Cooltour Lisbon - R. Prof. Manuel Viegas Guerreiro n.º8 Loja B / C

Pros- They pick you up from the hotel (if in city center), gave good history on pena palace on the way, the tour guide is friendly and entertaining, helps taking pictures, gives recommendations to eat and shop. Cons- The time given to visit the Pena palace was way too short. The tour guide only gave us 1 and half hour for it. They dropped us at the entrance of the palace park entrance which takes 10 mins walk (for an average young person, god help the old people as its a steep climb), despite you hold the entrance ticket still one needs to stand in line which took us 45 mins by the time we entered. And one needs to maintain the same queue throughout the visit in the palace, which means it moves slowly as people are clicking pictures and reading the information on the placards. We had to really rush to go back to our van on time. 2 or 2 and a half hours would have been better. Later it seemed more like a food tour as we were almost forced to eat at a restaurant and later eat an ice cream (which was thankfully an optional choice) Moreover, the tour guide kept playing the Portuguese music more than giving the tourists information on the history of the places we are crossing. Also, the mandatory hugs and kisses is something very unprofessional and silly.

Very enjoyable day at Sintra and other stops in Portugal. Our tour guide, Vasco, and driver, were very nice and knowledgeable about the sites we visited. Our driver always reminded us of safety belts and he was prompt on all pickups. Vasco showed us a real fine Portuguese restaurant in Sintra and plenty of souvenir shops. Overall a nice trip. Highly recommended.

We went for the "Sintra Full Day Sightseeing Tour" which also included Kap Roca and the city of Cascais. The final stop were at the Pena Palace. The day started with us being picked up at a nearby hotel 5 min walk from our staying in Lisbon. In total we were 8 persons plus our guide Andre. First stop was in Sintra and the Quinta da Regaleira park and palace. The tickets for this park were included in our €65/person tour and Andre the guide told os a little history about the place, but as we had to wait for the entire group there were a lot of waiting all the time. After a tour in the cave and some of the park we had only 10-15 minutes to our self to explore the rest before we had to be in the minivan again. Next stop was Kap Roca, the most western point of Europe. In total from arriving to driving off again we again only had 15-20 minutes of exploring - way to little time! After Kap Roca we drove to the city of Cascais where we were dropped off in the middle of the city with half an hour to spend, but not really anything to see, and no guide to where to go. We just sat there waiting for the time to fly buy so we could keep moving again. Next was the city of Sintra where we had 1,5 hours to find something to eat. Final stop was the famous Pena Palace and the surrounding park. Unfortunately the tickets for this beautiful and really large park were not included in our sightseeing package, even as the tour were quite expensive in my mind. With 1,5 hours to spend in the park we had to rush to the Cruz Alta viewpoint and back to the palace where we immediately had to rush back to the car park so we could arrive just in time for us to go back to Lisbon, only with a quick glance at the palace. All in all there were way to much time spent in a minivan and time spent waiting, and to little time to explore for our self. We could easily have dropped the trip to Cascais and then have 1,5-2 hours more to explore Sintra without missing anything, and maybe even have dropped the city center if we had our own food with us to enjoy in the park. Andre the guide were nice and friendly, but were repeatedly saying the same things over and over again when explaining anything. As we were booking the tour just a few days before going, the options were not that big as most tours were sold out. We managed to book the last two seats on this trip, but thinking back it didn't quite meet my expectations.

The full daytrip to sintra was overall really good. Our driver/guide (andré) was very informative and funny and had much knowledge about the sights. Some constructive criticism though: the organizing could be better. Both in quinta de regaleira and pena palace we had way too little time to explore. I’d rather skip the trip to cascais and then have more time in sintra at the two castles. We had to rush to see just a fraction of what we originally wanted. Also i don’t know if i think it is worth the 130€ for two persons, but it was the best one available for us at the time.

Half day trip to Fatima very disappointing. Understand the marathon was an issue in the morning but absolutely no reason why we couldn’t have been dropped off closer to hotels in the afternoon When all roads were open. All seemed too hard. Daniel a pleasant young man but provided little guidance especially at the Church. We did not see the sanctuary, the graves and could not stay till the end of mass. Spending half an hour plus in an overly expensive commercial souvenir shop way out of Fatima was unnecessary. I did not sign up for a port tasting. Overall a very disappointing experience. I will not use cool tours again and will encourage my friends to follow suit. The highlight by far (in fact the only one ) was the delightful group of people from Ireland and the USA with whom I travelled. Trish Maidens.

We had a GREAT experience doing a full day tour with them.

I just came off the Knights Templar tour yesterday. Our guide, Vasco, was awesome. He picked everyone up on time, made sure we were all comfortable, and knew all of our names before we made our first stop. He had good knowledge of the history and sites and entertained all of the group's questions without overdoing it. He also kept the group moving at a good pace, even managing to build some extra time for us to spend at certain locations. It was great day overall. I highly recommend booking with this company. It's a plus if you get Vasco. Another bonus...this was one of the few tour companies that allowed me to book as a single traveler. Other sites required a two person minimum.

i used cooltours for two guided tours (Braga & Guimarães and Évora FULL DAY) with my elderly father during the very challenging travel time that late summer 2021 was. both guides were amazing; being knowledgeable of their route both, in the historical as well as contemporary sense. the also accommodated the physical limitations of my father very well.