Viator Reviews

Name: Viator
Address: 360 3rd St #400, San Francisco
Rating: 2.18

2.2 Rating 1,135 Reviews

29 %

of reviewers recommend Viator

Company Reviews

Questions

Metrics

2.2

Based on 1,135 reviews

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

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Phone:

888-651-9785

Email:

support@viator.com

Location:

360 3rd St #400
San Francisco
94107

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Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

Sort by: Most Recent Most Recent Highest Rated Filter: None None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“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 6 years ago

“Avaolable around the world”

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Posted 6 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!”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 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.”

Helpful Report

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”

Helpful Report

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!”

Helpful Report

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.”

Helpful Report

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”

Helpful Report

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.”

Helpful Report

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

“Three of us booked “the taste my Swiss City Lugano.” We took the voucher and accompanying print out to our first stop, Bottegone del vino. We presented the documentation. We were seated at a table served a light lunch and lovely glass of wine. We were then given a b”” for 115 euros. We presented the voucher again...along with the print out listing their restaurant, the waiter took it, discussed it with three others. The manager then brought it back to us removing 15 euros for the wine and chastised us that we should have presented it first? We did! So after paying over $200 for the “free” tasting we had to pay 110 euros. It was very clear victor had doneeither a poor job selecting the stops or partnering with them so they understand their responsibility. We want our money back! We did not pursue the other stops....it was just too expensive and uncomfortable! I am trying to reach viator now to get a refund. They don’t make it easy to reach them. This is the first site I found to complain.”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“8th September 2018 We purchased a full day trip to the Hoover Dam with Lake Mead cruise for the last day of our scheduled trip to celebrate our wedding anniversary. This we had booked several months in advance so we had been really looking forward to the trip for some time. 24 hours prior to the trip we contacted Viator booking office as detailed on the tickets to confirm our booking to be told we would be picked up by a Gray Line minibus at 9 am in the Valet area of another hotel in the area as our hotel was not on the pick-up line. On the day of the tour we arrived at the designated correct pick up place 45mins before the due pick-up time. At 9.15 am we still had not been picked up and so called the office only to be told they had contacted the bus driver who said he had been running late but had pulled into the valet area and waited 5 mins and that we had now missed him by 4 minutes. This is a complete untruth told by the driver as we later confirmed with the hotel’s CCTV no Gray Line bus had pulled into the valet area during the hour we had been waiting. He had not entered the valet area of the hotel at all. They refused to send him back for us or for us to be picked up at another location. Viator then told us we could now only be booked onto the 12.15 half day trip but we would not be able to do the Lake Mead cruise. So we transferred to this as it was our last day and wanted to see the dam. We again confirmed all the same pick-up details and time. The minibus only arrived at the pick-up location following another phone call from us at 12.15. When the minibus arrived at the same pick-up location we had been waiting at in the morning we asked the driver why he had not called on the morning route to pick us up only to be literally shouted at angrily by the driver in front of all the other bus passengers. He said we would need to take our complaint up with Viator, he wasn’t interested and just demanded us to show him our ID or we were not getting on the bus. So we got on the bus only to be ferried to another Gray Line waiting location where we then waited another 20mins before being transferred onto another bus. Later we learnt that quite often if the bus driver is running late on his pick up round he will just miss out certain pick ups so as to arrive at the Gray Line booking-in terminal on time! Once he is here he then spends 20 mins or so just chatting to other colleagues and eating croissants!! The rest of the tour was disappointingly less than great, we spent most of the afternoon picking up and dropping people off and once at the dam we were rushed to ensuring we completed the dam tour quickly as we only had 1.5 hours to explore before we MUST be back on the bus or be left. It is evident from the countless poor reviews we have since read that there is a re-occurring theme of poor service throughout and it is obvious this company are totally less than interested in learning from the comments made by their dissatisfied customers but instead only want to acquire your money and an ever-building bad reputation.”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“THEY ARE CONS, JUST MIDDLEMEN WHO HAVE PATHETIC CUSTOMER SUPPORT AND WILL RIP YOU OFF YOUR MONEY! I booked the ten lakes tour of the Lake District for 11th August with my family. Since the web site page stated that kids over 5 years are allowed. I, therefore, I called the helpline and asked specifically whether I could take my three years and five-year-old kids. I was told that I needed to buy a ticket for the 5-year-old kid and there was no need to buy a ticket for the 3-year-old who I can take along. After travelling all the night from London, I reached Windermere at the Information Centre but was denied the boarding the minibus by the Mountain Goat agent that children under 3 were not allowed. I told them that the Viator had allowed me to take. Had they not confirmed that why would I have booked and caused so much inconvenience to the family. I called the VIATOR helpline and they refused to intervene rather said that they can't help since the Moutain Gate agent refused. Both VIATOR and the MOUNTAIN GATE not only caused severe inconvenience to me and the family but also refused to refund the amount! Spotting an opportunity of minting more money, a female staff of Moutain Goat rushed to us and offered us that she could arrange another tour for 275 GBP, which we refused to avail! Guys, please avoid them, they're cons and are only concerned about ripping people of their money.”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“I had requested hotel pick-up for two tours in Rome. Our hotel was listed as a pick-up site and I received a confirmation. 24 hours before the first tour, we were told there was no hotel pick-up. I tried calling Viator customer service (never an answer). I finally wrote through the website. I received my first response 18 hours later that they were contacting the tour company. I never received any help from either Viator or the tour company. The last email said that I would hear something back in 7-10 days but that surely doesn't help since my tours are over. Their 24/7 customer service statement is blarney!!!! :sad:”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“*********** Horrible customer service ******** I have used Viator for several tours and for the most part the tours were good and the tour companies have been professional. Buyers should beware- if you are buying with the impression that you will receive customer service if something goes wrong, Viator is not the company to use. On a recent trip to Rome, we bought the fast pass for the Vatican. The meeting instructions were poor and when we found it the tour company left and there was no one there to help us. We ended up buying a tour from another company. When returning to the states I tried to rate the experience but found the tour did not show on my bookings; I called Viator to get it added to my bookings and I got the run around. I tried for over a week to no avail and when I asked for a supervisor the customer service agent would not transfer me, place me on permanent hold until they disconnected or say they would call me back. I agent would not listen to my concern and just kept reading off a script.”

