TakeTours Reviews 315

WELL WHAT DO U PEOPLE EXPECT FROM THE CHEAPEST TOUR COMPANY IN NORTH AMERICA Silly!! U GET WHAT U PAY FOR!! RIGHT! Lol. Their NOT running a FREE CHARITY! Right. :) Lol Wake up! Don’t book with them bc they primarily cater to their own Chinese patrons nor do they care much about what they offer? Basically think of it like your paying only for their FUEL to get to one place to another without anything else included; also be weary of pricey,TOUR COMPANIES bc sometimes I read it’s better to organize it on your own??? Pay more and do your research to find a decent sincere Tour. Okay. Thx

Biggest scam company ever. Their website only takes 5 star reviews. I was new and didn’t know all these scams. They said hotel pick up that’s why I booked them. The morning of .. they said we can’t pick you, I had to pay 80 cab to get to pick up point. They wrapped up the tour in 3 and half hours out of which 45 min was lunch. Complete scam. Stay away.

I am writing to express my strong dissatisfaction with the behavior of our tour guide during the trip organized by TakeTours.com. The guide's conduct has been extremely rude and unprofessional.

Firstly, the tour guide has been forcing us to leave the bus if we choose not to participate in optional activities, even before reaching our destinations. Today, after receiving confirmation from Mark, our tour guide, to keep our baggage in the bus compartment, we were abruptly told at 11:00 PM EST to remove our baggage from the bus. Furthermore, the tour guide refused to provide us with our hotel keys.

As senior citizens on a tourist visa, we did not expect such poor service from a reputed tour company. This experience has been distressing and unacceptable.

I request immediate attention to this matter and expect appropriate actions to be taken against the tour guide to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.

booked the 4 d/3n new york , philly ,dc , niagara and boston trip. they cancelled it and booked us on the 3d/2n trip. once the trip started , they charged us 75$ per person for the dc capitol and waahington memorials tour whixh turned out to be free. at niagara , they charged us 35$ per person for night waterfall which is again free . this is SCAM !!! never book!!!

I was very surprised by the additional fees for the tour, they really are an unfair practice, despite having paid the penalty for not doing the activities proposed in the tour and their fees, it was not made clear that you could not enter the Montreal Biodome and then they charged us the entrance without even taking into consideration the cost of the penalty that had been paid. Everything was paid in cash and if you don't have the exact cost they never refund the extra money you are paying them. Time was lost due to mechanical repairs on the bus and the visit to Kingston was reduced to going through the city by bus but we did not have the opportunity to get off the bus to visit. The Thousand Islands tour was just to watch people who paid for the helicopter activity go up and nothing else.

I do not recommend this tour at all.

June 2023, booked an overnight tour for my retired parents from NYC to DC. These guides and tour operators are bad. Charging more and demanding cash to enter the bus for pickup came off as very shady practices when terms clearly stated a lesser amount and other payment options. There has to be a dozen other options and I'm quite confident others are a better choice. I had a post tour conversation with what I thought was a competent customer service manager to resolve overpayment issues and just genuine feedback and consideration. Nope. No follow through. The negative sentiment of other reviewers is real.

Everything is bad about this tour operator. The hotel provided was of low standards. They trick you into paying more on the bus on the pretext of showing something which might be free. They tell you to hire other local guides, which will be there members only. They abused a family and left them enroute. The family had to pay another $150 for his return trip. The chinese operating this tour are rude and running a scam.

Worst tour company. Do not recommend. You will not understand what the tour guide is saying. Literally the worst time management. Takes money for free attractions too. Would not recommend for Indians who want a relaxed tour. Feels more like a school trip. White house is 10 mins stop and a useless park is 1.3 hrs stop.

PS: I wrote this review at their website (taketours.com) but they didn't display it. It looks like they display only the sweet review about them.
Tour guy and driver are friendly and good. Bus is clean and comfortable.

