Travel Review: Luxury Spain Tour, Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Tapas & Pintxos Tour, Art Museums, 10-Day Trip

Above and beyond. Those were the first words to come to mind when reflecting on our travel specialist and her team at the travel company. Spain is such a wonderful country to experience, but at the same time, it can be truly overwhelming trying to determine which areas and cities to visit, and which highlights and activities to see and do. With that being said, the suggestions from our travel specialist based on the insight my wife and I gave her on our ideal trip hit everything to a "T" and we would not have changed a thing! We came in with a general idea on which cities we wanted to visit, but she really helped us hone in how much time would be best spent in each location, the sequencing of where we started and ended, whether day trips to other areas were time well spent, and which activities would fit our interests while also allowing us the perfect balance between experiencing the culture of each region while also enabling us the free time for self-exploration and rest and relaxation that's essential in my opinion for the perfect vacation or holiday. My wife and I are avid foodies, and Spain has some of the best restaurants in the world, and was primarily the reason we chose it as our destination (yes, we build our trips around eating at these restaurants!). However, scoring reservations at any given one can often be difficult and requires some serious coordination (not to mention some luck sprinkled in). So what did our travel specialist do? She built an entire spreadsheet based on each city with the top restaurants, what availability they had during the dates we were there, and if reservations weren't yet released, when and at what time they were. Then, she created her own calendar invites and was ready and waiting to pounce as soon as they became available and booked them for us. What other travel agent does that?! Above and beyond... That support also doesn't stop once you arrive either. They provide you a local cell phone and periodically checked in with us throughout to make sure everything was going smoothly. If we had questions or needed assistance with something, our travel specialist and her assistant were responsive within minutes practically, and were incredibly helpful. By way of the most serious example, we flew from Madrid to San Sebastian for the second leg of our trip, and after a two-hour delay and upon arrival, the airline decided to inform the entire plane that they did not load anyone's luggage. Notwithstanding the major inconvenience, that evening we had reservations at a restaurant, which was also an hour away from our hotel. With the two hour delay and the long wait in the customer service line with the rest of the flight waiting on the lone customer service representative, we were not going to make our reservation. That's when our travel specialist swooped in, contacted the restaurant and was able (somehow) to get our reservation pushed back an hour, and then also contacted the hotel to get information on where we could get some emergency clothes near the hotel (I don't think shorts and a t-shirt would be appropriate attire at the #3 restaurant in the world). If I was having to handle all of that on my own, well let's just say I'm not sure it would have ended well.