City Unscripted Reviews 123

Our guide was very knowledgeable and informative. He was rather serious while we are definitely are more frivolous group. It was somewhat difficult for him to work with walking limitations we discovered as we walked. We had not realized how difficult cobblestones would be on one person so needed to change his original plan. Which he did and was helpful in pointing out ways to see more. The service overall, from booking to planning, wad excellent.

We enjoyed our Kyoto walking tour with Milo. He very quickly diagnosed our group’s interests and adapted the tour to best suit our interests and needs. He was engaging and informative and gave us great recommendations to make the most out of our remaining time there. We would work with Milo again!

Our guide, Hiroe, gave us a perfect experience.
Booking the tour was also a smooth process.

Our guide, Shin, was a joy to have as our guide. It was like walking with a friend who was proud of his home city, and to be able to show us around. We were very fortunate to have his deep local knowledge, as he took us to locations we could not have known to visit; with each one added unanticipated depth and context. Add in his knowledge of greater Japan, and it's history within the world, and you have a consummate guide.

The booking process was easy, and the guide contacted me in the lead up to confirm what I wanted from the private tour. Unfortunately, the tour itself was quite disappointing. I requested that we visit traditional parts of Tokyo and could it included visiting some places to eat. But the guide focused on cherry blossoms so much so that the guide became lost. We didn’t visit any cafes or eateries instead wondered what seem to be back streets most of the time. I provided a very detailed list of what I wanted in the tour. With more attention to my request and better knowledge of the area we were taken too, this could be a great experience.

We had an amazing tour and the green ZUK was such a bonus... tour guy super knowledgeable and fun. We highly recommend.

The gentleman was very knowledgeable. Took us everywhere and kept it as fast or as slow as we needed it.

We had 17 experiences over a 29 day period throughout Italy. Only one guide was poor, all the others were exceptional. You helped create an unforgettable travel experience by firsthand encounters of people and places which we now have a personal connection with. Our lives have been enriched by not just knowledge but friends we formed along the way.

The guide was very sweet and very nice but she was not as interactive as we would have hoped for . She answered our questions but I wish she had given more context to history and economics . I am not sure if she did not have the knowledge or if it was a cultural issue. We saw different parts of Bangkok but I wish we had more context to what we were looking at .

Our 4 day visit to Venice was organised by Andrea, Travelcouncellors and it was superb, but was especially memorable by Maria, your guide .
Maria arrived promptly at our hotel, listened to what we wanted to see , which was not the tourist areas and we had a very informed and cheerful 2 hours learning about the history and development of the often unseen parts of the city . Maria guided us to St Mark's square , Rialto bridge etc and suggested ways in which we could see these in detail after she had finished. I cannot recommend her highly enough.

Fantastic experience. The guide (can't remember the name unfortunately was fantastic and showed me how to use the suica card, showed me some of the city and enjoyed it. I would recommend this walking tour of you are brand new to Japan and have no idea on what to do or where to go

I worked as a tour guide for this company and would like to share my experience.

I fully understand the importance of punctuality, safety, and professionalism. If a guide is late for a tour or causes serious inconvenience to guests, that should absolutely be taken seriously.

However, I felt that this company placed too much emphasis on internal procedures rather than on the actual quality of the guest experience.

One example was the issue of reporting meeting spot changes. Changing the meeting spot itself was not mandatory, and I often voluntarily picked up guests from their hotels to provide a better experience. In other companies, guides are appreciated or even rewarded for providing this extra service. Here, however, it felt as though a voluntary effort became another item to monitor and evaluate.

I also found it difficult to understand why this issue was treated so seriously when the company guidelines stated that reporting was required only if the meeting spot was moved more than 5 km away, which was not the case.

I acknowledge that I made mistakes during my time there. Every guide has strengths and weaknesses, including myself. However, I do not believe a guide should be judged primarily on one weakness or on operational details that are not directly related to guiding skills.

I also question whether all responsibility should have been placed on the guide. If guests need to confirm the meeting spot with the guide, management and agents could simply remind guests to do so, regardless of whether the meeting spot has changed. Relying only on information written on a website is not always sufficient.

Ironically, the guests involved in one of these situations still enjoyed the tour, left a 5-star review, and even sent me a follow-up email afterward. This suggests that the actual guest experience and internal evaluations were not always aligned.

Another thing I learned is that support systems vary greatly from company to company in this industry. Some companies actively support guides by arranging transportation, helping with tickets, and assisting with guest requests. Others seem to expect guides to support the company's operations instead.

This experience taught me that being a good tour guide and fitting into a company's internal management system are not necessarily the same thing. Future guides should carefully consider what kind of company culture and support system they are looking for before joining.

The issue is not whether the team intended to discourage the guides from picking up the guests at the hotel. Actually, I was discouraged from doing that, even though the CU didn't intend to discourage that.

Because the agents repeatedly demaned me to inform the office whenever I changed the meeting location. Even though changing the meeting location is not part of my responsibilities, I chose to do it to go above and beyond and create a better experience for the guests. Therefore, I do not believe that informing the office about those changes should also be my responsibility.

One of your agents even told me that I could be fired if I did not inform the office about the change. If CU appreciates guides who go above and beyond to create a better experience for guests, your agents should not have demanded that I inform the team

I've never canceled the tour at the last minute, I've never argued with the guests which deserce the threat to the termination, but I just picked the guests up at their hotels. I also feel that your agents placed all responsibility on me. For example, I was told that the guests were confused because I did not inform the office about the change. However, the agent also did not tell the guests to confirm the meeting location with me. Responsibility should not fall entirely on the guide. Although I have been told that guides and the office team are collaborators, there is clearly a power imbalance between guides and office staff.

If you want to have the real local experience for affordable price, don't go this company. They take 50-75 percent of the tour price while most companies take only 25 percent at maximum. Please go to the SNS such as instagram and find a true local guide from that country.

Also, as you can see from their reply, they fire a guide even though work hard to get 5 star review saying the 5 star review is not only the facter to evaluate the guide such as professionalism, reliability, commnication, but these facters are very vaque compated to the 5 star review. It sounds like they are trying tocover something up.

Also, our aim is to balance hosts and guests. Other companies have the different operation. Theses are such a convenitent word any company can use regardless of whether the company's operation is good or not.

Our host was outstanding!

Cillian picked us up at our hotel and took us on a walking tour in Dublin. He was a wealth of knowledge, not only about history, but also art, culture, music, food and more. He even serenaded us with a couple of his favorite Irish tunes! We are senior citizens, and he spoke loudly and clearly for us so we could understand all he was saying, , and also walked a little slower so we didn't feel rushed. He is a kind and very smart young man. I would recommend him without reservation.

We had a great time. Senna was flexible and set up a tour that really followed our interests. He obviously loves showing off the city. We enjoyed Brussels very much.

Guide was great. Fun and knowledgeable.

James did an excellent job as our tour guide at dachau. He was very informative and was patient with all of our questions. This tour had a lot of walking, if you have mobility problems, this tour may not be for you.

Joel was a pleasant knowledgeable and friendly guide

We enjoyed his tour greatly

Tom Moloney

Our tour guide was nice but the food tour was very unorganized. I expected it to be a bit more structured especially with the communication we exchanged prior to the food tour. We also only went to 5 places in total. It was just okay.