Totally Spain Customer testimonials

Hello Olaia, I just wanted to let you know that Diane and I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Spain.  It was everything that I had imagined, and more. Very beautiful and varied terrain. Thank you for coordinating so efficiently.  All drivers and guides were wonderful and very punctual, as well.  It was a journey I will never forget, and I will highly recommend you and Totally Spain for future reference. All of our accommodations were spectacular and people so friendly, too.

Review from Yelp

Olaia at Totally Spain shepherded us through the planning and customizing of our trip to 6 cities in Spain and Portugal.  The way our itinerary was laid out and coordinated showed the experience and connections that they have built.  Our guides were excellent, insightful people and our transport interfaced flawlessly.  We couldn't have been happier with the service provided and the quality of hotels.

Review from Yelp

Just completed a 3 week tour organised by Olaia and Ken from Totally Spain. The level of detail  and attention to detail of all the plans and arrangements was fantastic. Our trip included a walk on the Camino,and a self drive trip through Northern Spain and Portugal. The hotels and Paradores that we stayed in were fantastic, with sea, castle or cathedral views.The transfers to and from the airport were fantastic and all the maps and driving directions ensured we didn't get lost and found out hotels easily. The suggestions for things to do and see and places to eat were also very helpful. The itinerary was well balanced and thought has been put into driving distances and the time we spent in each place. We highly recommend Totally Spain and we aim to book another trip with them.

Olaia from Totally Spain organised our honeymoon in Spain for my wife and I.  We had a basic idea of what places we wanted to go to and how much time to spend in each place. However we also had some time constraints and knew we wouldn’t be able to go to as many places as we would have liked and Olaia’s advice helped us to decide on where to go.

We wanted a mix of self travelling but with some tours for some key attractions. We gave Olaia an idea of the style of accommodation we wanted and the kind of things we wanted to see. She was able to organise a really awesome trip for us, with activities spaced out at a good pace and the style of accommodation we were wanting. As she had mentioned that we were on honeymoon we were given free upgrades at quite a few locations.

The tours that she organised were really informative and enjoyable; the tour guides really knew what they were talking about!

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Olaia for anyone planning a trip to Spain.

Review reproduced from our Facebook page 13 July 2017

We enjoyed the trip very much  - especially the food and wines. All the guides were very knowledgeable, especially Esther in Madrid.  

I will definitely contact you again when we visit Spain next time and If I have friends going to Spain I will recommend your company to them. 

I want to express my appreciation to your excellent job.  I am totally happy with your services.  Since this was my first time using travel agency, I was really skeptical until we arrived Cordoba.  But your people proved that I was wrong.  Now I am regret that I didn't use your service in Madrid and Barcelona.  I will recommend your service to anyone who is interested in traveling Spain.

Review from Yelp

We booked a trip for 6 people, including our 4 adult children in their 20s.
Belen organized a trip to Seville, Ronda, Granada and Barcelona.  She arranged private transfers and got us amazing guides and tickets to events. Everything was like clockwork and the hotels were exactly what we requested.  Most importantly, Belen was incredibly responsive; I had a lot of questions as we planned and she was always so quick to respond and so positive in her interactions.  I couldn't recommend her more highly; it was the perfect trip!

Review from Yelp

If you are traveling to Portugal or Spain, by all means let TotallySpain plan your trip.  A recent trip brought me to 4 cities in those countries, with an itinerary TotallyPlanned by TotallySpain.  I could not be happier!
TotallySpain will ask you what you like to do (and what you are able to do), and whether you previously have visited the places you are going-- and will plan events and activities around your wishes, including hotels and transfers from airport or train station.  Our trip was perfect-- the hotels were great, and well located; every driver and every guide in each city arrived on time, was courteous and professional, and knew exactly where we were to go; the guides were knowledgeable and personable, and eager to share their love of the sights we were to see.  TotallySpain is the BEST!

