The trip started off really nice. The welcome dinner and hotel were great, it seemed as though it was going to be a top notch experience of a lifetime. Needless to say, it fell a tad bit short.
From day one there were a lot of super early mornings, you would have to put your luggage out an hour before departure. Meaning if you wanted to get up take a shower and eat breakfast you needed to be up by 5:30am/6:00am on 5 of the 10 hotels stays. There are another 5 day stays where you're at the hotel for 2 days, these stays were pretty nice, and it didn't feel as rushed, I enjoyed them more than the other days.
8 out of the 10 of the hotels were nice but are far away from the city center. Which leads to another issue, paying for extra excursions on top of the excursion fees you already paid, extra taxis to the city center and back as well. I paid 500 USD for optional excursions about 5, there are at least 10 on the program. Most of the inclusive excursions were just okay, only a few were very good. Some of the optional excursions should have been included in the price because they were what people would come to that city to see.
The excursions in Morocco were about 75 euros, mid food and mid entertainment, I ditch the group one night and did an ATV/ Camel ride with sunset dinner for $36 USD. The Trafalga scheduled tours over all were super fast pace, lots and lots of walking, hours of riding the bus, the older people were taking a beating. One time, I had to carry an older lady who walked with a cane luggage because it was too far for her to walk with an extra bag.
The trip to Morocco was a day of traveling, you have to drag your luggage to and from Morocco. Going and returning is almost an 7hr travel day or more to and from. There are 3 stays in Morocco where you are just eating lunch and spending the night just to move closer to getting back to Spain. Casablanca, Rabat are just stops short stops, that's it, you're not going to really explore the city. Please be careful in Morocco, the company doesn't pick safe hotels or restaurants to eat at. Most people had diarrhea for several days after the optional dinner experience. The hotel in Rabat was filling up bottled water with tap water, one of the travelers spotted the lady doing it unfortunately most had drunk the water already. Outside of the first dinner in Fes the rest of the excursion food was below standard and so was the entertainment.
You never get time to shop on this trip unless it's a place the company wants you to shop, leather/ rugs excursion , pharmacy and metal shop excursions. You go by so many places with nice things and you’re ALWAYS told not to stop and shop. With the long bus rides, you are also heavily discouraged to not use the bathroom on board the bus. Most of the time you're on the bus you only stop at rest stops to eat, to many times to count. I mean you're in Europe and half of the lunches are at gas stations.
Some days you're driving for 4/5 hours and as soon as you get to the location, there’s a 2-hour walking tour. They wake you up early and keep you out late, they also badger you about tipping, they want you to pay their employees. Tips should be up to the persons discretion, but they try to tell you what to tip each person. Our guide who was not good at all, who you could tell was very prejudice against BLACK Sub-Saharan Africans. On our arrival to Morocco and Portugal had a negative views on why they were there. He stated they were ALL smuggled up by the mafia and left in Morocco, this had zero to do with the tour, why was he giving us useless negative information?
It only showed his dislike of them, his stereotyping of people as I'm sure he didn't know every BLACK Sub SAHARAN African, voicing his opinion was in bad taste. We got to Portugal, and he said more bad things about the Africans there, to many had immigrated there he said when Portugal opened its doors to them with visas. He called the Portuguese food, peasant food, I could go on about how he couldn't read the room. This guy should not be running tours with people from different backgrounds, he was extremely bias.
There were 46 people on our trip, and he expected people to tip him over 112 euros a day that would be a over 5k in euros for the tour director. This price had zero to do with all the other tour guides or coach driver's tips, a total of 7/8 more people to tip. He literally sent out messages and said don't forget to pay your gratuity with the calculations lol. Those who prepaid we know who you are wink wink. He did not make it seem optional, he was definitely over the top, high pressure for sure.
I tipped everyone except for him. He was the nicest, most professional , unprofessional person I ever meant. He did not care about the people on the tour, the bus driver was extra attentive and his driving was spectacular, a complete joy to be around. People fell, the tour director didn’t check on them, people lost phones, people were left after an excursion on the first day because they didn't show up to the bus on time. Which is fine but he didn't call to see where they were or to see if anything bad happed to them, he just said we have to leave on time smh.
On the last day of the tour, Phillip’s job was done. We were driven back to Madrid by new driver who did not speak English or Spanish and no rep from Trafalga was there either. He would get on the bus and say “is everybody here “and didn't do a head count after stops to make sure everyone was on the bus.
Once arriving at the airport he only dropped people off at gate 1 and could not tell you how to get to other gates being he couldn't speak English. Which lead to me walking through the airport with my luggage trying to find my gate on my own and missing my transfer to my hotel for the night not once but twice.
I wouldn't say don't talk this trip, on a scale of 1-10, I gave it 7. I want people to be aware of what it really is. A very high pace, below average food, high pressure to tip culture with only quality time for shopping where they want you to shop 3 country tour. Unless you ditch most of the dinners and find places to eat on your own, you'll be disappointed with the food. There are zero slow cafe days for people watching, you're always saying please bring the check with the meal because I have to be back at the bus in 20 mins.
The tour company, after you pay for the initial trip will try to get about another 1k out of you between extra excursion and tips. All the money for the trip and airfare wasn't enough for them as the director said, "they have to make their money with optional tours”. What made the trip great for me were the friendships I made within our travel group, by the end we were a big family. We took care of each other more than the tour director Phillip did. If not for such a great group of people, this trip would have been a waste of time and money. I got to see a lot of wonderful things but definitely not a super memorable for me nor would I strongly recommend it.
