Name: Viator
Address: 360 3rd St #400, San Francisco
Rating: 2.21

“We booked the Saona Island excursion in Punta Cana thru Viator on our recent trip. The excursion was horrible, and way too much to go into on here. We spoke with a Viator rep and was hoping for at least a partial refund, and was on the phone with him and gave him everything in detail, and he seemed to think we should get a refund as well (with all the issues listed that we incurred in great detail) and said they would be in touch. A couple days later, we received an email that the case was closed as the tour operator stated everything went well and as planned. Viator does not stand behind what they sell, we have traveled around the US, Canada, Punta Cana 3 times, Atlantis, Cancun, Puerto Vallerta and Los Cabos and this was our 1st time using Viator, and never again.”

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Posted 5 years ago

“I have used Viator a number of times in the past and have appreciated the convenience of their booking system. However my experience of late is Viator appears to subcontract the tours out to a local company and adds a significant fee to do so. I now find it easier to find a local company that rates well through TripAdvisor and use them. it saves a heap of money and gives you a local contact if something goes wrong.”

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Posted 5 years ago

“Double price for 100% same product I paid double price even if they advertize best price guaranty for a tour. Same agent same boat with Viator.com Tour limit was max15 persons and we did the tour with 18persons because boat not full with 24persons ,the max capacity.(we where lucky) No refund because of best price guaranty and excuses to avoid it. Stay away, book your trip direct with agents and save your money!”

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Posted 5 years ago

“Double price for 100% same product I paid double price even if they advertize best price guaranty for a tour. Same agent same boat with Viator.com Tour limit was max15 persons and we did the tour with 18persons because boat not full with 24persons ,the max capacity.(we where lucky) No refund because of best price guaranty and excuses to avoid it. Stay away, book your trip direct with agents and save your money!”

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Posted 5 years ago

“I Booked 2 trips in Nepal in Feb 2019 named “Explore Entire Pokhara (Sarangkot - Stupa - Begnas Lake - Fewa Lake -Water fall)” and “Bhaktapur Heritage City and Nagarkot Mt Everest View Comfortable Trip by Car”. I booked this specially in advanced because of the “English speaking tour guide” option really appealed to us. We could not have been more disappointed. Neither trip driver spoke English - they were drivers NOT tour guides (not their fault but that’s not what we paid for) we learned nothing about the areas other than looking round them and we were totally ripped off for the experience. The drivers couldn’t even tell us where they were taking us which in the pitch black at 5am is scary. You can pay drivers at your hotel to do the same tours for a half the price. Do NOT book with Viator, source the trips locally yourself. Would not recommend this company. Oh and they don’t have a complaints procedure which is convenient!”

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Posted 5 years ago

“I Booked 2 trips in Nepal in Feb 2019 named “Explore Entire Pokhara (Sarangkot - Stupa - Begnas Lake - Fewa Lake -Water fall)” and “Bhaktapur Heritage City and Nagarkot Mt Everest View Comfortable Trip by Car”. I booked this specially in advanced because of the “English speaking tour guide” option really appealed to us. We could not have been more disappointed. Neither trip driver spoke English - they were drivers NOT tour guides (not their fault but that’s not what we paid for) we learned nothing about the areas other than looking round them and we were totally ripped off for the experience. The drivers couldn’t even tell us where they were taking us which in the pitch black at 5am is scary. You can pay drivers at your hotel to do the same tours for a half the price. Do NOT book with Viator, source the trips locally yourself. Would not recommend this company. Oh and they don’t have a complaints procedure which is convenient!”

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Posted 5 years ago

“Arthurs Pass was not what I expected. The weather was so bad that we did not see much. The train is rather disapointing. So many tunnels - 14 of them and the train was crowded. Not worth the money.”

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Posted 5 years ago

“Viator seems to offer nice tours, and they're very happy to take your money immediately upon booking. BUT good luck getting it back if the tour is cancelled!! I've been waiting 12 days, with still no credit on our credit card. Both tour operator and I have spoken with them. But that is an effort in futility since their "person" barely spoke English. And the online "chat person" is equally challenged with communication. Don't waste your time with this middleman. Book directly with the tour operator, which is revealed on the Viator website.”

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Posted 5 years ago

“Two day trips booked in Australia and contacted by providers to cancel them at short notice. Big headache trying to rebook, one while I was in transit to Melbourne. Have used Viator before with no issues but this has been stressful. They don’t even get involved just leave all contact to provider so you may as well book direct - which we have now done.”

