Castle of the Moors (Castelo dos Mouros) Tours and Tickets

My family booked this tour the night before and it seems like we were lucky to be able to do it. I was contacted right away by the Tour coordinator and tour guide. The communication regarding meet up was great using WhatsApp, especially because our planned train from Lisbon didn't show and we were 30mins late, which was no problem as we kept our tour guide informed and she was really accommodating. Paula, our tour guide, was great and enthusiastic about her home of Sintra and the various sights you see on the way to the Moorish Castle and the Pena Palace. I also appreciate that she really helped out my 70 year old mother-in law with some mobility difficulties during the Pena Palace visit. She also took us to an off-the-path look out point with no tourists at all. The vehicle she had was a small older Fiat convertible, which was pleasantly surprising because I was expecting a TukTuk. Only critique of the experience was the duration and time of the tour. When booking we were shown a variety of available options to start the tour, we choose 11am. We were concerned about running late due to the train issue, but after we started the tour and visited the Moorish Castle, and wanted to go to the Pena Palace next, our guide informed us that our tickets to Pena Palace had time entry slot for 4:30pm, so we wouldn't be able to enter until later. We wound up grabbing lunch to kill some time. So we didn't get done with the Palace until 6pm and didn't get back to the train station until 6:30 or so. So a tour that was described as 4-5 hours, actually took about 7 hours from time of pick-up to drop off. It's not a huge deal, but I think it would have been nice for the tour operator to give us this information, so we could maybe arrive a little later and make better use of our time in the morning in Lisbon or in Sintra. Overall, we still have a great experience with a great tour guide.

Not only was Sintra and the architecture incredible, but our guide, Esmil, was the best. Great communication, always on time, explained everything thoroughly and was a delight to spend the day with.

Tour was great. Esmil was a great guide and storyteller throughout the journey. One of the few tours that is just the regaleira and Peña palace as well.

Our guide Tito was very welcoming and got us to the places we needed to see. It made life very easy having a guide.

Esmil was excellent. Punctual & friendly. He had great knowledge of the sights. He was very communicative & easy to reach with prompt replies. He is a lovely person & made our day very pleasant.