Customer Reviews

Route 66 Route Europe 2004

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this just prior to a trip to Germany and the Netherlands.
We installed it and used it successfully with a Microsoft GPS receiver without even referring to any of the documentation, a testament to simplicity.
Keep in mind you need TWO people in the car to use this safely unless you're going to pull over regularly, and this is hard to do on many European highways.
It was extremely useful because many streets in Amsterdam either didn't have street signs or the sign didn't match our printed map. Also, for whatever reason, signs in Germany and the Netherlands for major highways tell you what cities each direction leads to, but not the direction (East, West, etc.) so if you didn't know the names of some nearby towns, you couldn't tell which direction to take. Watching the arrow on the GPS allowed us to determine, in most cases, which way to go (in some cases, they'd have 2-3 ramps and they'd reverse direction which made it hard to tell if you couldn't see the ramp).
A few caveats: we couldn't find out hotel in a search because Route 66 spelled it wrong. When we ran a search by the town's name, we found the hotel in a list.
Also, when we reached the Dutch Resistance Museum, it turned out it had moved. In Route 66's defense, we were told that even recent Dutch maps don't show the new location.
This program is excellent and I recommend it highly. Now if I could just configure Microsoft's OWN GPS unit to work with their Streets and Trips (which wasn't a problem with Route 66), I could use the GPS in the U.S., but NATURALLY Microsoft can't make trouble free software.

We just returned from 3 weeks in Europe relying on Route 66 to get everywhere. It's GREAT! I almost didn't purchase the program based on the first negative reviewer. But his problem was that he wanted names in American rather than the native language (and the road signs are in the native language!). (And if he really tried, he could have found his destination by clicking down by country and region.) It was difficult adapting my Delorme GPS to work, but with the help of Customer Service from Route 66, I did and then everything worked superbly all the way. Very easy, intuitive interfaces. More information produced than you'll ever need. What blew everyone away was that we were driving and someone wanted a rest stop. Two clicks and all rest stops were displayed, with one in five miles. Similarly, we found a marvelous lakeside restaurant 4 miles off an autobahn to stop for lunch rather than relying on highway service food. All in all an invaluable purchase!

I have purchased many well known mapping programs for the World, and USA.
I purchased Route 66 Europe, because it stores on the hard drive, and does not require a cd to use. It also has gps capability with my laptop.
The program is very good, given the amount of information it has (it will take up 1 1/2 gigs on your hard drive for full installation).
I give it 4 stars instead of 5 stars only because Microsoft is much more fun to use; and that is what I am comparing it to, in terms of software.
As far as I can tell, there is no good competition in this area of software. That is why I ended up buying Route 66 over other brands.
My favourite program is Microsoft Streets and Trips (2004 or 2005 editions).
If Microsoft made a European version, I would have bought it, instead of Route 66.
If I were choosing between Route 66 USA and MS Streets USA, I would go with Microsoft no doubt about it.
If you are going on a drive around Europe, and you have the GPS receiver (that also works with Microsoft), and a laptop, I would hope it works as stated on the packaging. I have not tried that function yet, but hope to in the future.

Although this program is not as detailed on Europe as DeLorme Streets USA is of the US, which spoiled me , it is the best I have found and is very usefull.
I found pathetic the reviewer's ridiculous complaint that he could not find Florence or Rome, etc. How Anglo-centric can one be? He was using American spelling! When in Rome, one does what the Romans do - use the correct spelling, not the Anglized spelling! Rome is Roma, for instance. Do Europeans use their language's spelling of, say, Houston, and impose their spelling (maybe Hustoni in Italian!) when they travel here? No, they use the spelling our country uses! By his logic, someone from China traveling in Europe should be able to type in the Chinese language version for Rome and find it!! He expects the program to know every single world language word for European cities and translate! This program was not made strictly for Anglos. Sure, if it was, it would be easier. He needs to buy Microsoft's more primitive European map software!

The Route 66 Europe 2004, did not function in Italy. Before departing I
had a string of e-mails with the Route 66 service department and was told that they also could not find the addresses that I had problems with.
In Italy it had problems with city to city directions, could not find any addresses and was always off base. We drove approximately 2800-2900 kilometers and it was not only of no use but was a hinderance.

The product is in my oppinion a waste of time and money.

John Termotto jjtermotto@yohoo. com

A fairly complete road atlas but with a few quirks. First, all the towns/locations are in the native language. For example, to use another review's complaints, instead of searching for Florence, you have to search for Firenze. Instead of Rome, use Roma. The second quirk is that the interface with my Belkin GPS was somewhat spotty. Sometimes it works, sometimes not and I have not been able to figure out why. All in all though, I was happy with it (have not found any better Europe road atlas databases out there yet).

Was easy to use. Good search capability. For example, I just typed in the name of the route start and the hotel name where I wanted to go, it found them and mapped the route. It even found the location of carpools in Delft by just typing the two words. It is a very good software and the graphics look good too, better than the pictures posted on the software manufacturers website.

Honestly if I hadn't spent the better part of eighty bucks on this thing, I'd be laughing. The search couldn't find the town in Italy I'm visiting. So I thought I'd widen the parameter and just put Florence (which it is near.) No luck--that just brought up a bunch of streets in the UK. So I tried Rome. Nope, can't find that. How about the country? Italy? No, that just brings up some hotels, etc.

So I tried to zoom in on the area the town is in and did manage to find it, though I still can't find Florence (despite knowing exactly where it is geographically.)

I am not a computer map neophyte here. I've been using MS Autoroute for years, but it won't run on my PowerBook. I bought this thinking 'how bad can it be?' The answer: Worse than I could have ever imagined--and I'm a pretty cynical guy.

Buy a paper map or get Virtual PC and run the MS stuff. Honestly, this is bad enough that I feel ripped off. (...)