Royal Fortress & Gardens (Reales Alcázares y Jardines)
- Address: Plaza del Triunfo, Seville
- Hours: Open daily Oct - Mar: 9:30am - 5pm (until 7pm Apr - Sept). Closed on Jan 1 and 6, Holy Friday and Dec 25
- Admission: General: € 7.50
ATTRACTION Keywords:
Good Place to Relax,
UNESCO Heritage Site,
Monument - Historical,
Park / Garden
Royal Fortress & Gardens (Reales Alcázares y Jardines) Reviews
We've found 69 Royal Fortress & Gardens (Reales Alcázares y Jardines) reviews from Viator.com travelers and members: what they loved, what they liked and what they think could be improved. It's all here to help you make the most of your next trip.
Review by sikhamd, October 2012
Doing what: 7-Day Spain Tour: Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Valencia, Barcelona and Zaragoza from Madrid
Our tour was very much enjoyable but once we bought the tour package 'Viator' did not provide any information about it, like time schedule of arrival and departure from different cities, hotels, we needed to know before - they just referred to 'Julia Travels'. Otherwise the tour guides, bus transportation, hotels were good. We would sure consider tours like this through Viator in future.
Review by Dawn S, October 2012
Doing what: Seville Day Trip from Malaga
Would have liked to see more of the city. next time will explore on my own. Tour guide was nice.
Review by Judella, October 2012
Doing what: Seville Day Trip from Malaga
This tour is actually 11-12 hours, but we really did not get to see much of Seville. A Plaza, the Cathedral and a little free time ande that's it! It was very rushed. We thought we would get to see a lot from the boat ride on the river and that turned out to be a waste of what little free time we had as you got to see very little from the boat.
Review by Judy R, October 2012
Doing what: Seville Day Trip from Malaga
We were on the bus for over 2 hrs.to pick up people before even starting to Seville...another 2 1/2 hours to get there.The tour operator wanted us to spend cab money to go to the pick up point while they were picking up others at the same hotel we were at. We got to see only a few things in Seville and got back very late 9;00 pm by the time they dropped off all the people at their hotels.Plus the poor guide had to explain everything in 4 languages so your didn't learn much. Was that boring. Hated all 3 trips in Malaga. The one in Barcelona was OK. Cordoba was worse. Had to stand out by a MacDonalds at 5:30 in the morning in Estepona, too far to walk ...had the expense of a cab...and then endured over 3 hours of picking up other clients at their hotels, 16 stops, before we even started to go to Corboda. We got 4 hours in Cordoba and 12 hours on the bus with 4 languages again. Thank goodness this bus driver felt sorry for us and took us to our hotel after dropping off all the others. In Morocco the guy took us to his buddy's spice shop and rug shop and we didn't get to shop at the bazaar as described. The lunch was very good and the professor that walked us through the Kasba was interesting but I don't like being held hostage in stores while people sell their goods. The guide was rude and pushie. They drove right by our hotel but we had to pay for the MacDonalds ride again both ways.
Review by Beardman, Bahrain, September 2012
Doing what: Seville Classical or Historical Morning Sightseeing Tour
Nice combination of bus and walking. Bus to get to the far away things like Plaza Espana - a must see and walking around within the Santa cruz historical area. Good opportunity to rest/take resfreshments and use facilities which is important in a 3 hour tour. My only issue was that the tour we had booked was advertised as being in English when in fact most of the talking was done in Spanish with a shortened English version afterwards. the tour leader tried her best to get both languages out quickly but the reality was that sometimes we had passed the particular site when the English version came out. I think it would be better to have a morning group in one language and an afternoon one in the other. Enjoyable none the less and without a car we would have found it difficult to get around all the sights in our short 2 day stay in Seville.
Review by Ann K, September 2012
Doing what: Seville Day Trip from Malaga
This was a very good trip except for the optional boat trip in Seville where you could not hear any commentary at all. I would have preferred to have had that time in Seville seeing a little more to balance out the Jewish Quarter Tour Expo and the Cathedral. However it was overall very worthwhile with good bus service and guides.
Review by Johnbeitner, September 2012
Doing what: 7-Day Spain Tour: Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Valencia, Barcelona and Zaragoza from Madrid
Too much time on bus. Included tours were weak and addtional tours seemed like a rip off. They should have been included. Having two levels of hotel waisted time going from one hotel to the other. Should have only been one.
Review by Dawn E, South Africa, September 2012
Doing what: Seville Classical or Historical Morning Sightseeing Tour
Seville is a beautiful, seductive and interesting city, and it would have been wonderful to have had a good guide on this tour, as there is so much we would have liked to know, but unfortunately the lady who was our "guide", spoke such bad English, that half the time we could not understand a word that she said. She spoke a lot of Spanish, and seemed to rush through the English commentaries. Unfortunatly I did not get her name, otherwise I could have saved others this total waste of money.
Review by John C, September 2012
Doing what: Seville Day Trip from Malaga
A rather disappointing trip. The guide in Seville was no better than moderate and seemed partially driven by the need to fit in her next cigarette break. The main problem though was trying to conduct a tour in four languages. The tour was billed as 'English speaking' but in reality included Spanish, French and Italian too. This made it incredibly hard to gain any real benefit from having a guide which was a great loss. The website should make it clear that the tour is multi-lingual and in our case the tour guide's English was barely good enough.
