Best of Spain & Portugal (Small Groups, End Barcelona, 15 Days)

Customer Reviews

• CC

  Carl

  · April 16th, 2024
  outstanding tour with lots of history, culture and culinary delights! Our tour director, Dom Nemer, was awesome. Our driver Antonio Ramerez was excellent.
  

  Insight Vacations commented on this review

  Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. We are delighted that you had a fantastic experience on our itinerary. Our On The Road Teams are a valuable asset to our company, and we are pleased to learn that they provided you with exceptional service.... Show more
  Trip date: February 2024
• J

  JYS

  · April 30th, 2019
  We enjoyed our trip through Spain & Portugal! Lola was an enthusiastic tour guide and Ruiz provided prompt and safe driving throughout the entirety of the trip. Bus was spacious and clean. A great itinerary although some of the optional excusions should have been included as part of the actual tour (Cordoba in particular). As with all tours it's a fast pace, there are early wake-ups (a relaxed start is 8:30 am - that is not relaxed to us, but to each their own), you'll be on the bus a lot, you need to be able to walk and not expect to be driven everywhere (we had a group of elderly ladies who couldn't keep up and slowed the group down), there are group meals you'll love and some you won't (don't bother with the Lisbon seafood dinner; Seville flamenco dinner was pretty bad), and some hotels won't meet your expectations (Salamanca, Torremolinos and Barcelona were disappointing), although hotel locations were terrific and in the city center so you can explore on foot more easily during your free time. Additionally, there is always a lot of selling optional excusions and meals (you'll definitely get a much fuller picture of the countries and see things those who opted out won't see), but make sure to make a decision for yourself on whether these options make sense for you. Did love the Insight Flourishes! Overall a great experience, saw some incredible sights and met great people - Just set your expectations before embarking on this tour or any tour!
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  Insight Vacations commented on this review

  Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the Best of Spain and Portugal tour with Insight Vacations. We are very happy to hear that you enjoyed your overall experience with us. However, we acknowledge your observations and we will be sure to share it with... Show more
  Trip date: April 2019
• T

  Tomas

  · February 26th, 2019
  We had an amazing experience with Insight Vacations on the Best of Spain & Portugal. April was a great time to go as the days were warm and sunny but the nights were cool and pleasant. Our Travel Director, Toni was such a fantastic host and really went out of his way to ensure we were happy and experiencing the things we were most interested in. All the hotels were comfortable and in great locations and we appreciated a nice balance of included meals and free time. Also loved being able to cut the queue at the Alhambra Palace and Sagrada Familia!100% recommend this tour for first time travellers to Spain & Portugal.
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  Insight Vacations commented on this review

  The Best of Spain and Portugal tour is a wonderful way for our guests to get a real feel for the Iberian Peninsula; therefore, we are very pleased that you have thoroughly enjoyed your trip. Also, we are very happy to hear that our staff put in a lot of... Show more
  
  Trip date: April 2017
• L

  LauraOKeefe

  · July 23rd, 2018
  We are very unhappy with our very expensive high-end trip to Spain/Portugal with Insight Luxury Gold. We booked this trip eight months in advance, and even at the end of the summer (not peak rates), it retailed for over $6,000, and most people paid about $5,500 to go on this trip. We spent over $11,000 plus with airfare close to $15,000 out of our net income, eight months in advance in order to reserve what we thought was going to be a high end, ADULT experience. We had traveled to Italy with the Insight Luxury Gold product the year before, and were very satisfied, in large part because it was all adults on this trip. We had no reason to believe that Insight would foist young children upon us with such an expensive product. They have a trip to Spain for half this amount ($3,000), which is the regular trip, not their top-of-the-line luxury product which is Luxury Gold. We would have expected that if anyone was going to book Spain and Portugal with young children, they would have gone on the regular trip, and not the expensive one. We expected people with families with poorly behaved children to realize that bringing their children would impact the trip of people who were expecting to have an adult experience. We were stuck with a poorly behaved seven-year-old boy who was constantly jumping in the road and putting everyone in danger. He willfully disregarded his parents repeatedly. His mother was constantly screeching at him, and the entire experience completely spoiled the trip for us by the fourth day. We did everything we could to stay in the front to get away from him and we think our tour guide had no idea how bad things were in the back of the tour bus with him constantly jumping on the street and his mother constantly grabbing his arm and pulling him back. He went out of his way to disobey her, he crossed over boundaries where he wasn’t supposed to go on the trip and in general cause the deluxe vacation to go from being an adult experience to being an experience with hyperactive children. In total there was a seven-year-old boy and 11-year-old boy and a 12-year-old boy on this trip and they ganged up and wrestled in the lobby of the hotels! We have complained to Insight that for their high-end products that are very expensive, that they should offer a tour which is highlighted as one for families with children age 12 and above, not young children. Sammy’s older brother who is 11 years of age almost popped my husband's eye out with an umbrella that he swung around haphazardly. We were put in danger by these children on more than one occasion and overall had a very bad experience. We would not recommend Insight Luxury Gold for anyone who wants to have an adult experience as they clearly care more about their profits and taking money from completely selfish families who knowingly bring children that would be bored by a trip like this and have behavior problems and making their problems the problems of the people who are trying to enjoy the tour. We will only use companies in the future that have an option for us to only go on a tour with people who have children age 12 and above. We will not recommend Insight Luxury Gold to anyone anymore.
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  Trip date: July 2018
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  Michael

  · December 7th, 2017
  Yes the trip was a great overall experience with generally good hotels in good locations (quite a few had tea/coffee facilities missing in the room), local guides were good, tour director, coach and driver were excellent.
  Trip date: November 2017
• KW

  Kathleen

  · October 22nd, 2017
  The Best of Spain and Portugal in May/June 2017 was a trip we wish we had not experienced. The guide was a "task master". He made the trip very tiring and excruciating. Both my husband and I came down with a virus due to the fast pace and long travel hours. We were encouraged to sigh up for all the side tours. We signed up for many of them and found immediately that the pace was far too rigorous for our abilities. We skipped and cancelled many of the extra excursions. They all sounded great but it was much too much time and effort to engage in all the side trips. The pace was already too fast and the travel time between cities far to long. We were getting up at ridiculously early times in order to be prepared to leave at 5AM, 6AM, and 7AM each morning. It was rare that we could get enough sleep. The tour guide was determined to be first in line for every venue therefore why we would leave early each day. It was exhausting. We both dragged ourselves around each day. After the first 5 days of the trip we both got sick. There were a number of other passengers that also became sick. We had to take many OTC drugs and eventually antibiotics to try to remain on the tour. Had we known the travel time between cities was longer than the time spent in each city, we would not have signed up for this tour. We also feel the tour guide was too strict and unforgiving in his way of handling matters. He treated us like children and did not appear to try to make the trip enjoyable and easy for all the old folks that were paying for the trip. I would not recommend this trip to anyone. My husband came down with pneumonia which was diagnosed once we arrived home. I had coughed my way across Spain and Portugal and it took several months to recover from the bronchitis and sinus infection I acquired while on the trip. I feel the trip had too much bus travel between cities. A shorter less involved trip might have made things better. The worst part of the trip was knowing the tour guide felt pressured to push us and encourage us not to drink too many liquids so we wouldn't need to stop for washroom visits. It was a grueling trip and convinced me not to go on another Insight Vacations tour in Europe.
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  Trip date: May 2017
• BH

  Barbara

  · May 16th, 2017
  Toni, the guide was excellent. Great itinerary. Very comfortable couch. Very professional and polite driver. A happy tour due to highly organised and use of excellent local guides
  Trip date: April 2017