Reviews
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This is the second tour with Shabi & Cultural Island Travel. The first was a Havana Jazz Fest tour 8 years ago. Both Sicily and Havana were incredibly well done start to finish. Accommodations were great, tour activities interesting and fun, music and cultural events outstanding and food was amazing. Fellow tour members were very cool too. Our tour guides were knowledgeable, interesting and brought the whole experience together. Great time, great fun, great beauty in and around western Sicily & great people. Highly recommend this tour & tour company!
I just returned from Blue Note Travel to Havana, Cuba, organized by Cultural Island Travel and was very impressed with everything! First, the staff is amazing, really caring and on top of every detail. I had several flight cancellations due to weather conditions, and they kept in constant contact with me and had a car waiting for me upon my eventual arrival in Cuba. They run a very professional tour, top accommodations, the finest restaurants in Havana, comfortable transportation to all events, and a transfer back to the airport. We were treated like VIP's everywhere we went and the Cuban people could not be nicer. Pacheco is an outstanding musician and his private concerts were musical experiences that I will never forget, nor the trips to the music schools where young students performed for us. I would not hesitate to join another tour and am considering the upcoming Sicily tour. Book now!!!!
Oaxaca Mexico and Irma This was my third trip with Irma and Cultural Island Travel . This was to Oaxaca Mexico. This is an adventure not to be missed . The area is so cultural rich between the food , art and culture. It’s like exploring another world it’s so colorful and vibrant it can’t be explained but must be witnessed to understand . The experiences were more than amazing . So many wonderful things like a mole tasting and lunch, mezcal tasting and visiting a mezcal distillery and many more adventures. I have traveled the world but I must say this is one of the top trips . I can’t say anything except it’s a fascinating place . If you are a a shopper there is plenty of that to do also. DO NOT miss this experience . Every day will be better than the next.
Awesome tour to Ireland Cultural Island Travel planned a trip to Ireland for a group of 6 of us - and there were 3 others that joined onto this trip. It was 9 days and Teresa and Ebony planned it out with Ebony as our tour leader. Our travel flights and then our 16 passenger van were all planned out very carefully by CIT. The hotel accomodations were great! First class hotels with breakfasts included at each hotel. We started in Dublin, worked our way to Belfast and back down towards County Clare, Galway and back to Dublin. Along the way we were able to have awesome hands on experiences like a Hawk walk, a Guinness tour, a sheepdog demonstration, Voya Seaweed baths, Chocolate factory tour and tasting, tour of Beleek Pottery factory with hand on pottery crafting and painting, and touring beautiful countryside. We saw the Cliffs of Moher, famous movie locations, Peace Walls in Belfast as well as experiencing local Irish pubs and drinks. They included the Titanic Hotel and Titanic Museum - both exceptional! The local guides were all great and offered many stories and history of Ireland. I would highly recommend this tour and company!
I’ve been on group tours in Japan, Patagonia, Spain, & several in the USA. But the trip to Sicily was the most perfect & the most fun. The venues, the guides, the itinerary—were simply fantastic. The music, wine & food—absolutely sublime. I’d go again—same trip—in a heartbeat! There are not enough stars in Google’s galaxy to rate this Sicily experience highly enough!! So just go!
Fascinating Cuba trip! We just returned last night from an amazing 11 days in Cuba , guided by the incredible Irma! I couldn’t imagine a more thorough , thoughtful , positive, and knowledgeable guide! Our group was just nine people and a perfect size with their excellent driver, a very nice mini bus, and the requisite vintage cars. The balance of activity and downtime with a super variety of activities and cultural exposure was perfect. Teresa, who did the planning prior was incredible with detail and was patient answering our multiple questions and concerns. The art, culture , and music tour was way beyond expectations. All of the venues were hyper local and the restaurants were exquisite. Our hotels were also top notch. All of the music and dance was world class ! Of course , there is serious hardship there now, but we felt good contributing to them with our donations and participation. I highly recommend CIT for this and surely any others that they so thoughtfully curate!
My wife and I found the Sicily Experience to be fantastic. We are generally not group tour people, but the combination of superb jazz, great food, wonderful socializing with the people in the group, and interesting sightseeing made the week in Palermo and western Sicily the hit of our 2024 travels. For people who find the popular Italian locations of Rome, Florence, Venice, and the Amalfi Coast over-touristed, Sicily is an alternative worth exploring. Highly recommended.