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Posted 5 years ago

“We booked through Viator, an overnight guided tour to Abu Simbel, from Luxor in Egypt, it cost nearly £400. This was, we found out, outsourced to Luxor Travels. Communication between client and company were good in the lead up to the trip. On the day, the driver and guide were on time for pickup, that's the good bits covered. The disappointment and total disbelief came when the guide advised us in the car 30 minutes in, that it would cost us an additional $140 (over £100) to stop at the 2 temples which were on our route anyway to Aswan (our overnight stop). And think, what choice did we have, already on our way? they had us captive! The temples were literally a 2-3 minute detour off the main Nile road and the entrance fees to each were only Le200, a pittance. We couldn't fathom out how the company valued this additional tour at $70 a pop? After much upset and negotiating we tasked our guide Omar to pass on our gripes to the manager in the office and they eventually agreed to do the 3 minute detour to the temples "as a gesture of goodwill" at no extra charge, but we pay our own entrance fees! Fine. Then we were in disbelief as our "guide" Omar was fast asleep for most of the 5 hour car drive - we couldn't ask any questions to a sleeping man. On querying this at the end of the tour he stated that he was not there to be sociable, he haughtily said he was an Egyptologist and as such was not employed to chat!!! Imagine 2 whole days with a man who is your guide in a foreign land but who thinks it demeaning to talk to his clients? The 3 hour drive on to Abu Simbel was boring as he was yet again asleep. And we get there and await this fantastic Egyptology expert's commentary on the Abu Simbel temple, and he talks for just 15 minutes outside the temple and then disappears … he tells us at the last minute that guides are not allowed inside the temple! It was a long long boring journey back let me tell you. Thankfully our driver sought to stop at a mirage that we might like to witness while our "guide" Omar slept. What a joke. By the way, the driver was very good. The tour itinerary was good enough, if anyone had bothered to care for our enjoyment of it. The cost was exorbitant - it can be done locally for 1/4 of the price Viator / Luxor Travels charged us. The "guide" was the most disappointing issue and in no way should he have a job providing any kind of customer service if he thinks it beneath him to talk to tourists, his clients and with no personality whatsoever, he just looked bored! We were disgusted with his attitude and although we enjoyed the Abu Simbel temple (our main reason for booking), it was clear we'd been ripped off and if we hadn't fought for a deal we'd have been hussled into paying an extra $140 for "tours" which cost us $11 in entrance fees. Don't give them your money....”

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Posted 5 years ago

“Avaolable around the world”

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Posted 5 years ago

“Biggest source of spam on the internet. Shame on you Trip Adviser! You bough a bad company which has no thought for it's customers. If you spam me again I will report your ass!”

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Posted 5 years ago

“Absolutely DISGUSTED in this FRAUD company. They took our $800 LIED and said my card is fraudelent WHICH IT IS NOT. On the phone with them for TWO hours and they did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL THEY ARE THE SCUMS OF THE EARTH DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT USE VIATOR hands down the WORST experience we have EVER had.”

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Posted 6 years ago

“Appalling Paid £150 for tou Tour guide did not turn up There is no way of contacting Viator It would appear that their whole operation is designed to rip off consumers whilst hiding behind the anonymity of a multinational”

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Posted 6 years ago

“Viator doesn't care about their customers and will always take the opposing side when it comes to the bookings problems that may come your way. We are currently on vacation and had booked a few tours with Amigo Tour, but we already started our vacation with a major headache because of them. Our tour itinerary stated that we were to meet our guide at this one checkpoint at 9am. It stated that the guide would arrive early at 845am so we showed up at 830am to make sure we didnt miss him/her. Needless to say he/she failed to show up on time and by 920am we were already fed up on waiting on him/her. Of course, we asked around to see if anyone had seen the guide and everytime we got the same response from everyone we asked which was, "oh yeah the Amigo Tour guide is usually late". We called Amigo Tour several times before and after 9am but got no response. Even the employees of the Castle Of Chapultepec, which was the tour site,said the same thing about this agency. There were several people waiting there for the guide besides us. After we decided to do the tour ourselves with no guide, we decided to call the tour agency again. This time we got ahold of them and instead of trying to understand our situation they started to call us liars claiming the guide was there at 845am which of course wasnt the case. We spent 2hours arguing with the agency demanding a refund, since it wasnt our fault that the guide was not on time to meet us for our tour. The agency had the nerve to confirm that sometimes the guide could possibly arrive a little late and that we should of waited longer for him/her. We got so fed up with arguing with the agency that we decided to cancel all our tours for the week that we had booked through Viator. Amigo Tours told us that if we wanted a refund that we would have to find the guide there and he/she would issue us a refund but the guide was nowhere to be found after 40minutes of looking. We contacted Viator directly via email after several failed attempts with the tour agency to get a refund, but Viator sided with the agency instead of with us. They flat out told us that we were liars and that they contacted the agency and of course they denied any wrong doing on their part. Viator then told us in that email that it was our fault for not showing up and that they would not give us a refund and thanked us for understanding. We got no support whatsoever from Viator not even a possibility of an investigation!! We of course emailed them back telling them that since Viator is not willing to investigate that we will contact American Express directly and file a complaint for that fraudulent service that we received and if we have to we will proceed further to prevent all charges against us for the week. After we contacted American Express we received an email from Viator stating that they would show good will by refunding us $75 out of $600 for that one day tour. Really?!!! Yeah no!!! They dont care about their customers and will pocket your money unless you act against them!”

