Reviews

Anna Thornton's review was jointly composed.

Each daily itinerary very well though out and delivered. The excellence of this was due to our wonderful guide Sofia, who gave great in-depth, knowledgeable information throughout, with charm, panache and joyous good humour.
Two significant drawbacks worth mentioning were:
- Lack of coach air conditioning with no opening windows; significant on hot days.
- No contingency plan on our only walking, nature day, when there was continuous, heavy rain.

Friendly and efficient

Simple and straightforward

Far too intense, with too much regard paid to the number of sights to see and very little consideration given to allowing us to wander the villages and towns in our own time. Most visits didn’t even allow us the time to wander, find a cafe or bar for a coffee before returning to the bus. Even the timing of the arrivals at the hotels only allowed a very short time before having to meet for the evening meal.
The standard of the meals varied from very good to very poor, both in terms of the quality of the food and the service. Unfortunately the standard for both tended to be more poor than good. Overall very inconsistent and far below expectations.
The walk in the National Park was much tougher than described in the itinerary, and at the very least should be described as very challenging, even for a fit person like myself. Was it worth the quite considerable effort? Not for me.
Sofia, the guide, was fully aware of all the things commented on here, especially the food and the walk, and she could be a valuable source of information to you if she was asked
.

As expected , as per a previous booking it all worked !

The whole process was so easy.

Had a really wonderful time, visited a lot of historical places, hotels were top notch and the food was fantastic

The trip was superb, in particular the guide Sonia was the best that we have ever had. She was always positive, extremely enthusiastic, has a great personality and encouraged the 2 less able people on the trip. Accommodation was very good, the other guests were really friendly, the stops were generally about right but could have done with more time in Lisbon. We would suggest an extra day there.
I have early Motor Neurone Disease and throughout I was really looked after by both Sonia and all the other people on the trip as well as the hotel and restaurant staff throughout the trip. We will strongly recommend this tour to our friends and associates.

Excellent busy, well organised trip as usual with Wendy Wu. Sonia the tour leader was one of the best ever

A great holiday if you wish to visit some lesser known places in Portugal. Be warned that it is more strenuous than advertised with quite a lot of walking and early starts. Fantastic for food lovers and for those who wish to try a variety of wines. Good fun!

I think we were the second tour party for this tour and so there were a few teething problems that need ironing out.

Key areas for improvement are as follows:

1) Please make sure you are very clear to be people about the level of physical exercise required on the tour. We had two people that could barely walk to the bus from their hotel room and two people that were unable to walk up hill. Many of the towns and cities visited require people to walk for 3 hours and include up hill sections.
None of it is difficult but organizing additional transport and activities for people that can't do it diverts the tour guides attention away from the other customers.

2) You need to have a clearly marked and agreed walk for the tour guide to follow on the Geres National Park day. Maybe two walks, one if the group wants a shorter walk and one if a longer walk can be managed. Otherwise the day is a bit haphazard and you end up walking down dead-ends and back.

3) Cut down the lunches. 3-4 course lunches that take 2 hours each day are too much. The food is excessive (the uneaten food was wasteful) and the time lost when we could be sight-seeing is disappointing. Worst example of this was the trip to Sintra. Great place to visit but arriving in the morning, sightseeing, then driving 40 minutes out of sintra to have lunch, then driving 40 minutes back to visit a palace in sintra was mad. If there a no places in town that will take a large group booking then arrange a packed lunch and eat it at the gardens visited.

Good things:
The driver and tour guide were excellent and very helpful.

Excellent tour, full of interest and variety - visits to historic buildings and city centres, tastings with wine and port producers, river trips and a lovely walk around a lake in the Geres National Park. One small criticism/warning on this last item - the walk was somewhat more strenuous than suggested by the information we were given. Walking poles should be recommended for those uncomfortable with steep rough paths.

This was a first for the company and there are 1 or 2 issues which need tweaking.

Our guide was good, only if she didn’t have to talk to Sky to double check. She later confessed that also bothered her.