Hector Molina

Overall, we were pleased with our accommodations and the experiences that Hector planned. The Iberostar resort was perfect for our family, and my cousin and I loved our windmills tour with our wonderful guide Birgit. Most of the family also enjoyed the catamaran trip and swimming. The Gran Hotel Havana in Barcelona also suited us well, and we loved our tour guide for Girona (Manuel and his driver Wandr) so much that we lobbied to have them for our second tour (of Montserrat) which was amazing. We also loved the sunset boat trip with the guitarist.

One of the two reasons we did not give 5 stars is because our original flight from Mallorca to Barcelona was scheduled without our agreement to leave at 8:30 in the morning which would have been extremely difficult with three small children. When we requested to move the reservation, we received a lot of pushback and almost tried to make arrangements ourselves (since we received no credit for the original reservation). When we did finally get rescheduled at considerable expense, we learned at the airport that my son would be on standby and his 1-year-old son who is a lap child, had a confirmed seat. It took a great deal of effort to get my son on the flight with no help from Espiritu who blamed the airlines and did nothing to help despite having been responsible for the reservation. I don't believe that the fact that we were with three small children was adequately considered.

The second reason is that we did not receive much help in figuring out where to go to watch the eclipse. Most of the suggestions we received were not helpful because the government was closing many of the streets in Mallorca for security reasons, and they were therefore inaccessible. My daughter did a lot of research online to learn this and did find for us the best place possible given where we were staying, but we would have had a difficult time and probably missed it entirely if we had relied on the information we were given.

Hotel Reviews

Gran Hotel Havana

Barcelona

The rooms were very comfortable and attractive and quiet. Most of the staff were helpful and polite. It was good to have room service and the rooftop restaurant available when we did not want to go out, and the included breakfast buffet had lots of good choices.

Iberostar selection Playa de Muro Village

Playa de Muro, Mallorca, Illes Balears

The rooms were clean and comfortable mostly (one had a problem, but the staff moved those of us in that room to a better one). The pools and private beach were perfect and greatly enjoyed, and the breakfast buffet (and other food options) were all amazing. The staff were all helpful and friendly.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Discover Montserrat & Catalan Wine of Penedès Region

Barcelona

Again, our guide Manuel made it extra special. It is also a beautiful and spiritual place. Some of us are not religious but were deeply moved nonetheless.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

From Medieval Girona to the Villages of Costa Brava

Barcelona

Our guide Manuel made this a very enjoyable and memorable experience. And some of our group said that the beach where he took us after Girona was the best one they had ever been to.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Manuel was knowledgeable, warm talkative, fun and great with the chidren.

Transport

The vans were very comfortable.

Mediterranean Sunset Sailing Experience & Live Spanish Guitar Music

Barcelona

We loved the guitar, and the route was very calm so no one became seasick.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

One of us has balance problems and the captain and staff were very helpful in getting on and off the boat.

Transport

It was a beautiful catamaran sailboat. The only thing that would have been better would have been if it actually sailed instead of motoring the whole way, but that did not impair the experience.

Barcelona for Kids: Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia & Park Güell

Barcelona

The Sagrada Familia on the inside just blew me away; I did not expect to be so moved and impressed.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

She could have been more enthusiastic and warm.

Mallorca by Sea: A Boutique Sailing, Tapas & Snorkeling Experience

Spain

The swimming in the Mediterranean was wonderful. The only problem was that two of our group got seasick.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Windmills & Villages: A Journey Through Mallorca’s Interior

Spain

Birgit was so knowledgeable and warm. My cousin and I really enjoyed learning about the history, traditions and current day people of Mallorca from her. She was great!

Quality of Experience

our guide Birgit

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Birgit was outstanding and made the whole experience one I will not forget.

Transport

We were grateful that since only two of us went, Birgit picked us up at our hotel.