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Posted 6 years ago

“Viator/TripAdvisor charged us a family of 6adults+5children approx. $2,000. They booked multiple half day trips to Aix-en-Provence on the same date June 29th 2018 $211.73+$502.48+EUR933.35. I have made no less than a dozen calls, including but not limited to sending an email to the leadership with no response. They literally have STOLEN OUR MONEY. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE FINALLY GIVE UP AND THE KEEP THE MONEY.”

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Posted 6 years ago

“We have generally had a good experience with Viatour and have used the company in Spain and in France, no fewer than five times. Customer service and appreciation is lacking, however, as our recent experience with them has shown. Explore all of your options before booking with this company, as I don’t find them to concern themselves much with customer satisfaction. We travel in Europe several times a year, but I trust we will look elsewhere when arranging guided tours. Christopher Alexander New Mexico, USA”

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Posted 6 years ago

“I booked my tour through Viator and they made no mention of the company they would be outsourcing my booking to, it was not stated anywhere! To my horror, the tour was conducted by Keytours (which have many negative reviews). I would not otherwise have chosen Keytours given their record. Needless to say, my experience with Keytours was far from pleasant! Read on for details. Think of anything worst than horrible and this is what Keytours is! the group tours are large and overbooked with way too many people, very disorganized, no way to keep track of people who belong to ths group, took at least an hour to figure out who belong on what bus which delay start of tour. Tour guide kept losing people and the rest of us had to wait around all this time until they find them which delay the tour. Tour guide gave long boring lecture style history lessons which everyone just stopped listening or fake attention after awhile. You can't hear her half the time and she's walking way ahead of the group. It is very impersonal and very uninteresting. Some people who did not pay to be part of the tour kept going around with the group and basically randomly join in with the tour and the guide either didn't notice or never bothered to get rid of them! The included lunch is a horrible experience, we are extremely late so not lunch, more like early dinner by the time they get us there and then they rush us with little time to eat so they can keep up the next part of the "tour" and no beverage included, they serve hot tap water meaning not even ice provided. A lot of the tour is self guided despite advertising "guided" and they leave you to figure out how to get back with the group so they kept losing people because they got lost or took forever to get back to the vaguely described meeting place. Hotel drop off is a scam, they drop you in the middle of nowhere basically and you have to pay for taxi, walk or find other ways to get home! keep in mind it is dark at night and Greece seems to be saving money by not turning on street lights, most people are new in the unfamiliar city and it's unsafe and dangerous the way they leave you to wander around trying to find your hotel, in my case I'm female and alone on the excursion! Key tours is a NO if you are looking for a company to book tours with! Key tours is worse than HORRIBLE! Viator is also responsible, again, I booked with them and nowhere did it state with whom my tour would be because I would have cancelled the booking immediately had I known it was with Keytours.”

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Posted 6 years ago

“The variety of activities in every destination I've chose.”

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Posted 6 years ago

“The cooking class we booked changed location/venue & time which was no where near what was advertised. The time was originally at 10am and was changed to 5pm and the overall cooking class went from beautiful Amalfi to some guys apartment nearly an hour away from where we were. All these changes were sent to us (through the Viator website) a couple hours before the cooking class. Total bait and switch. The service provider contacted us asked if we wanted to cancel and we agreed and asked for a refund which they said they would make sure was done. Over a week and a half later and we had not seen a refund so we called Viator and was told they would contact the "operator" and get back to us within 24-48 hours. 2 Days later and we called back again, having been put on hold for nearly 2 hours. They said they needed to contact the operator yet again and said it would be 24 - 48 hours. I asked for a supervisor and they hung up on me. We called back yet again and they said they would send an email which we received that said "no refunds" due to Vitaor having paid the tour operator in full. And now we are out $400! We have documented proof through the Viator site that shows that what was changed by the service provider and they don't care that it was changed. Total scam. My credit card company has been contacted to document this and we will report this to the FTC and every other consumer rights protection agency in both the US and EU.”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Own Driver
On-time Delivery	Greater than 7%
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Over A Week
Customer Service	1.1 out of 5
Returns & Refunds
Refunds Process	Difficult

Viator Reviews