Iberian Explorer Reviews

We had an amazing guide who really tried her best to offer as much opportunity as possible for us to view and experience more. The optional and included experiences were great, the only negative was that we could not visit Mijas, because this optional included a dinner and our family has a few dietary needs, which makes the dinners extremely difficult ...read more and expensive. Highlights were Monserrat (Barcelona), Gibraltar and the Golden Triangle in Lisbon with a low in Valencia with the walking tour - no free time given because the guide used up all the time. Being a CostSaver tour, we knew not to expect much from the hotels, but majority were actually pretty good with the only issue being the very hard beds and small bathrooms.

The tour ran smoothly. All tour members from different countries got along well. The tour director was very caring and had a broad historical knowledge about Spain and Portugal. The cities were very clean and beautiful with green trees. The driver was very friendly and helpful. Thank you Global Journeys and Jemma for looking after my booking. See you ...read more next time.

I travelled in May this year. I would highly recommend this tour of Spain & Portugal. Our travel guide Pedro was a wealth of information and never boring. He looked after our every need. An incredible trip. Yvonne at Global Journeys was, as always really great to deal with.

I enjoyed this trip which had a lot more positives than negatives. Some of the positives were: my fellow tourists, the vast majority of whom were friendly and enthusiastic, including my "bus buddy". She and I were pleasantly compatible; our tour guide who was efficient and friendly; seeing some amazing sites especially Toledo's walled city with its ...read more awe inspiring Toledo Cathedral, an extraordinary example of man's ingenuity especially considering the age of the building, its amazing sculptures and artwork; Gibraltar with its massive cave system, gorgeous Barbary monkeys and awesome views and topography; the dauntingly extensive Prado Museum in Madrid; Seville's wide tree lined avenues and gardens, the beach at Malaga; the Jorge Castle(?) in Lisbon and Lisbon itself.

The only city which I wasn't keen on was Madrid due to its crowds, heavy traffic, and pollution, added to by the huge numbers of people smoking in the streets and outdoor cafes. Actually this was an issue for me all over Spain, exacerbated by the smokers in our group who didn't seem to consider the rest of us when lighting up. Perhaps this can be addressed on future tours, by asking them to desist from smoking in a close knit crowd. Some other negatives were: the poor quality of the vegetarian dinners provided during both the optional extra experiences and the included ones. The two other vegetarians in our group said they just don't join the the optional dinner experiences because of the poor vegetarian offerings. It was also extremely disappointing to find out that tickets had not been obtained for Sagrada Familia or Alhambra Alcazar. We thought these tickets could have been booked well in advance for the expected number of guests and if necessary when numbers are definite, any unwanted tckets could be handed back & resold. Also seeing I paid the full single supplement, I was disappointed on 2 or 3 occasions to be allocated a single room which each time was small and cramped with not enough room to organise my suitcase and other possessions. Anyway overall the trip was an fun and interesting experience. I did think that too many of the experiences were optional extra and that these were too expensive for what was included in them.

We had a very good tour leader from Portugal who did an excellent job as did the driver, also Portuguese, who drove calmly and sedately so that we were all comfortable and relaxed in the coach. The tour covered all the sights and places we wanted to see in Spain and Portugal as well as Gibraltar. We can thoroughly recommend the tour to others.

Booking through Global Journeys worked for us. With 2 different tours handled by them (river cruise & coach tour). All worked & docs delivered on time! This Trafalgar Costsaver trip was a full coach load of 52! Amazingly this wasn't a problem because of our great tour leader Maria Therese Martin. She is passionate about her country, Spain.