Hi Belen,  We had an absolutely wonderful, perfect holiday in northern Spain.  Your recommendations, the accommodations, the tours, everything was delightful.  We greatly appreciate your putting the trip together for us.  Everything went perfectly.

The accommodations were terrific.  The pinxtos tour was fantastic, one of the real highlights.  We had no problems at all during our trip.

One thing I would suggest to all of your clients doing a self-drive tour: in one of your blogs, you had mentioned the Allday Internet portable wi-fi device.  We arranged for one of these, never having tried one before.  I didn't think I would use it that much, since I try to avoid email when traveling, and I am not a fan of Facebook or social media.  As it turns out, the device was worth its weight in gold.

We have a good GPS having a chip of European maps, but we found it to be almost worthless in the cities.  It did not respond fast enough, and was inaccurate in many places.  We started using our iPhones for wi-fi navigation in conjunction with the Allday Internet device, and it was vastly more accurate and easy to use.  We don't use cellular service very much on our phones when traveling overseas (too expensive), but even just using wi-fi the phones were much, much better than a GPS.  I think we would still be driving around Haro and San Sebastian looking for our destinations if we had not had the Allday device and our phones.  Thank you for letting us know about these devices.  I don't think I will ever travel overseas again without one.

We could not be more pleased with the trip you organized for us.  Thank you.  Should you ever need a reference, or if I can review Totally Spain on Trip Advisor or a similar site, I would be glad to help.  The only thing I would do differently is stay longer!

Thanks once again, and you can be certain that when we return to Spain, it will be with your help.

Hi Belen, We would just like to say that the the tour you organised for us went off without a hitch. 

Your planning was meticulous, detailed and responsive.  Your communications were precise and prompt.  Hotels were as described and your people were all where they needed to be, on time.  Even the weather was beautiful throughout, except for the two days of rain we had in Barcelona.  Pity that.
 
The documentation you gave us was thorough and complete.  Markups on the maps etc were a great, helpful personal touch, and the information provided was so comprehensive that we could have spent days exploring at each location [as is always the case when travelling].
 
The pintxos and tapas tours were wonderful, particularly the one in Barcelona, and your strong suggestion about the parador at Santiago de Compostela was excellent and we are glad you “insisted”.
 
All up, a well planned and arranged tour in tune with our personal wishes! Your excellent local knowledge was well worth it.  Well done indeed!
 

Dear Belen, Thank-you so very much.
 
We have received the package- and it is amazing. 
Everything is so well organized. My husband is a very organized man and he is so happy! 
We are pleased with the amount of detail that you have included. 
We also think the accommodation looks fantastic. 
You have done an excellent job.
 
Just fabulous!

Review from Yelp

We are experienced travellers who have always done our own booking and exploring but when we looked at seeing parts of Portugal, Andalucia, Barcelona and Madrid on our own we ran into all sorts of questions on the best way (route) to see what we wanted to see.  A couple of internet queries led us to Belen at Totally Spain and as a result we just spent 5 weeks of the most organized, thoughtful trip we've ever had.  All it took was a little back and forth about what kind of travellers we are, what hotel expectations we had and what kinds of events we'd be interested in and, bam, our trip was planned and booked.  Hotels, car rentals, bus rides, train tickets, port tasting, fado show, sherry tasting, Familia Segrada, Prado, walking tours, etc etc.  Done.  Totally Spain is magic.  No language issues, very cognizant of needs/wishes, very attentive and helpful.  NOT ONE booking issue unlike what you read on the internet with self booking at hotels or AirBnB.   While we were on the road a few upcoming events informed Totally Spain of a time change or venue change and Totally Spain made sure we were apprised of the changes.  Can't say enough good things.  Thank you Belen.

Review from Yelp

We are happy to have Totally Spain's service for our vacation arrangement in Spain. We had a good impression of the country, the people, the culture and many of beautiful sceneries.

