Gibraltar with St Michael Caves Guided Tour from Costa del Sol

This tour makes for a long day from Malaga! Our bus ride was over 2 and 1/2 hours. The coach bus company makes many stops along the Costa Del Sol, so it is very slow going. Once we got to Gibraltar, it was very interesting especially the tour of Gibraltar itself which was done by a local company once we arrived in the city. Our guide Eric had grown up in Gibraltar and was very knowledgeable. The Main Street of Gibraltar is EXTREMELY touristy and crawling with cruise passengers. Because it is duty free, there is nothing but liquor, perfume and jewelry stores. If you need a fix of the UK, you will get it here. There’s even a Marks and Spencer. The drive to the top of the rock is great and has an audio guide with information. The guide on the coach bus, Alice was not very friendly and a bit rude.

Terrible. Terrible communication that had to be initiated by the guest. Canned responses on Viator directed us to call their office whose operators seem woefully unprepared to answer the simplest of questions. Between the phone conversation and WhatsApp messaging, we received not one but three potential pick up points. It is no wonder we never picked up. We went to the point indicated in writing (bus stop at the hard rock Marbella) and waited well beyond the appointed time. We did call again on international roaming where the operator indicated they would contact the guide and call us back. Suffice to say this did not happen and has yet to happen at the time of this writing. I want to mention this was not failure of language as a member of our party is Spanish fluent and each agent contacted also spoke English. This is incredibly unacceptable and untrustworthy.

The minibus guide did not speak French; it was a recording! The driver spoke in Italian and Spanish with some clients and explained many things to them. We had paid for a guided tour in French, though! And the minibus only made two stops, so no photos were possible at certain interesting places on the road. We had very little time to visit; we were pushed to return to the bus. It was sad and stressful! They made us spend more than 3 hours in the city to shop, while only 20 minutes in the cave and with the monkeys!!! Ridiculous! And so much time to go to and return from Malaga... more than 8 hours of bus travel round trip. We do not recommend it.

Guild was pretty useless and did next to nothing during the trip. Impractical timing. People in coach were playing musical chairs and some were sent to the back of separated to elderly or young family members. She 1st did nothing when people complained to her. She then told everyone to sit where they were when I told her that I was going to make complaint to company. The local tour guide/ driver was excellent and really looked after everyone. I would recommend the tour but not the female guide

Too many stops picking up because they stopped at almost every hotel in Malaga so it wasted a lot of time. Then crossing the border was a nightmare with ridiculous long line and only 3 machines working. The tour of “the rock” was interesting and informative. The guide had to repeat his story 4 times for different languages so that could have been avoided by booking only 1 language per bus. Had some free time for shopping but again not very organized so had to rush to eat and shop too. Overall interesting to see but spent an entire day and quite a bit for the trip itself so probably wouldn’t do it again if I know all this.

The day was well organised. We chose the rock tour on top of the trip. We had just over an hour to explore the town ( wasn’t worth looking at to be honest) then onto a minibus for the rock tour. Driver was knowledgeable, funny and gave us lots of information. Cave tour was great and the monkeys were cute and funny. Long day but enjoyable and well worth the money.

Long bus ride 6h round trip plus 1:30 mini bus / 7:30h bus on 11h excursion Not a real French guide a very interesting audiogram but bus does not stop for photo Boarded the bus no hello no explanation until 40 minutes after boarding all the people ( wondered if we were on the right bus ) The coach Annabelle translated the info into 3 languages and French info was much less than English and Spanish Annabelle didn’t ask each person at boarding if they had their passport (there is a girl who didn’t have it she couldn’t cross it she came all the way for nothing ) And Annabelle in the evening on the way back asked people to take their seats exactly where they were sitting in the morning (why?? We did not pay for the seat when the bus is emptied have maybe normally take the seat we want I understand during the activity when we get on and off and leave our things inside the bus but if the bus is emptied and it comes back to pick us up we have the right to sit or we want Annabelle treated us like school children

Bus drivers, excellent. Guide: were disappointed, spoke little French, little info along the way.

We were picked up in Malaga city centre. I knew it was a long way but I think the journey was faaaar too long in comparison to what your get at the destination. The guide was fine, not informative, just got people on and off the bus. We had about 50 in our group. We had almost two hours to shop although we didn't bother buying anything - there's nothing particularly interesting about the place itself, it looks like any European street. We got on smaller buses divided by language. We had a different guide for this who was more informative. We had a few minutes at Europa Point and then went up to the cave which was free. The cave was much smaller than I'd imagined, it looks nice but takes about 5 minutes to take it in. We then went outside to see the monkeys - this was nice. We took pics of the monkeys for about 10 minutes and then we left. How long the jounrey is is not the tour provider's fault but I honestly wouldn't recommend it as the journey from the pick up points is far too long for not much reward, there's nothing particularly interesting about the place.

It was a very informative tour. I would have liked the opportunity to see things more…our driver ( of the “van” not the large bus!)was driving so fast there was no time to take photos! The free time:shopping time was good but a little long…would have liked more time on the tour instead!