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Spanish Serenade 11/1/17 - Looking to Share Private Local Tours


TouringTwo
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My wife and I are looking to share semi-private tours with another couple or two for some of the stops on this cruise most likely booking thru toursbylocals.com. Appears to be much, much cheaper than what the ship is charging per person. If interested, please reply

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  • 3 weeks later...

SpainDayTours is excellent. You can book a tour. The tour company handles putting the group together. However, since the ship is small, some tours do not get the minimum number of people needed. That happened to us on the Alhambra tour from Almeria. SpainDayTours was 79euros compared to Windstar's $250pp. We had a lot of OBC and took the ship's Alhambra tour. It was excellent. It included lunch at a fabulous Michelin star restaurant. We loved Spanish Serenade. It was expecially great sailing up the river directly into Seville. Walked off the ship, went across the street to Tourist Info (free maps and wifi), and enjoyed a short walk into town. The Alcazar was over the top gorgeous. Do not book a tour in Seville. In Malaga, we made the mistake of booking the Picasso Museum tour. The ship excursion rep told us that the ship was a 15 minute ride to the museum. Wrong. The tour rode around for 15 minutes and then went to the museum. The museum was a 5-10 walk from the ship. Do not rely on the excursion desk for info and maps. The maps that the guest services give out are not the best. We also had a large Tauck tour group ( 2 bus loads, 80 people) sailing with us on Spanish Serenade. We did not know this ahead of time. The Tauck tour people had their own tours. Meal times in the Veranda were crowded when the tour people had a limited time to eat and make it to their buses. The only shared event was museum villa visit in Palma. We loved the cruise.

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SpainDayTours is excellent. You can book a tour. The tour company handles putting the group together. However, since the ship is small, some tours do not get the minimum number of people needed. That happened to us on the Alhambra tour from Almeria. SpainDayTours was 79euros compared to Windstar's $250pp. We had a lot of OBC and took the ship's Alhambra tour. It was excellent. It included lunch at a fabulous Michelin star restaurant. We loved Spanish Serenade. It was expecially great sailing up the river directly into Seville. Walked off the ship, went across the street to Tourist Info (free maps and wifi), and enjoyed a short walk into town. The Alcazar was over the top gorgeous. Do not book a tour in Seville. In Malaga, we made the mistake of booking the Picasso Museum tour. The ship excursion rep told us that the ship was a 15 minute ride to the museum. Wrong. The tour rode around for 15 minutes and then went to the museum. The museum was a 5-10 walk from the ship. Do not rely on the excursion desk for info and maps. The maps that the guest services give out are not the best. We also had a large Tauck tour group ( 2 bus loads, 80 people) sailing with us on Spanish Serenade. We did not know this ahead of time. The Tauck tour people had their own tours. Meal times in the Veranda were crowded when the tour people had a limited time to eat and make it to their buses. The only shared event was museum villa visit in Palma. We loved the cruise.

 

Redtravel, I tried to book their Alhambra tour shortly after you mentioned that you had booked it. Spain Day tours told us that it wasn't available that day. I assumed that meant that they had a full group for your tour. Then very close to the sailing they cancelled your tour. We ended up booking with Pepe Tours instead.

 

There is an advantage to booking the Alhambra tour with Windstar. Due to high winds, our cruise couldn't get into Almiera (the port where we sechduled the Alhambra tour) and we stayed overnight in Malaga instead. No issue for the people on the Windstar tour, but the eight of us taking Pepe Tours had to spend time on the phone getting them to make arrangements to pick us up from the other port (and pay extra for a tour guide to fetch us from there with a van, but we still paid much less than the Windstar tour price). I might have taken the Wndstar tour instead if I'd realized that lunch was included. Their tour description said there was an "opportunity" to get lunch at the restaurant which I took to mean that there was time while one was in the vicinity of the restaurant but that one would have to pay for it.

 

We took Windstar's Alcazar tour in Seville. It was easily walkable but we had shipboard credit so we decided to take their tour. On the Windstar tour, we liked that they provided two guides to guide us as two small groups rather than using one guide with a big group. Also, they handed out small radio units with earpieces so we could listen to the guide rather than trying to cluster around the guide to see and hear. That is very common now - Pepe tours did it too. Taking your own wired earpiece/headset to plug in instead would be a good idea as they are probably more comfortable than the ones handed out.

 

Visiting Alhambra is the one where the excursion is really helpful both because of distance and because there are time specific entry tickets that must be obtained in advance. The other ports, one could easily do things on ones own.

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