108 written reviews, all four stars and up, from a catalogue that includes a 3.9 and a 1.0

Every listing on this site shows a score out of five and a count of the people who gave it. Underneath those counts sit 108 reviews with an actual sentence in them, spread across sixteen of the eighteen listings. This page looks at the shape of that sample first, because it helps you choose what to book.

Up to ten written reviews per listing are quoted on this site

Eight listings in this file carry exactly ten written reviews and none carries more, and those eight are precisely the eight with the most ratings behind them. When a page here says ten written reviews on a listing with 700 ratings, it means ten of however many exist.

It runs the other way on the smaller listings. Six listings have a written review for every single rating they carry: the Almourol private tour with eight of eight, the private walking tour with four of four, and four more sitting on a single rating apiece. A listing with eight ratings can hold a more complete record than one with 700, which is why the count beside a score is worth reading before the score is.

What people write about here is a person, and usually by name

Read the Tomar reviews straight through and the subject is overwhelmingly whoever turned up: how much they knew, how they explained it, whether there was time for questions. Hardly anyone describes the Charola. Nobody at all describes the Chapter House window. Guides are what reviewers remember most, and a 4.8 on a day trip largely reflects one morning with one guide.

The clearest illustration is on the listing that includes no guide whatsoever. The plain admission ticket carries ten written reviews and four of them describe somebody showing them round, three of those by name — which is what the page says, and the page about that listing sets out what that means for a buyer.

Names repeat across the record and they repeat in different spellings. One guide on the Templar-route day trip is thanked as Átila, Atilla, Attila and Atila by four different people. One on the per-party private tour is Felipe to a Portuguese reviewer and Filipe to an English one.What the pattern does say is that the same small number of guides works across several listings here, so booking a different product is not reliably booking a different morning.

The two listings with nothing in the file, and why one of them still has quotable reviews

Two of the eighteen are newer and carry no written review yet. One of them has no ratings either, so there is genuinely nothing to read. The other is the private walking tour that shows 1.0 from two ratings, and its two reviews are sitting on its own page in plain sight.Here is what they say:

That is a 1.0 built out of two people who never met a guide, and it is not a verdict on the tour. Two no-shows on a two-rating listing put the score on the floor arithmetically. The same listing is unusually straight with you in its own exclusions, which say that the guide is “a friendly local, not a certified professional” and that the tour “emphasizes local culture over detailed historical facts”. It has no page of its own in this section, and it is compared with everything else on all eighteen listings.

How many ratings sit behind each of the seven scores

The same seven listings, side by side. The first column is the score, the second is how many people clicked a star, the third is how many of them wrote a review.

Five of those seven scores rest on ten written reviews that are unanimously five stars, and four of those five carry a score that is not five: 4.8, 4.8, 4.7 and, at the bottom, 3.9. The written reviews and the star scores tell slightly different stories, and each page shows both.

The seven pages, ordered by how much rating sits behind each score

A listing gets a page here when the written record is deep enough to say something specific about it and when the thing being reviewed is this monument rather than a circuit that passes it. That produces these seven, and it leaves out three listings that have a record of their own. The four-monument circuit is left out here: it carries ten written reviews on 99 ratings, and it spends about a quarter of an eleven-hour day here while answering the admission question two different ways depending on which of its own options you pick. That belongs on the full comparison rather than in a review. The other two are Tomar walks with smaller records: six written reviews on twelve ratings for the one that adds the synagogue, two of them under the platform byline, and four on four for the private walk.

4.8700 ratings

From Lisbon: Tomar, Convent of Christ & Almourol Castle

The most-rated way into this monument by a factor of four, and convent entry is an option you choose at booking.

Ten written, all five starsRead the page ›

4.7109 ratings

Tomar: Knight's Templar Castle and Convent of Christ Tour

The only listing here priced per party rather than per head, and the one that warns you most plainly about the hill.

Ten written, ten name a guideRead the page ›

5.075 ratings

From Lisbon: Tomar, Christ Convent & Almourol Castle Tour

The unconditional twin of the 700-rating day trip: same two castles, entrance fee named flat, lunch in.

Ten written, all five starsRead the page ›

4.872 ratings

Lisbon: Knights Templar Tour - Almourol, Tomar and Convent of Christ

A guide specialised in Templar history, five languages, and three admissions that all depend on the option you pick.

Ten written, four spellings of one nameRead the page ›

4.98 ratings

Tomar and Almourol Castle: Knights Templar Private Tour

Eight ratings, eight written reviews, and a page whose small print reads differently from its inclusions.

Eight written, one is a fourRead the page ›

5.08 ratings

Tomar: Walking Tour to Convent of Christ Small Group & Tickets

The best-value way through the door with somebody explaining it, and the shortest. Ninety minutes of the two hours are inside.

Six written, five usableRead the page ›

And one that is not a tour at all

It belongs in this section because it is the thing most people are actually choosing between: the ticket on its own, bought in advance, with nobody attached to it.

3.9173 ratings

Tomar: Convent of Christ and Templar Castle Tour Ticket

A 3.9 with ten written reviews that are all five stars.

Ten written, three name a guideRead the page ›

And how it compares

All sixteen Tomar listings together carry 1,266 ratings. Two listings in this same catalogue that never go near Tomar — the Fátima circuit and the Sintra day trip — carry 27,993 between them, which is 22.1 times as many. These reviews come from a relatively small number of visitors.

What these reviews do not cover

Whether to come at all, what the ticket costs against the door, and how long to allow. No review answers any of the three, because every score here belongs to a product rather than to the building: a coach day, a guide’s two hours, a ticket somebody bought in advance.The price question is on tickets, the case for coming is on is it worth it, and how long you need takes the clock apart.

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