Our Spain vacation was completed successfully. It was a fantastic trip and my parents and I really enjoyed it the beautiful scenery, the culture and warm hearted people. We all are appreciated for you and your company 's service.

Hope next time to get your assistant again. 

SPLENDID TOURS BY TOTALLY SPAIN!

Absolutely appreciative of Olaia from Totally Spain for organising our memorable family trip to Madrid, Segovia, Bilbao and Barcelona.  From wanting to see as much of the major cities to dining  at the World’s oldest restaurant;  going up in a hot air balloon  to listening to the angelic voices of the Monserrat Boys’ Choir, Olaia made it all happen within our 9 days there inclusive of recommended places that we did not initially think of.   All nicely spaced out in a comfortable pace.

Olaia put us in lovely comfortable apartments and hotels , all within walking distances to shops, museums and glorious food.

The guides like Esther in Madrid,  Jose Manuel  in Bilbao whom she arranged for us were all so amiable, well-articulated and imbue passion in their country’s history , food and all it has to offer. Realizing that we enjoyed architecture, Jose went the extra mile to show us beautiful inspiring buildings around the Rioja Valley

Ewan from Madrid brought to life the selected masterpieces at Prado Museum and making it such a memorable study of Spanish art history for my family. Coming from an country where we don’t learn about European history nor its artwork, it’s nice when your kids become fascinated and now have a favourite Velazquez painting .

In Barcelona, Mar weaved her magic spell and turned what would have been an impossibly long day to see all 4 of Gaudi’s masterpieces into an enchanting  one immersed in the genius of the architect . 

The whole team is great, even  Jose the driver in Barcelona who picked us from the airport and subsequently saw us off,  made us feel so very  welcomed to his city and gave us great pointers on the type of cheese and Jamon to get and enjoy.

Two Thumbs up to Totally Spain!

Review from Yelp

Our family traveled to Spain this past summer and, thanks to Olaia and the Totally Spain team, it was a big success. We were in regular contact while planning our itinerary, and Olaia's suggestions were very helpful. All the accommodations were arranged by Totally Spain, and we were very comfortable - not always easy when travelling with kids! The extensive packet of information provided and waiting for us at our first stop (Barcelona) was so comprehensive we did not need to contact the agency at all during our entire 2 week trip. Car rental was also part of our plan, and we especially appreciated the detailed directions to points of auto pick-up and drop-off. One of the highlights was the local guide experience in Pamplona, and we really got an amazing, behind-the-scenes perspective from Lidia, our guide. Our kids (aged 11 and 14) want to know when we will be going back to Spain - now that's a true mark of approval! Thank you, Totally Spain, and a special recognition for Olaia! We would emphatically recommend your agency, and have actually done as we share our stories and pictures of our time in Barcelona, Pamplona, Bilbao, La Rioja and Madrid. Muchísimas gracias!

Review from Yelp

Close friends, whom are specialty travel agents, recommend Belen at Totally Spain to me and I am so thankful that they did.  They personally had never met her, but everyone they had ever referred to her had nothing but excellent experiences.  Count me and my family among them.  We are a family of four and didn't have a lot of money to spend.  To be honest, to save money, if it didn't require using four different credit cards for bookings and having to be responsible to my brother, sister and mom, for everything, I'm not sure I would have gone with a travel agency.  I'm pretty good at figuring things out and travel a lot without outside help.  However, on this, our first trip to Spain, I can't imagine getting it as right and perfect as Belen did for us.  Totally Spain doesn't handle the air travel, (and after dealing with Vueling, I can understand that completely), but Belen put together all the trains, buses, and private transportation beautifully.  There's no way anything I could have put together myself could have compared to Belen's itinerary, being Spanish and specializing in travel in Spain (and Portugal).  It's her home!  If anything would have gone wrong, she would have been a local call away.  But, everything just went incredibly right.

