Local tour company cheated us. We waited for guide in the area designated. At time for your no guide. Sent message to your company. They said 2 guides on their way. At 15 minutes passed your time. Sent another message saying. Guide says you are with them. I said you are required to check passports to get to the Alhambra. Was their last name Thompson? They said sorry for inconvenience. We were screwed ny the company La Vacanza Travel put us with and we need to get our money back. Charles Thompson I also sent earlier messages to La Vacanza Travel no response
Booked this tour in January through La Vacanza Travel, but tour company is Naturanda. In early March, we were contacted asking if our original tour at noon could be changed to 10am or 2pm - we chose 10am. Received confirmation with a ticket showing the price of 94.24 euros. La Vacanza Travel was supposed to charge us approximately $144USD a couple of days before the tour. Received a text showing that La Vacanza Travel did charge us $144+ and a link to click on for a voucher. Time showed noon. I kept checking the app and it continued to show the time of noon. The day before the tour, I sent 2 text messages asking for confirmation of the time. No one ever responded until the day of the tour and then it was at 11:41am to tell me that the tour was at 10!! Someone at the Alhambra called Naturanda and asked for an English speaking person so I could speak with them. The woman said “you chose 10:00…sorry”. I explained that everything I had received afterward still stated noon and that I had sent 2 messages the day before with no response. She told me to go to the Welcome Center…what??? They gave us 2 vouchers for about 19 euros and basically expected us to do the tour on our own. We ended up paying another guide approximately 132 euros and he gave us a personal tour that lasted even longer. I sent Naturanda a message requesting a refund but surprise…no response.
Booked this tour in January through La Vacanza Travel, but tour company is Naturanda. In early March, we were contacted asking if our original tour at noon could be changed to 10am or 2pm - we chose 10am. Received confirmation with a ticket showing the price of 94.24 euros. La Vacanza Travel was supposed to charge us approximately $144USD a couple of days before the tour. Received a text showing that La Vacanza Travel did charge us $144+ and a link to click on for a voucher. Time showed noon. I kept checking the app and it continued to show the time of noon. The day before the tour, I sent 2 text messages asking for confirmation of the time. No one ever responded until the day of the tour and then it was at 11:41am to tell me that the tour was at 10!! Someone at the Alhambra called Naturanda and asked for an English speaking person so I could speak with them. The woman said “you chose 10:00…sorry”. I explained that everything I had received afterward still stated noon and that I had sent 2 messages the day before with no response. She told me to go to the Welcome Center…what??? They gave us 2 vouchers for about 19 euros and basically expected us to do the tour on our own. We ended up paying another guide approximately 132 euros and he gave us a personal tour that lasted even longer. I sent Naturanda a message requesting a refund but surprise…no response.
We were very disappointed that the tour guide never showed up leaving us missing out on an Alhambra visit. To make matters worse the company, Naturanda, did not answer our multiple texts and phone calls to find out why they had not come. We contacted La Vacanza Travel customer service and they also could not contact Natursnda. La Vacanza Travel customer service was less than helpful and said that any refund would have to be negotiated with Naturands directly. We protested this venhemently as we booked with La Vacanza Travel and telling us we have to contact Naturanda to get our refund seemed like La Vacanza Travel deserting the customer who used their service. I suggested that La Vacanza Travel should exclude Naturanda from their list of providers and issue us a refund immediately. We were told this was not consistent with La Vacanza Travel policies but I asked that our complaint be escalated to higher management so we’ll see. We’ll update this post to see if La Vacanza Travel does the right thing for a client deserted by one of their local tour companies
Driss was an excellent tour guide. Smart, interesting and f fun to be with. We learned so much from him and loved the music he played at times to match the mood! Javier was an excellent driver as well. I highly recommend.