Trail of Columbus

4 Reviews

Excellent

50%

Good

50%

Average

0%

Rather Poor

0%

Bad

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  debie
  Written on June 15, 2018

  3.5 - Good

  After doing a similar style travel with Contiki, I had a good base to compare. Overall, the itinerary was good, but somewhat misleading on what's included. Top Deck needs to be clearer on what tours are included if there's a smaller group joining a larger one in a route. Those joining later were not included on some of the driving tours. Itinerary - Good, but expected to receive some maps on free days like how Contiki did. Suggestions were provided but received them late in some cities. Had to do my own research (essentially the whole purpose of me booking through a company is so that I wouldn't have to). Overall, the cities that we stopped to were great. Transportation - Great. The bus was clean, the driver was awesome (Michael). The driver really pulled through for us in cities to make sure we didn't have to walk too far and was super nice about luggage. Accommodation - Top Deck did a really good job in most cities with the hostels. They were decent and did not want to make you cringe for the most part. It was also well placed and within the city. Meals - The dinners were pretty good and they were great about dietary restrictions. Guide - Aileen was good, but not like the first guide I had on Contiki. Aileen was informative and clearly an experienced guide, but not as personable. While I was fine with her style, I felt others who are not as self-sufficient did not appreciate it as much. Her style of presenting info was also very fast and I understand for these types of trips it's a lot of info for a short period of time, but information gets lost and it's difficult to digest with others chatting away. This is probably due to her doing this specific tour for a while and the info is seamless to her at this point and the delivery feels more like a task more than anything. Overall, I think she did a good job. though. It's not easy leading 29+ (some reckless more than others) young people city to city.

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  MiarkaRogers
  Written on May 21, 2018

  4.5 - Excellent

  Had a great time on this tour. Vincenzo made us all feel welcome and taken care of, and he was such a fun trip leader. Thanks for the laughs, we all love you!

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• 

  Mehran
  Written on September 13, 2016

  4.0 - Good

  Most of it was cool - wish the buses had a better Air Con. system; If possible - it might best to now have people join the tour half way in because it becomes cliquey.

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  Emma
  Written on August 17, 2014

  4.5 - Excellent

  This tour is basically the second half of the Iberian Voyager tour. This meant that when I joined the tour in Lisbon 15 people left and 15 of us got on. This is one thing about the tour which I don't think anyone was made aware of when booking. However this didn't bother me, there were enough of us joining that you didn't feel like you were awkwardly joining a group of friends. Our tour guide and bus driver were fantastic, they really made the effort with everyone and no one was left out (Dave and Tomasz). Accommodation in Porto and Madrid was the best, especially Porto. The rest was average. Group dinners were brilliant, we had good food everywhere we went and I really felt like it was worth paying for that food fund. The only place I really felt we needed more time was Sintra, we stopped here on our way to Porto. I would recommend using one of your lisbon days to visit the Sintra in addition to going with the group as there is so much to see, a whole days worth, and we only ended up being there for 20 mins due to problems with public transport. Otherwise a fab tour that wasn't rushed with an amazing bunch of people!

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