Priced per party, meeting uphill, and rated 4.7 from 109 ratings
Ten written reviews, ten five-star scores, and a 4.7
109 ratings produce 4.7. The ten written reviews recovered from them are all five stars. That is the same gap this site finds on the admission ticket, in a milder form, and I have no more explanation for it here than I have there. Somewhere in those 109 people are some who scored it lower and wrote nothing, and this is a site that would rather say that than fill the space.
Every one of the ten talks about the guide
Ten of ten, which is the only listing in this catalogue where that is true. Renato twice, David Sousa, Filipe, Felipe Pereira. The two spellings sit under three weeks apart in the record and I am not going to tell you they are one man.
“Filipe took the time to question us about our interests & how deep we wanted him to go regarding the history & significance, he really made it personal to us. He also had a book with him where he showed us diagrams of the site building and symbology, it was in Portuguese and English”
“Our guide, David Sousa, is a fabulous storyteller. David is very knowledgable and incorporated the answers to our many questions into the information he provided throughout the tour.”
“We have been on guided tours in many different places across the world but our guide at the Convent of Christ was by far the most knowledgeable guide I have ever had.”
K’s is the longest review on this listing and the most concretely useful: a guide who asked how deep to go, and a book of diagrams. She also mentions areas under repair after a storm, which is her account and not the operator’s. And she says the thing this whole site is arguing about, from the inside:
“I couldn’t imagine touring the site without a guide, there’s so much more than face value”
The meeting point is the clearest warning in this catalogue
It meets at “Cafetaria do Castelo, a small café in the parking area of the monument, which is uphill, not downtown”. That last clause is the operator of this listing saying out loud what nothing else on the platform says: the Convento de Cristo is at the top of a hill, and Tomar station is about 1.3 km below it. Nobody meets you in the square.
Three of the ten reviews are not in English — two in Portuguese, one in French — which is a small sign that this listing sells at home as well as to visitors. David’s review is about the booking rather than the tour, and it is the only one of its kind here:
“I appreciate that when the tour is booked that you are given meeting instructions then, Some tours I booked while away do not do that, leading to frustration and confusion since their websites don't always work.”
“Our guide, Renato, was very knowledgeable and answer all of our many questions with ease. Over all it was the best tour of our week in Portugal.”
“Renato is an excellent guide with amazing detailled stories about Tomar’s and Portugal’s history. We’ve enjoyed the tour very much”
What works
- Entrance tickets included, stated flat, with no option to select wrong
- Your party only, and two hours is enough for the building
- The meeting point is described honestly, hill and all
- Ten written reviews and every one of them praises the guide
Worth knowing
- Priced per group, so a couple pays what a family of four pays
- The 4.7 sits below the written record and nothing explains the gap
- You have to get yourself up the hill to the car park to start
- Two hours, and no transport from Lisbon
If there are four of you, work the per-head figure out before you compare this with anything else on the site. If there are two of you, work it out as well, because it is a different answer. The booking widget prices your party as you set it.
Other ways to have a guide in Tomar
Cheapest with a guideTomar: Walking Tour to Convent of Christ Small Group & Tickets
Cheapest privateTomar: Private walking tour to Convent of Christ with tickets
Convent and synagogueWalking Tomar: Templar Secrets & Convent of Christ Included
What all of them are adding to about fifteen euros at the door is the question this site was built to answer, and it starts on tickets.
Frequently asked questions
How much is this private tour per person?
It depends how many of you there are, which is the point. It is the only listing on this site priced per group rather than per person, for a party of up to four, so four people pay about a hundred and ten each and two people pay a great deal more each for the same total. Set your party size in the booking widget and it prices itself.
Are the convent tickets included?
Yes. The inclusions are three lines and the third is “Entrance Tickets”, with no bracket and no option attached, alongside the tour of the convent and a local guide. That puts it among the ten listings in this catalogue whose own words put the ticket in the price.
Where does it start?
At a café in the monument's car park, which the listing itself describes as “uphill, not downtown”. It is the plainest warning about that hill anywhere in this catalogue. Getting there has the walk up from the station.
Why is it 4.7 when every written review is five stars?
Because 109 people rated it and ten wrote something. The other 99 left a score and no words, and some of those scores were lower. This site does not invent a reason for the difference, here or on the admission ticket, where the same pattern is much starker.