...all the Regent tours were good and there should be something to cover what you want to see...I don't think you need a private tour guide unless you want a small group.

We felt that the Regent Odessa Highlights tour and the Sevastopol Highlights tour were good overviews. There is no fluff...no major shopping stops, so the same rules apply as above.

With Sevastopol,there is so much to see, you may want to custom your trip to your interests, so a private trip may be warranted.

Sochi...I understand the Tea Plantation did not get rave reviews. I don't know anything about the Box tree Forest trip..The Dacha trip and the town overview were interesting but the mineral springs were dull. You might want to tailor your tour. You can also parasail there...

Hope that helps...