Belen had us fill out a detailed questionnaire and between that and some email conversation, she had an accurate understanding of what we were looking for in our visit to Spain.  We decided on the trip duration, the days per city, day trips as opposed to over-nights or multi-nights, activities for local immersion, etc.  Understandably, you pay upfront before hotel details are revealed, but you are free to make any changes if you are unhappy.  Far from that, each and every hotel was great.  All of our hotels were in perfect locations, all had the most kind, charming and attentive staff and very clean, well maintained rooms.  It certainly didn't feel like budget.  Some, like our hotel in Granada were gorgeous.  Belen arranged private tours with excellent guides for us.  Every person that Belen put us in contact with was of the highest caliber.  You know they do their best for Totally Spain clients - it's mutually beneficial.  We were in Spain for 19 days and stayed in Madrid, Sevilla, Ronda, Granada and Barcelona with side trips to Segovia, Toledo, & Cordoba.  We received comprehensive information packets for each city loaded with information and suggestions for sight-seeing, eating, shopping, etc.  There were personalized maps with markers indicating where our hotels were and the places we would be going to marked as well.  Belen enclosed additional packets for other cities that would be close by, in case we got inspired.

I asked so many questions, emailing back and forth, I thought for sure I must be her worst client.  She wrote back saying not to worry, I was by far not her "worst" client... at least not yet. :)   She's funny and thorough and hard-working.  Of course, the proof of her expert guidance was the experience itself, and that was, fabulous.  We LOVED Spain.  We were perfectly located in every city.  The pacing was just right.  The suggestions spot on.  I can't imagine being in better hands than Belen's at Totally Spain.

Heads up - I did a lot of research on Trip Advisor and there used to be a thread there regarding this topic but it was closed.  Looking further, Trip Advisor won't post anything regarding travel agents anymore because they make money from the travel business featured on their site.  So, for travel agent reviews, look here on YELP.

(FYI - the most profound experience for me was intimate, powerful, flamenco.  It felt like the soul of Spain - or a deep aspect of it.)

Olaia 

Just want to let you know how we got on . Thank you for all your assistance and helpful advice and suggestions it was great to have Totally Spain helping us organise the holiday.... The tours of Alhambra and tapas tour were very good the Flamenco show too was very good ....Overall we had a great holiday and enjoyed seeing many aspects of Spain and its history.

We have had nothing but positive things to say about our experience, rest assured!
Just thought I would reach out and say that if you are looking for customer recommendations, I would be happy to provide one.

We had a fantastic trip to Spain this summer.  Olaia, your help was very important and necessary as the trip took shape. While we were traveling around Spain, we were able to be quite independent. The two weeks flew by, and our time in each place we went was very satisfying (albeit too short!).

Thank you for all you did to help us!

Review from Yelp

Great experience; would definitely use again.  

My wife and I did a one week self-drive tour of N. Spain where Totally Spain arranged the rental car and hotels.  I had provided an initial itinerary and they added value right away by suggesting I switch out one town for another - Laguardia - which was a true delight (a medievel hill-top town in the Rioja wine region).  This was a terrific suggestion and a highlight of our trip.

All the hotels were great and they were able to get us a free upgrade in one Parador.  In another hotel Totally Spain had noted on our voucher that we were to get the best room available, and sure enough the clerk found us a quiet room with a great view.

What I found most surprising was the thorough way they prepared travel materials for each town: individual plastic envelops with maps they had marked with highlighter to show our hotel location; brochures on local attractions and other briefing/history materials for each city.  Plus Google map printouts for routes between each hotel.  Very thorough, very organized and very helpful!

Dear Olaia, We have just completed our parador tour and had a wonderful trip.

Many thanks for your help and organization.

