DO NOT USE- In Out Barcelona Tours- Girona and Costa Brava Tour

[Grumpella]

I took this tour last month with my son.  The tour guide Mohamed was very good and very nice.  However, because he does not have a driver's license, he had a driver, Joel.   Joel was a dangerous driver. He took/made about 8 phone calls when we were driving with Mohamed on our tour.  He did not use a hands free device and therefore this is illegal in Spain.  He drifted over the the rumble strips (grooves in pavement to alert a driver they are going off the road) at least 50 times.  One time, he had to pull over to the side of the road because he lost the GPD directions on his phone because he was taking a phone call.  In hindsight, Mohamed should have told him that this behavior was not acceptable and was dangerous, but he said nothing.

 

Things got worse on the way back to Barcelona.  Mohamed lives in Girona and he was left there, leaving us to drive back with Joel on our own.  This time, he took/made over 40 calls while driving us back to Barcelona.  He did not speak any English at all.  My son is fluent in Spanish and he told my son he was making all those calls for his 2nd job, which appeared to be selling things on Amazon.  One time, he pulled over on the side of a very busy 4 lane highway to read a text message and send one, as tractor trailers were flying by us.

 

My son also asked why the car kept beeping.  Joel said that it beeps when he drifts over the line without using the blinker.  This happened continuously.

At this point, I told my son to tell him to stop using the phone, as I was getting very concerned for our safety.  He did  stop using the phone.

 

I wrote to In Out Barcelona Tours to both of their email addresses to tell them what happened to us.  CRICKETS

[Harters]

An interesting question might be, did Joel have insurance that covered commercial use of his vehicle?  If not it would raise the ugly question about whether that would have voided your own travel insurance had there been an accident. 

 

The story sort of reminds me of a nightmare taxi journey between Newark Airport and JFK. I  am convinced that driver was high on something. 

Edited July 27 by Harters

[Mrs.Dukes]

That’s unfortunate to hear. We just used InOut Barcelona for a tour to Monserrat and Barcelona city tour, and had an excellent driver who was also our guide. 

[Grumpella]

We used them the day before to Besalu and Medieval Towns. This was a great tour with Xavier.

 

However, I felt it was important to write about our experience because Joel is a dangerous driver and when I informed the company about it, they never bothered to respond. Not to mention that he was repeatedly breaking the law.