Tour Lisbon-Fatima-Madrid-Barcelona Sep 19-25, 2019
Our group of 8 couples from Canada had a blasts We did not expected a comprehensive tour experience and the great professionalism from your tour leaders particularly Toni, Ana, Yelda, Angeles, not to mention local tour leaders Carolina, Annabella and Teresa.
Tour started at Lisbon Sep 19 and ended at Barcelona Sep 25. The hotels were above average and the breakfast had lots of choices and were filling until the early afternoon hours of the tour.
I guess, we got a great deal for the tour package.
As in any big company, we had some minor glitches. I will summarize some below:
- Only 2 of the 7 rooms were available at Holiday Inn Express in Lisbon when we arrived 1 pm. Waited an hour to accommodate all of us. I guess the hotel was full the previous day.
- During our bus trip from Zaragoza to Poblet 2 hours, the bus air conditioning did not work. Two hours of sweat and no air ventilation. Temp reached 29 deg C inside the bus. The driver decided to open his window only during the last 30 minutes to bring down the temp. He gave us free bottled water 1 eurosomewhere in the end.
I guess this is unavoidable circumstance for the trip.
- The Sintra Excursion was not properly handled. The local tour guide Annabella did not mention to us that the top castle could be reach by bus, tuk-tuk or taxi. We had 1.5 hours in the area. My friends were supposedly looking forward to see the castle place. She should have given that option, I think.
- In Madrid, my friends were interested to watch the bullfight scheduled Sunday at 6pm. However, we have a Flamenco excursion at 9pm. Yelda, our tour leader DID NOT mention that the Flamenco site is inside the bullring area too. We should have booked a bullring fight with my friends and just met them after the bullfight. Bad decision on her part. I guess she want it as a secret location surprise. Too bad, we missed it
- We had no transfer from Sagrada excursion/La Ramblas to the hotel. We paid 45 Euros each just to be on your own, afterwards? All of us ended paying taxi to reach our hotel. They should have provided bus for our group of 17 persons.
- Again, we had no transfer from Plaza Mayor to the hotel. We ended up taking the Metro. Is this normal?
Anyways, our group had fun and fond memories of Portugal and Spain. Thank you very much Europamundo. We will be back again using your services in the future. We will also recommend you to our friends.
Lessons Learned: Not to book the excursions we booked Sintra, Flamenco, Sagrada. All had mess up the bus schedules of our group - as such, bus schedule pick-up/logistics and program were affected.
Ola Cheers
Renato Buenaventura Mississauga, Canada 9/28/2019