Review from Yelp

Ola Belen,

We arrived home from our holiday last Wednesday and have had a few days to settle back in to our home life after 23 days in Spain and Portugal.
We'd just like to thank-you very much for all of your planning, suggestions, organising, and in particular, your assistance with our unplanned itinerary changes due to our delayed flight.
You have been very helpful and professional and we were very happy with all of your suggestions in relation to the itinerary, hotels, what to see, where to eat, etc.
In addition, the guides have all been fantastic. We cannot recommend highly enough Rita from 'Your friend in Lisbon' and Pedro in Porto enough. They were fantastic as was the driver, Ricardo, in Lisbon. At all times they were professional, courteous and enthusiastic.

Olaia, we have enjoyed our first day in Potes, arriving just before a bicycle race.  I keep thinking at each stage of our adventure; Bilbao language school, Isla, Luarca, Cudillero, Laguardia, Logrono, that it can't be more perfect. I am wrong each time! We are amazed with our apartment and the village of Potes.  This is exactly what we wanted for our trip. 
We love your skill in placing us exacting where we want to be.

Dear Olaia, I am writing to thank you for having organised an excellent holiday for us. Everything worked well and we appreciated the itinerary that you had put together for us. I hope we may use you again in the future.

We are home and we just want to thank you for a great itinerary.  Everything went smoothly and we appreciated how well organized all the documents were.

The guides we had were wonderful and our trip was wonderful thanks to you and your expertise.

Review from Yelp

We took a 23 day trip around Spain and Totally Spain arranged it all.  It makes so much sense to have an in-country travel agency arrange things.  Totally Spain arranged trains, rental cars, hotels, tours, and guides.  Our hotels were always very centrally located.  Excellent documentation & maps were provided, making moving from place to place easy.  There was a small problems during our trip.  I emailed our wonderful agent, Olaia, and she was back to us within 10 minutes and the problem was cleared up.  That would not happen so quickly if I had used a U.S. agency as there is a 9 hour difference.  I would highly recommend Totally Spain!

Hola Olaia, We want to thank you for all your patience and help with our many travel arrangements.

We loved Barcelona.  What a beautiful and varied city!  We met and took all our tours and even got around quite well on the Metro.  We went to Tortosa by train, and I loved staying at the Parador and "soaking up" all that history! Our connections to the Xalon area and on to Valencia worked out well, too. Everywhere we went people were friendly and hospitable, our accommodations were fine and our tour guides very knowledgeable.

So, again, we thank you for all your help and concern for our trip.  We thoroughly enjoyed it, and we will recommend Totally Spain to anyone we know going to Spain.

Review from Yelp

Olaia at Totally Spain did a phenomenal job developing our itinerary and booking our trip.  I told her I wanted to see Madrid, Barcelona, and the Costa Del Sol and she took it from there.  We had car and driver pick us up at every destination.  The half day private walking tours were perfect. The hotel in Madrid (NH Collection on Prado) was great and the hotel in Estepona was just right-nice mix of international people and friendly service. The day trips she suggested and booked to Toledo, Alhambra and Montserrat with the Wine Tasting were quite enjoyable.  The Tapas tour was just the right first experience of Madrid and the small group and tour guide were great.  She did a nice job of balancing luxury with value and planning a truly customized trip.  Maps and things to do were included in our documentation.  My only suggestion would have been to spend a bit more and go with a better hotel in Barcelona. I would definitely recommend Totally Spain to any of my American friends planning a trip to Spain. Thank You Olaia.

Review from Yelp

Really loved this travel agency that specializes in travel in Spain and Portugal. The agent got us great accommodations in Cordoba and Salamanca and arranged some nice tours for us. Maps and information on main attractions are provided for each city visited. And we had a few unexpected things come up during the trip. Totally Spain helped us with last minute requests, such as by booking high speed rail tickets for us.  They were always available and responsive. Highly recommended.

Review from Yelp

Had a wonderful holiday in Spain and Portugal.  Totally Spain "totally" organised our first week in North Spain and did a wonderful job, everything ran like clockwork and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.  Their itinerary was tailored to our interests and was great value for money.  Wish we were back there now it is very cold in Melbourne!!