We are paying for the bus and service fee + tips but they are collecting money for everything though many of them are included as part of Itinerary. We need to come back to Flushing, NY but they asked us to move us to different bus at Niagara which was going to Corning Glass museum but we already visited Corning Glass museum while coming to Niagara and we would be missing visit of Watkins Glen Park more over we need to sit on the bus another 2 and Half hours to Corning. We said we can’t move but on-way back to New York they moved us to different bus at a rest area which was really disappointing.
I don’t understand why are charging for non-ticketed places which are already included in the itinerary.
1. DC Tour: They showed couple of memorials and pentagon building while going on the high way but they charged $20 which is worth less. DON’T BUY
2. Niagara Falls Night Tour: This is part of itinerary, its not a tour (everyone get off from the bus and watch the falls) and It’s not ticketed so everyone can go and see irrespective of paid/unpaid. some people didn’t pay but they also visited this night view. so DON’T PAY for this.
3. Touching Niagara Fall (Maid of Mist + Wind Cave + Whirlpool State Park + Niagara Power Vista): In these you need to get ticket only for Maid of Mist and Cave of Wind which cost $49.25 (Adult) and $33.5 (Kid) in total but they charged $75 (adult) and $73 (Kid).
• This is too expensive I would suggest you to get tickets at Niagara Falls itself instead of buying from the tour person.
• You are going to see the river and no other activities here. No tickets for Whirlpool state park so everyone can go and see the river 😊
• Niagara Power Vista: they just show the building from a mile distance so you won’t see anything. Everyone can see irrespective of paid/unpaid.
4. Timing was insufficient: We need to drive and go for three hours to see a place but we get only 30-45 mins to visit which is barely enough time to explore the place but we spent many hours for coming/going on the bus.
5. No entertainment in the bus. They should put some movies for kids.
6. Unable to reach customer service for any queries/clarification after booking.
7. Charged for Included activities: They charged for everything and everyone went for everything irrespective of paid/unpaid.
8. Their website showed one amount and charged different amount.

TIPs:
• Ask him if it’s ticketed and Don’t pay for non-ticketed so you can watch them for free.
• Buy Niagara Falls tickets at the counter instead of buying them from the tour guy.
• If you are coming back to Flushing, NY, strictly inform to the tour guy that your destination would be Flushing, NY before you leave otherwise you need to make an alternate plan.

East Coast tour 4 days by Taketours. Worst experience. Felt more like a school trip. Tour guide had bad time management. Do not recommend for families who need to relax and see attractions properly without hurry. Charged fees for even the free attractions. Not worth the money.

We booked our Yellowstone , antelope Canyon and Bryce Canyon tour from taketours.com. We discovered we were “sold” to a tour operator called West Coast Holiday based in LA. Thirteen of us were crammed in a 13 person van . It is by no mean safe let alone comfortable. The driver also is our guide , did not do any tour guiding as he had to drive 8-10 hours each day.

Our typical day is starting around 7am (most of our hotels did not have breakfast served) and would drive around 4 hours to a sight (washroom break in about 2 hours) and will spend at the most 1.5 hours at the sight (some sights are like 30 minutes), then will drive around 4-5 hours to reach our hotel . We spent six days on the tour , and covered 4500km during our six days, it is really crazy , we felt sorry for our driver, he is professional but still human and should not be working under these conditions.

As for accommodation, our hotels are mostly motels or 2-3 star
Hotels (the three star one is the worst one) and they are very basic. As for food , it is not included in the tour so we basically eating at all the different fast food joints.

For the itinerary, it covered what they say they will go, but it is also very rush and by no mean gives justice to the beautiful scenery.

All in all, I will not recommend taketours.com to anyone.

Rocky mountain tour in May 2023:
Taketours did not fulfil its commitment for airport pick up. Most of the places indicated in itinerary were passed by.It was 70% travel/hotel stay. Many photo shoot stops (15-20 mimnutes) on the way were skipped despite a request. Guide and driver were in a hurry to complete the day as early as possible(6PM). Food taste of non-Chinese tourists was not taken care of. Majority tourists were Chinese who will take side of the Chinese guide and will show adverse body language to other tourists.