Review by Ganna E, August 2012
Doing what: Seville Classical or Historical Morning Sightseeing Tour
There was not much of histiry
Review by Giuliano B, August 2012
Doing what: Seville Classical or Historical Morning Sightseeing Tour
All in all a relaxing morning among las calles de Seville.
Review by Karen F, August 2012
Doing what: Seville Day Trip from Malaga
Not very good. The most interesting thing in this city is the plaza (which I found out where Star Wars was filmed). No mention by the tour guide of this. We only spent 20 minutes at this location which she said was "plenty of time." Unfortunately, all of that time was spent looking for a bathroom which is in the park down the street.
The tour guide had to do 5 languages and there is no way to do it properly.
Review by Christian B, Bahrain, August 2012
Doing what: Seville Day Trip from Malaga
the tour is supposed to be good but unfortunately we were only told at our arrival to seville that the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Cathedral of St Mary (which was the reason of our visit to Seville) is closed for the day. this should have been noted prior to our booking! this made the trip not worth the money.
Review by Mahendrn S, July 2012
Doing what: 7-Day Spain Tour: Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Valencia, Barcelona and Zaragoza from Madrid
Review of 7 days trip across Spain - First let me cover the negative points: Whole trip is just like riding on a long distance Grey Hound Bus on a multi-day journey only with the exception of getting additional hotel arrangements with free breakfasts and few free selective dinners. In seven days the tour operator does cover 6 cities with brief stop overs and they arrange local tour guides to escort the entire bus tourists in every tourist spot. Evenings they put us in their pre-arranged hotels. Some hotels are above average and some are below average. But all hotels do serve horrible food and sometimes the food can be a real nightmare! If you are a vegetarian forget it, salad is the only choice!! Most terrible thing is almost all restaurants Julia travels took us do serve pork or ham which is typically avoided by Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and even many Christians don't bother taking it since this affects one's collestral level ...perhaps this is something to do with entire Spain culture rather than Julia travels or the particular hotels, so I won't hold it against them.
- Not all the hotels are located in a great area so that we can walk around freely in the neighborhood
- Most of the day you will end up in riding the Bus traveling city to city.....and it could be boring since we get nothing to do otherwise
- The most annoying part is they cover only few tourists attractions in all cities and they will let you roam on your own by giving you some hours of free time to cover other attractions on our own!
- Especially one entire day was wasted by spending 50% in the Bus journey /transfer and then the rest of the day wasted by leaving us alone in Valencia - which was not fair!
- The rip off part is - Julia Travels do provide some optional side tours in the evening for some extra cost such as 30 euros a person for some stupid Flamenco or some gypsy trips...we strongly discourage you from participating in these side trips, since this is a waste of money and you can use that money and time wisely elsewhere!
- Almost all places they stop at some kind of church or basilica or cathedral or mosque. Nothing wrong with that but there plenty of other things to see as well. Most of the time church is the only stop over
- At one spot in Seville they do drop off the tourists and ask them to walk around and explore that part of that city and ask you to walk back yo hotel....that was about 45 minute walk! We pay for the trip and we had to walk on our own to reach hotel!
- I have paid about $870 per person (for 3 of us it costed us about $2700 USD) and yes we had covered lots and lots of miles across the length and depth of Spain, but what exactly we had seen was not that much in 7 days.
Pros:
Now let me cover positive points as well:
+ Price wise it is very reasonable. If you add bus ticket cost for all the 6 cities and 6 night hotel cost plus few dinners and all breakfasts plus local tour guide fees, it will cost more than a thousand bucks compared to what they charge due to the nature of the package.
+ You don't have to tax your brain what to see and how to get to each place and where to stay, etc. Basically someone is handling all the logistics for you.
+ Imagine getting in and out of planes or trains or private busses and then catching taxis to get to the hotels and arranging our own tourist visits and trips in each and every city. That will not only cost us lots of money also consumes plenty of time and lots of hassles to go with it. We just leave all the issues with one professional company and let them take care of all issues for a very reasonable price. We just need to sit and relax.
+ Some times half the fun is to get there. By traveling by the tour bus from one city to another city across the Spain you get to see the varying landscapes. In addition to seeing each city it is also important to see the country side and the beautiful landscapes. This is the best way to enjoy a country in a traditional way rather than taking a flight and making surgical trips (pre-selective and isolated visits)
+ English language is spoken by the bus guide and also by local guides
+ Friendly staff
Summary
- In nutshell is it cheaper? yes! But could we have seen more places? hell yeah!!
- Good for family with kids and for older couples who don't have the luxury to do 'run-around' business and handle all kinds of 'logistical' issues....or for someone who wants to relax and see few places as well along the way. But not recommended for those hardcore-avid travellers with lots of things in mind to achieve in a shorter time.
Rating
Over-All I would give 2.5 stars out of 5!
Review by dacocin, July 2012
Doing what: Seville Classical or Historical Morning Sightseeing Tour
Had same guide as river cruise. Could not understand her and she lost my wifr and mu=yself before the end of the trip!! Sights werer great though.
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