This was my third trip with Explore and I was a little disappointed. There were several days where we had free time scheduled. Unfortunately, although our leader was lovely, and enthusiastic, she wasn't armed with suggestions and guidance on how we could fill those free hours. I found that I spent a lot more time researching how to best spend my time. Part of what makes traveling with Explore so fun is that my days are planned and I can give myself over to the vacation fully. This trip required me to research, plan, book, and pay for several activities throughout the week. There were also items on the itinerary that felt like they should have been included in the cost of the tour. Yet, they were extra charges for tickets/participation. When we visited the library in Coimbra, the visit to the building was included but were told we would need to coordinate our own reservations for entrance to the library. Our entire group wanted to go and 3 group members were unable to get tickets that evening and had to go the following morning. It would have made so much more sense for our leader to coordinate the tickets for everyone so that we could have gone as a group.
Overall, this tour needs some tweaking. There are plenty of things to see in Portugal and plenty of sites that can be included. We shouldn't be visiting the museums on a Monday when most of them are closed. I also hope that Explore will take the time to ensure that their leaders have the resources they need to give their travelers the best experience possible. I love it when a leader has a restaurant to suggest or a fun extra excursion on a free afternoon if some folks are so inclined. I don't like feeling like I'm paying for a guided tour and then still need to plan out my days.
Lastly, there were 4 of us in the same airport transfer taxi on departure day. Our taxi was late and we had to have the hotel call a different taxi to ensure that we would get to the airport on time. The four of us paid out of pocket for the cab because we couldn't afford to wait for the missing transfer. Since our leader had already left, we didn't have any support from Explore on getting the issue sorted. This is a process that needs to be managed better.