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Posted 6 years ago

“I have done several tours in various places around the world with no issues and recently had to change dates on 3 tours and eventually cancel and get a refund. The 2 customer service people who spoke to me on the phone went above and beyond the extra mile to help me even contacting individual tour providers for me while i was on hold. I would definately book with them again”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“We have used viator for several years in different locations and overall we enjoyed their services. But, on a recent trip to Europe we saw a different side and their poor customer service. We booked a one day tour of Paris and we were staying outside of Paris. We noticed signs on the metro that the day of our tour there was a one day social event work slowdown. On the morning of our tour we checked and the limited trains so could not get us to the meeting place in Paris in time. We made numerous calls to the tour agent without success and even called viatour and they told us they didn't know about a strike and it was our responsibility to get to Paris. We stopped in our hotel and an employee whelped us for an hour to finally contact the tour agent who told us basically you get here or lose your money. The hotel concierge realized it was the same company they use for tours and they had cancelled paris tours because of the transit issue. We ended up taking a tour with another company that was great and 3 weeks of fighting with viator and we ended up calling our credit card company to get us a refund. Horrible customer service. Later in the trip we arrived at the Rome port and had scheduled a transfer from viator to our hotel in Rome. When we booked the transfers, we could not schedule a time as we didn't have a disembark time. 2 days before arrival we tried calling the vendor but it went to a non working cell phone. Even the ships crew tried numerous times. Upon arrival, no car service. we waited an hour with multiple calls to the vendor and finally crew member go through on their cell phone and were told a car was there at 7 and waited and then left. They told the vendor that the ship was just getting in at 7 and they hung up on the crew member. We ended up hiring a taxi and 2 weeks later still fighting with viator.”

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Posted 6 years ago

“Terrible company! Do not trust them! We paid for 6 snorkeling tours in Cozumel. They refused to take us because of lack of time and refused a refund! We were not the only group they ripped off!! If anyone can tell me more ways to post and get the word to people please let me know. People need to know and this company does not need to continue to rip people off!”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“Book the Budapest Parliament House tour for May 29, 2018. Advertised as small group which we were hoping would be around 20 people. We had 38 and you could hardly heard the guide and people were pushing to get up front so we could understand the guide. Very poor.”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

Viator is rated 2.2 based on 1,135 reviews