The One & Only Jaime Crespo - My wife & I recently traveled to Spain with Julia Travel. Our excursion began in Madrid where we spent two nights prior to joining our group. We were met promptly at Madrid airport by shuttle driver who was great (sorry I can’t remember his name) & arrived at the hotel around 4:00 pm. We were exhausted with the flight (where we had a bad experience on Norwegian Airlines) but the hotel staff was awesome. Our first day in Spain started with a three hour sightseeing tour of Madrid that began at another hotel. Honestly the coordination between the tour group & us lacked organization. We braced ourselves for a challenging vacation which was disappointing. I run restaurants in Los Angeles & my wife is a college professor so we’re both very busy working long hours & aligning our schedules to travel in not an easy task. The following morning we were told our Tour Group Leader would meet us at the hotel – given the previous day’s challenges, we were skeptical. However, everything changed when we met our guide Jaime Crespo. From the moment we met Jaime, we were impressed. He has the immediate impression of putting people at ease. Jaime was friendly, knowledgeable & has a great sense of humor. After picking up the rest of the group at the aforementioned hotel, we were off to Cordoba then two nights in Seville. We had a connection with Jaime joking around while also asking him many questions which he gladly answered. Some members of our group were challenging yet Jaime never once was rattled or showed any signs of frustration – believe me I would have been. Whether we were on the bus, walking tours or whatever else, Jaime was amazingly consistent. In Seville he suggested a few “out of the way” restaurants & encouraged us to see certain sights while the group was on their free time. Jaime’s generosity continued thru Granada & then the highlight of our trip – Valencia. We fell in love with Valencia & might possibly retire there. Jaime shared that he used to spend summers in Valencia when he was a kid while his passion was clearly evident. We ended our tour in Barcelona & honestly by that time we felt like we made a new friend with Jaime. When the tour officially ended in Barcelona, we stayed an extra day to visit Figueres. Although the tour guide for our day trip was nice enough – it wasn’t the same without Jaime. If you ever book a tour with Julia Travel – please request Jaime Crespo as your guide. To sum it up – our Spanish excursion simply wouldn’t have created the lifelong memories, laughter & wonderful experience without Jaime. He’s one in a million & if you’re fortunate enough to experience his guidance, you will understand exactly what I’m saying. Thanks so much Jaime!

It was a very well planned guided... - <p>It was a very well planned guided tour. One of the best we have undertaken. However They left us alone in Barcelona. I feel we should have been taken around the famous city a bit more . Guides were very knowledgeable and they took real good care of us.Thank you</p>

Joseph was an excellent guide for... - <p>Joseph was an excellent guide for this tour. He looked after us very well and really made the trip. It was great for us being first timers in Spain. We met lovely people and really would like to go back to Spain with a bit longer in each city.</p>

This tour has two parts. Don't... - <p>This tour has two parts. Don't expect to be in one tour group for the entire duration. </p> <p>Our tour guide Joseph was excellent! He took care of us from Cordoba, Seville and Granada. Loved all the local tour guides. We covered all the important sites. I just wish we were given more time to explore and take in the beauty of the Alhambra. We just went in then out of the place. Too fast. </p> <p>I found the tour group too BIG on this leg. Also the air-conditioning system of the bus didn't work for a couple of hours. But they were able to address this concern. They should have checked the bus before leaving for a 7 day tour. </p> <p>We were then transferred to another tour group/bus for Valencia-Barcelona-Zaragoza-Madrid. Our tour guide Hugo, was the opposite of our first tour guide. He was just ok. : Local tour guide for Valencia and Barcelona were good as well. </p> <p>Hotels for superior hotels were all good except for the one at Barcelona. They should change the beds. So old and used. Pillows were not fluffy as well. </p> <p>We didn't proceed to Zaragoza-Madrid as we took the train going to France. </p> <p>Best way to see Spain.</p>

The tour was well planned,we had a... - <p>The tour was well planned,we had a friendly tour guide namely HUGO and enjoyed the whole tour.</p>

Overall it was excellent, guides... - <p>Overall it was excellent, guides were great! We had a great time and saw many places and learned a lot about the history here. Only negative was we booked the "superior" hotels and seems the standard were every bit as good or better. Save your money and book the standard rooms.</p>

Our tour was very much enjoyable but... - <p>Our tour was very much enjoyable but once we bought the tour package 'Viator' did not provide any information about it, like time schedule of arrival and departure from different cities, hotels, we needed to know before - they just referred to 'Julia Travels'. Otherwise the tour guides, bus transportation, hotels were good. We would sure consider tours like this through Viator in future.</p>