In numerous ways, the logistics and planning for this trip were poor. From considering travel times for our family with young children, to fiascos with booking almost causing us to miss our flight, it did not feel like a smooth trip.

The day trips planned for us were excellent though. The hotels were great too.

The only reason I'm giving this two stars is because our pickup and transfers were without issue and the hotel properties were fine. The trip was amazing, but no thanks to Kim Kim or the local provider. It was amazing because we spent every evening researching and figuring out what we were going to do the next day. The provider knew we had a rental car but made no provisions to check with every one of our hotels to make sure that they had parking. When we asked them to do that, they checked the hotel for the following evening, and we never heard about that again. We had one day in Zaragoza, which was actually the day most of the locations we wanted to visit were closed, so it would have been nice to have a heads up on that. We landed in Bilbao during a national holiday. Also would have been nice to know about that. We also arrived in San Sebastian during the City Festival. Didn't know about that either.
On one of our wine tasting trips, we were supposed to get transfers to and from. Two days before, the wine trip the company informed us that we were too far away and they couldn't pick us up.
We eventually reached out to Kimkim itself to report some of the issues. We didn't get back anything that was helpful at all and never heard from them again.
Kim Kim has booked a number of trips for us that have all been essentially flawless. This was not one of those trips.

Activity Review

A Basque Country Excursion: Jaizkibel Hike, Txakoli Winery & Hondarribia

San Sebastián

Jaime was amazing sharing with us the local culture and the amazing Basque region.

Quality of Experience

Jaime

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Jaime

Transport

Jaime

I thought hector did a great job setting up stuff. But when I got there I was really disappointed. I expected him to have thought through all the transitions. But when we got there we found that he didn’t consider whether we should book the night before in order to have a place to sleep when we arrived. Clearly we had a misunderstanding about the role of a travel agent. Very disappointing.

That said, the locations he chose were great. The hotel where we stayed for the eclipse had a perfect view of the eclipse from the parking lot. The hotel in Valencia was lovely. The hotel in Madrid was really great and very comfortable. We liked all the tour guides except the racist one (reported already), particularly the one in Burgos. She was amazing.

Overall our trip was wonderful in every way, we had just enough guided tours and just enough time to explore on our own. The TRIP PLAN app was a great way to keep track of everything scheduled, tickets and notifications of who and when we were to meet our guides.

I no longer have access to our Trip Plan so I cannot name all of our guides....sorry

Great Stuff:
Barcelona Tapas was a great experience with a great guide
Cava & Rioja winery visits were well chosen and excellent
Pamplona & Basque transfer guide Haime was a dream, very personable and very knowledgeable, great choice
Bilbao Guggenheim guide was wonderful and gave us a great insight into the Spain collections
Madrid - Our old town tour was great and our great and flexible as we noted areas we had already spent time and showed us new and interesting places. He also gave us many great recommendations for food and drink

MADRID...THANK YOU FOR WINNING THE WORLD CUP while we were there

Some comments on making things better:
Connecting your travelers with bus/metro/transit would be most helpful, we used these services A LOT in our travels and struggled with the initial source of finding websites/apps and ticket tips, please assist to Trip Plan.

Barcelona
Tickets to Sagrada Familia we on a Saturday and the site closes early. we barely had 30 minutes at the site, so we missed the crypt, museum, workshop and much of the side chapels in the building. Really disappointing as this was my #1 place I wanted to spend time in Barcelona
Montserrat visit was too short, our guide was great.....starting earlier to allow for time to walk/hike would be great

Zaragoza ghost town visit was all in spanish our guide did his best to translate. There was an option for an app to use personal headphones on our phones in english, but we didn't know to bring them

Pamplona
2 full days is enough [our fault]
We didn't get any help directing use to resources for tickets to balcony viewing of the running or the bulls, bullfights or suggestions. We managed from here but....

Overall, the trip was AMAZING! Hector was great. Only misstep was the guide in Madrid. I total loser who didn't really seem interested in walking us around.