Travel Review: Tour of Spain, Madrid, Seville, Ronda

We started planning our trip 9 months early.  I was in contact with our agent very often in that early planning stage.  We worked with what I though I would like to see and the cities I wanted to stay in. She was very helpful in giving me a plan for a self-driving tour that was doable in the time period we had. I appreciated the list of 3 or 4 hotels in each of the cities so I could go on line myself and a choose which one I though I would like.  In each case we were very satisfied with the hotels that we stayed at. We do wish that all the hotel vouchers had GPS addresses or maps so they could be located easier.

The personal guides that we had in each of the cities were very well informed and professional.  They were all on time and had tickets to all the venues we had planned to see. We learned a lot about each city and the history of Spain from these people.

We took two group tours in both Seville and Madrid.  They were not what I would choose to do again.  On the tour in Seville we were picked up on a bus and driven around for one hour to pick  up other people.  There was no explanation of what was going on and it seem very disorganized. When the tour actually started it was given in three languages. She would explains something in Spanish for a while and then as you past what she was talking about she would say a little in English and then again in French. After a little while it was so confusing to listen to that you started to just tune out the guide.  I could go on about what a waste of time the morning.  We had a similar experience in Madrid but it wasn't as disorganized.  While we were in Seville we took a local city tour on a double decker bus that has microphones that allowed you to choose your language.  We got a lot more out of that tour and were even allowed to get on and off the bus as we choose.  I wished we had done the same in Madrid and Seville.

I have to add that there were changes that were made in our schedule as we started our trip and also during the trip.  Our agent was very responsive to our needs and made contact with the people that had to change their schedules.  We were always picked up when it was scheduled by very friendly and professional people.