We enjoyed all the cities we... - <p>We enjoyed all the cities we visited. We think it is unnecessary to offer 2 grades of hotel. There was very little difference in the standard, both 4 star. In 2 cities the superior grade was closer to the inner city but each day we wasted time visiting 2 hotels, finding,loading or unloading luggage and waiting for passengers. The guide was non strict enough about times. We changed buses and drivers after 5 days as the 1st driver had done his hours. The secondbus had no wifi and was not a coach. On our way to Granada our guide announced that the local tour operator did NOT have tickets for us to enter Alhambra Palace and that we were doing a night tour of the Generalife Gardens. ALL TRAVELERS were very angry and disappointed. We felt we had been cheated out of visiting the number one tourist place in Spain and had no come back to the local tour operator. I visited their office in Madrid and they felt that Viator had misadvertised the tour!!!! The local guides were very good and our tour guide very friendly. There were some long days of travelling but I guess that was necessary to cover all the cities. At the end of the tour we were staying in an airbnb address so were dropped off at the first hotel, not where we had been picked up the first day , which was what was stated on the itinerary. This resulted in a long walk , asking directions. All that aside, we had a good time and saw many places, enjoyed the countryside, vines and olive trees.</p>

Review of 7 days trip across Spain... - <p>Review of 7 days trip across Spain - First let me cover the negative points: Whole trip is just like riding on a long distance Grey Hound Bus on a multi-day journey only with the exception of getting additional hotel arrangements with free breakfasts and  few free selective dinners. In seven days the tour operator does cover 6 cities with brief stop overs and they arrange local tour guides to escort the entire bus tourists in every tourist spot. Evenings they put us in their pre-arranged hotels. Some hotels are above average and some are below average. But all hotels do serve horrible food and sometimes the food can be a real nightmare! If you are a vegetarian forget it, salad is the only choice!! Most terrible thing is almost all restaurants Julia travels took us do serve pork or ham which is typically avoided by Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and even many Christians don't bother taking it since this affects one's collestral level ...perhaps this is something to do with entire Spain culture rather than Julia travels or the particular hotels, so I won't hold it against them.<br/> - Not all the hotels are located in a great area so that we can walk around freely in the neighborhood<br/> - Most of the day you will end up in riding the Bus traveling city to city.....and it could be boring since we get nothing to do otherwise<br/> - The most annoying part is they cover only few tourists attractions in all cities and they will let you roam on your own by giving you some hours of free time to cover other attractions on our own!<br/> - Especially one entire day was wasted by spending 50% in the Bus journey /transfer and then the rest of the day wasted by leaving us alone in Valencia - which was not fair!<br/> -  The rip off part is - Julia Travels do provide some optional side tours in the evening for some extra cost such as 30 euros a person for some stupid Flamenco or some gypsy trips...we strongly discourage you from participating in these side trips, since this is a waste of money and you can use that money and time wisely elsewhere!<br/> -  Almost all places they stop at some kind of church or basilica or cathedral or mosque. Nothing wrong with that but there plenty of other things to see as well. Most of the time church is the only stop over<br/> - At one spot in Seville they do drop off the tourists and ask them to walk around and explore that part of that city and ask you to walk back yo hotel....that was about 45 minute walk! We pay for the trip and we had to walk on our own to reach hotel!<br/> - I have paid about $870 per person (for 3 of us it costed us about $2700 USD) and yes we had covered lots and lots of miles across the length and depth of Spain, but what exactly we had seen was not that much in 7 days.</p> <p>Pros:</p> <p>Now let me cover positive points as well:</p> <p>+  Price wise it is very reasonable. If you add bus ticket cost for all the 6 cities and 6 night hotel cost plus few dinners and all breakfasts plus local tour guide fees, it will cost more than a thousand bucks compared to what they charge due to the nature of the package.<br/> +  You don't have to tax your brain what to see and how to get to each place and where to stay, etc. Basically someone is handling all the logistics for you.<br/> + Imagine getting in and out of planes or trains or private busses and then catching taxis to get to the hotels and arranging our own tourist visits and trips in each and every city. That will not only cost us lots of money also consumes plenty of time and lots of hassles to go with it. We just leave all the issues with one professional company and let them take care of all issues for a very reasonable price. We just need to sit and relax.<br/> + Some times half the fun is to get there. By traveling by the tour bus from one city to another city across the Spain you get to see the varying landscapes. In addition to seeing each city it is also important to see the country side and the beautiful landscapes. This is the best way to enjoy a country in a traditional way rather than taking a flight and making surgical trips (pre-selective and isolated visits)<br/> + English language is spoken by the bus guide and also by local guides<br/> + Friendly staff</p> <p>Summary</p> <p>- In nutshell is it cheaper? yes! But could we have seen more places? hell yeah!!<br/> - Good for family with kids and for older couples who don't have the luxury to do 'run-around' business and handle all kinds of 'logistical' issues....or for someone who wants to relax and see few places as well along the way. But not recommended for those hardcore-avid travellers with lots of things in mind to achieve in a shorter time.</p> <p>Rating</p> <p>Over-All I would give 2.5 stars out of 5!</p>

Too much time on bus. Included tours... - <p>Too much time on bus. Included tours were weak and addtional tours seemed like a rip off. They should have been included. Having two levels of hotel waisted time going from one hotel to the other. Should have only been one.</p>