The taketours.com or M&Y tour is a scam company. We took 4 days trip with them. First they provided us 1 to 2 stars hotels and motels at all the places. Those were the worst available hotels in those areas. Whereas we paid for Holiday Inn or equivalent hotels. We were charged 30$ for the niagara fire cracker show, which was free for the public. Only stay and bus ride is included in the package. No food or even water is included in the package. You will not get even free water at the motels/cheap hotels. Hidden charge of $12 per person per day tip (including infants and old) was forcefully collected. The guide named Jason was rude, aggressive, hostile and very abusive, especially when you don't take the optional activities. He was talking more in chinese and was with chinese tourists most of the time. He was not fluent in speaking as well as in understanding English. He spent most of his time trying to collect money from the tourists. Since most of the places in the itinerary was paid and optional the trip cost will increase multifold, or you don't get to see anything. Only you just drive past the cities. Bus seats were full and cramped and they changed four buses in four days. Jason was also driving the bus, which was very unsafe. At times he was driving dangerously. At some places you will have to pay extra for the local guide extra as they say local guide is required at that place. Most probably they are from their company only. Motels/Cheap hotel staff were also rude.

I took there service for Niagara Falls, in hotels we are waiting almost an hour ...we are really very tried but we are still waiting in hotel reception... This is unexpected. We will recommend not to use this service. Very pathetic experience with them.

I booked a tour in New York for one day to Philadelphia and Washington with two persons. As soon as we came in to the bus they told us that we are the only ones that booked it for one day and asked us if we might be interested to stay a few more days. No we just booked one day because we Will be no longer in New York. No problem at all he told us but hè will send us back with another bus.

Second thing we couldnt go by boat during the trip because that season was over. Pretty weird because that is something you will know earlier. We didnt visit all of the memorials that they told us to visit and also we had to pay extra money to go into the Capitol. That was an option and Instead of the boat, but its not like you gonna wait a few hours in the bus before everyone is coming back.

In the end hè dropped us at the bus station with two tickets for a regular bus. That bus wasnt even leaving anymore and we couldnt reach anyone to buy new tickets. Since it was one of the last buses we had to take a train for 330 dollar.

Its now one month ago and we where asking if we can get compensation for the train because they left us and we didnt got the trip they promised us, but Taketours is just saying we are a Third company. They are the first for getting our money, but will not answer you of you have any problems.

Party of 4 signed up for Los Angeles City & Hollywood Star Homes. We were notified we were switched to the LA City and Muscle Beach tour when we were on the bus (that would not be going past stars’ homes.) Shawn, the driver from VIP Tours, did his best to accommodate both tours but no reason nor compensation was given for the change of tours with no notification.

Re: TakeTours is a scam - the tour guide (from Mayi tours).
Was extremely rude, and disrespectful towards us.
Never stopped for food, or water and was hours on the bus not stopping for a restroom.

The tour guide got very angry each time people didn't want to do any of the additional activities (that by the way were charged at a premium (e.g. a visit to a park that was free to the public - he charged us $15 USD - on top of everything we already paid for the tour).
Also please note that $12 USD tip per day was compulsory.

Overall, please save yourself a bad time and don't travel with them - they're such a scam of a company that even Google reviews are disabled.

Avoid this company. It's a scam, after getting in passenger for the fees they will charge for optional activities.
Hotel is too far for doing the free attractions and hence you end up paying for transport in name of service fees.
Avoid!

I thing the company doesn't follow any ethical standards for conducting their business. I was made to pay in USD using Canadian card while sitting in Canada for a local tour in Canada which was available much cheaper whereas the company could have given us the option of dealing with a local Canadian company at the time of booking online as the tour was run by a local tour company here in Canada??? Definitely not going with them in future or promoting their business.

HORRIBLE!
Please, just rent a car.
Every activity you will do, will be with free or next to nothing in cost. This tour company will charge everything double that PER PERSON!
The busses are cramped, uncomfortable, and old. Children have more spacious traveling experiences on school busses!
I’m so upset, I can’t even go into detail because I’ll have to relive the experience in my mind!
Any positive reviews you find are fake! Do not go on this bus tour! Everything you read below in other reviews mirror my experience. Read them and learn!