Paris Day Trips - Guided Tours

Please, please, please do some deep digging on this company before you book. Their reputation in the US is just awful. In the US it caters mainly to the Chinese market. Their tours are advertised as bi-lingual but many report back that the English information from the guides very limited. The US reports also say that the guide insists that tour members pay tips even if they don't want to. I've also seen reports where they charge tour members extortionate amounts for admissions to sights that are either free or cost way less than the charge.

The US reports ARE for multi-day tours but I encourage you to look carefully before you spend the money.

I will also add I am mostly aware of them from their trips to Yellowstone where I see their groups who have very limited time at sights.

Here is at least one thread with reviews from TAKE in the US. The thread itself is 6 years old and has over 350 replies, mostly with complaints, some with actual horror stories (people getting left when the tour leaders were told they were coming, etc).

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i12567-k6299452-Take_Tours-Road_Trips.html

Another red flag about this company, to me, is that there are no reviews of their tours on TripAdvisor. If I were you, I would use another company.

Do you really need a guide ? Versailles is a short direct train ride from Paris, guided tours available there -- from the train station just follow the crowd to the chateau.

We took the Paris City Vision tour to Vaux le Vicomte and Fontainebleau in June and found it a good value. We booked it on line before we went to Paris with no problems.

We took the same Paris City Vision Tour that bcgirl55 posted and really enjoyed it. Everything went well with the day tour and we felt we had enough time at both places.

Half a day for Versailles would suck - you’ll get through the palace and maybe have a tiny amount of time in formal garden next to palace but you’ll miss out on a lot - Marie Antoinette hamlet , the grand and petit Trianons etc .

Book a tour online direct on website and go there yourself - millions do and it’s not hard .

For other daytrip tours , look at Francetourism and Pariscityvisions - both offer big bus or private van tours and are well established and reputable companies

Thanks everyone very much for the quick and valuable information you provided. You had excellent points and I will not do business with Take Tours. Instead I used France Tourisme to book a whole day trip to the Loire Valley and transportation/tickets for a full day at Versailles (self-guided + audio guide), to include the palace, musical gardens, Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon, and lunch. Paris City Vision offered similar services, but France Tourisme had tours available on the dates I preferred. Thanks again everyone!

Let us know how these work out when you get back!