Barcelona, Madrid, and Lisbon Tours

Good Afternoon,

We are reaching out regarding a review request for our recent trip. Recently, we booked a 10-day trip to Portugal through Zicasso. This is our third trip booked through Zicasso, and we chose Zicasso because the previous two trips were fantastic; they were well organized, and we had very enjoyable experiences in two countries we had never visited. The previous agents built our itinerary based on their vast knowledge of the country, confirmed all logistics, were communicative, and provided us with a great and luxurious experience in line with the cost. 

Unfortunately, we cannot say the same about our recent experience with this travel company. We approached the collaboration with the travel company and agent similarly to our past two vacations. Based on the provided itinerary and our conversations with the travel agent, we understood, as before, that the itinerary items that required guides, reservations, and transport details had been worked out with the respective parties. However, on our trip, there were many miscommunications between the agency, ourselves, and our guides and drivers. The itinerary listed many places we thought we would be shown on the tours, but in reality, we did not visit many of them, they were just listed as options for us to explore ourselves, which was unclear from how the itinerary was initially presented to us in the planning stage. When the tours started, the tour guides were often asking us what we would like to see instead of having a list of stops to take us to. As this was our first trip to Portugal, we were not informed enough to provide that input and did not expect to have to do so. The guides were very good, they were knowledgeable, often kind, and tried to help us, but it was clear that they had also not received proper communication from our travel agent, which was upsetting and made the experience feel very disorganized. Additionally, the private transport drivers were not clear as to where they were taking us, again due to miscommunication from the travel agency. For example, when we traveled from Lisbon to Porto, as per the itinerary, we were supposed to stop at Obidos and Coimbra along the way for specific sightseeing and tours. Our driver was not aware that we were meant to make those two stops along the way. Luckily for us, we found out the previous day that the same driver would be taking us to Porto, and our guide worked with him to figure out the stops and timings for our scheduled activities on that trip. However, it was stressful to learn that our driver was not aware that we had a stop at Obidos, he did not know that we were going to have a tour guide in Coimbra who he had to coordinate with regarding pickup and drop-off. Additionally, we were meant to have lunch at a restaurant where the agent was supposed to have made a lunch reservation. However, when we went there, they had no reservation on record but they were nice enough to accommodate us. As this was happening and we reached out to our travel agent to request that she communicate with the driver, we just received a text message back saying that the driver was already aware, which was clearly not the case.

In the Azores, because of the weather, our whale tour was cancelled, which we completely understand due to safety, but we still had a jeep tour portion of the excursion. The guide for this jeep tour did not provide a good experience at all. He did not stop at a lot of viewpoints though we saw other jeep tours stopping at them, and he spent a lot of the trip complaining about tourists. The jeep ride was very uncomfortable as they made several of us sit in the back rear facing seats, even though we had specifically mentioned to the agent during planning that my mother is 70 years old and cannot easily climb in and out of some of these types of vehicles. As part of the itinerary for this day, a lunch was also included but the tour guide was not aware of it, and when he learned about it, he said he could not arrange the lunch because he needed to go to his next tour. We ultimately left and had lunch on our own. When planning, our agent said that although this was a jeep tour it would be comfortable and that the tour the next day would be in a minivan. However, the next tour was also in a jeep. The tour guide was very good but the ride was uncomfortable, and again did not accommodate the mobility issues we had identified with our agent previously. 

On the last day, we were supposed to be picked up for our transport to the airport for our flight home. The driver did not show up and the hotel staff tried to help us by calling the travel company’s emergency number. It was surprising that instead of helping us they were being very rude to the hotel staff who were actually going out of their way to help us. We found out that the agency communicated the wrong time to the pick-up driver and finally the hotel arranged for a taxi to take us to the airport, otherwise we would have been late for our return flight. 

Overall, the trip was not on par with the level of quality we have come to expect from a Zicasso identified travel agency. In addition to the general logistical issues we experienced, the agent never checked on us at any time to see if all was well. Whenever we had a question and we reached out to her, we received unclear responses via text, and nothing further. We wanted to provide this feedback as we know Zicasso takes pride in providing luxury travel experiences to their customers, and we have experienced that first hand in previous trips. As return customers, I would not recommend this agent/company to anyone who wants a Zicasso experience.

 Sincerely,

Jyotsna R.

My wife and I have been lucky enough to travel to many places around the world, but our April 2025 journey organized by Zicasso's tour company was easily one of the best. Our agent and her team thought of every detail. All we had to do was show up and enjoy these two beautiful countries!

We went to Four cities: Lisbon, Porto, San Sebastián, and Barcelona. The itineraries were thoughtfully planned to give us great experiences without wearing us out too much. And the guides in each city were fun, knowledgeable, and engaging. The transportation was always easy and on time, and the hotels were top-notch.

Our trip was fantastic. The guides were excellent. The Madrid wine tour guide was excellent, our guide for the walking tour of Barcelona was excellent, our guide for the walking tour of Madrid city was excellent, and our guide for Tarragona and Sitges was excellent. We were so pleased with all the tours that I will not change anything for our next trip with you guys. I appreciate your company and the way you handle things. Zicasso’s travel specialist was so helpful. Thank you so much. I can't wait to do this all over again.

We enjoyed the trip. The guides were good, although our guide in Lisbon provided a little bit too much history. But he was very knowledgeable and we enjoyed his tours. The communication with the Zicasso company through WhatsApp was very good and they were very accommodating to upgrading our transport vehicle because our luggage was large. The food tours were good. We enjoyed all the sites that we saw. Barcelona, especially, was great.

We stayed at four hotels. Only the hotel in Porto was a disappointment. The other hotels were good and we were very comfortable. The breakfast that was served at the various accommodations varied in quality, but the breakfast buffet in Lisbon was extremely good. The hotel in Porto was definitely not a four-star facility. The local airline definitely does not have its act together. When we left Barcelona to come home, the line for the airline was about five or six times the length of every other line. I would have definitely been willing to pay a higher amount for a business class seat in order to use the very short line in the Porto airport.

The owners of Zicasso’s tour company were amazing from start to finish. They curated a custom trip for us to Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Málaga, Toledo, and Granada. They listened to our requests and came up with a brilliant itinerary that included personal drivers, hotels, dining recommendations, and tour guides. They were also so quick to respond to our questions and pivot our plans when needed. This was a very special 30th-anniversary trip for us and they knocked it out of the park.

Zicasso's travel experts did a fantastic job in planning our trip to Spain. We used their services on the front end and back end of our Camino pilgrimage. They helped us to see Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, San Sebastián, and the Rioja wine country. Everything went very smoothly. It was a great trip, with great attention to detail. Muchas gracias!!