El Escorial, Valley of the Fallen and Toledo Day Tour from Madrid

I requested English as my Spanish is not that strong. 5 people on this excursion requested English everyone else spoke Spanish. The guide spent most of the time speaking in Spanish. Since we had to wait for the translation, the no English were allowed to walk around and view things while we were being told what we were viewing. We were not given time to look. First tour with VPT Tours and I will NEVER book with them again.

Morning tour was great and our guide was enthusiastic. However, the guide information in English seemed to be an abbreviated version compared to the version in Spanish. The tour of Toledo was in the afternoon. We were very disappointed to learn during the visit that time would not permit a tour of the cathedral! We missed the major attraction!! Not sure why you would offer afternoon tours in the off-season knowing the cathedral closes early. Why did we not tour the cathedral upon arrival when it was still open? Our guide was very friendly, but needless to say we feel that we missed out.Lunch was included in our tour package and we wish it had not been. The restaurant that we were directed to was unappealing. The service was slow and our waiter was unfriendly. The bathrooms were unkept. We would have rather been on our own for lunch. Aside from not being able to tour the cathedral and the choice of restaurant, the day was enjoyable.

Toledo was an outstanding site that was extremely enjoyable. We had another English guide meet us at El Escorial and he was outstanding, providing great insights and explanations. it was a bilingual tour plus it was on a large bus. Not my favorite way to tour.

One of the best tours I've ever taken!!! A must see!! Our guide was excellent was great knowledge and passion.

These locations are must-visit and really amazing. The tour guide for the morning portion was amazing and thorough in explanation. The only issue was that it was bilingual as opposed to English only as specified in the voucher. Another issue was that it was not clear that the lunch would be back in Madrid. If I had known that, I would not have selected the lunch option. Especially, since the lunch was provided at one of the worst restaurants in Madrid. It is hard to find a bad restaurant in Madrid, but this tour managed to do that lol. The tour guide for the afternoon session Toledo was terrible. It was very hard to follow her as she constantly switched back and forth between English and Spanish again the tour was specified as English not bilingual, and basically, we learned nothing! We were really disappointed about the tour guide. Another comment about her was that the bus diving us to Toledo had a faulty AC and it was very hot inside. Few people complained to her about it and instead of acknowledging the situation and expressing any apologies, she basically said 'it is what it is'. At the end, make sure you visit these sites, but not with this company.

This trip was, for the most part, exceptionally good. The guides in both trips were excellent, very knowledgeable and with a good command of English. All of the sights are well worth the trip, both for historians and those who are interested on the arts. One of the highlights was travelling in the off season, as we were only 4 tourists with each trip segment. However, we booked an included lunch, which was a big mistake. First, these two tours should not be promoted as an all-day tour, as the destinations are in opposite directions, which meant that we had very little time for lunch back in Madrid. Second, lunch was probably one of the worst experiences ever. We were told that we would get a starter, a main, dessert and a beverage. We had asked for one vegetarian meal. By the time we arrived at the restaurant we had time for only one item, and the staff had apparently never heard of vegetarian. So we ended up with a salad,and for the meat-eater some undercooked chicken, with only 20 minutes to eat. Also, the ladies rest room had no toilet paper, no hand towels nor hand drier. So I would recommend the tour as ttwo separate tours, which it actually is, and forget about the dreadful lunch.

On the Viator site we booked what we thought was a full day tour. What we ended up getting was two half day tours. This resulted in us having to return to Madrid an extra time and wasting an hour doing so to be dropped off from the morning. Then the tour guide said we'd have to wait and hour and 15 minutes, when she dropped us off from the morning tour, for the bus to pick us up for the afternoon tour to Toledo. We found a place nearby for lunch to waste some of the time. The bus finally left at 3:15 pm for Toledo. An hour later the bus pulled into a souvenir shop for us to have 15 minutes to shop and use the rest rooms. Finally at 4:30 pm we arrived at Toledo's old town. The fast paced walking tour ended at 6:15 pm. We got on the bus and in 10 minutes the bus pulled in to another souvenir shop and we were told we'd have 30 minutes to shop for souvenirs? Not sure why we could not have had the half hour free time in the old town instead of being forced into one souvenir shop?? Maybe the tour bus company gets a kick back from the souvenir company? We wished The tour guide would have slowed down the pace of the walking tour and let us have those 30 minutes in old town Toledo. A final complaint of the afternoon tour was the speaker system on the bus was garbled and it was almost impossible to understand what the guide was trying to tell us. Our tour ended at 8 pm back in Madrid at Plaza Espana. All the above being said we did enjoy all of the sites on the tour. The guide seemed knowledgeable and was the same guide led both the morning and afternoon tours. It was just on the bus in the afternoon with the bus'speaker system not working correctly we missed the historical information she was relaying. We did bring the speaker system to her attention at the first tourist stop but she said nothing could be done til the bus got back to Madrid. This is our third negative experience with your site and decided not to book any tours on Viator for our stops in Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, and Seville. Hope this info prevents another traveler from a bad experience. Seville. We found other options to supplement our touring.

The guides were great, places we saw and history, excelent!! The only thing I didn't like was the lunch, the waiter was careless, the food wasn't good, they took so long time and one of us, didn't have time to eat. Trip to Toledo was incredible. We enjoyed it so much.