Get Your Guide ?

I have used Get Your Guide and Viator for food and bike tours on my last 2 trips and had good and bad experiences with both - when they were good, they were really good and a great value for the money. I've had 2 that didn't work out because the times were listed incorrectly so when I showed up, the tours were long over. I did a really good cichetti tour in Venice and a boat trip to Burano & Murano through Get Your Guide.

Both GetyourGuide and Viator are 3rd party resellers of tours. They charge the provider 20-25%, sometimes 30% which is a huge amount if you are dealing with a small tour company.

On the Viator site (not sure about GetYourGuide) they do list the company providing the service so I recommend going directly to the company site and booking thru them.

Get Your Guide, like Viator, is a third-party website. Quality can vary from tour to tour in that situation, because different tour operators/guides are involved. Get Your Guide is a lot newer to the party than Viator. You can draw your own conclusions about what that might mean for a customer. Both of those companies take a substantial cut from the person/company offering the tour, so either you're paying extra or the company is receiving less. Or maybe both. I know on the Viator website you can find the name of the company running the tour in the "Additional Info" section after clicking on "See X More". I don't know whether or how one can identify the operating company on the Get Your Guide website.

Thanks for your quick replies.

Oh, I’d rather have the local tour guide get the full
amount. (If we ever have used Groupon over the years, we contact the vendor directly and they usually give us the same rate as Groupon - but they get to keep it all vs Groupon taking their cut)….guess we will try to find out vendor and do the same.

Appreciate all of the feedback! 😀

• Ronda

Ronda, laughing because it looks like acraven and I are sharing a brain today!

I think trying to book direct is a good plan.

There is nothing wrong with third-party sites. If it were not for the power of the third party site. Many of the businesses would not survive. Viator dies a freat job of standing behind their lidtings and will generally make any problem right. Get your guide? Don't know.

hey hey ronda
yes they are third party sellers. we have used getyourguide.com a few times and never had an issue and they were great. there's always good bad and ugly with many tours, just luck of the draw. was unhappy with a tuscany private tour few years back but just went with the flow, wrote no review since someone else liked it. just different opinions and we each have our own feelings. after our getyourguide.com tour we just gave our guide a cash tip to put in his pocket to make up for what the company takes.
let us know what you kind of tours you're looking for and interested in, we'll give you ideas and sites to check. i'm the planner with my friends doing the research, run it by them and then we agree. it's tedious and time consuming, helps when you're given ideas or sites to check, and many on this forum like doing it. helps so much when you're prepared, bookmarked or put in spread sheet, what's more important, ok to miss, or not interested. not waiting till day of activity to decide. popular attractions will be crowded, "skip the line" still means you need to go through security lines.
look at places that need tickets ordered online from site to get reservation that many are time stamped with date and time. keep in mind time/hour difference from europe. some are booked up months in advance, may not be available for your time needed is why some people use these sites or others listed, maximum tickets only
enjoy your research and come back for more info if needed. good luck
aloha

I will say I have used Get Your Guide a number of times and Viator a few times. They have at this point been 100% reliable for me. Easy booking, easy cancellation, and tours have been real and happened.

When comparing, I can normally find the original tour operator - but not always. Not all of them in every country maintain an online presence that is easy to track. I also do comparisons. I recently booked a couple of tours in Ireland for a friend - and thought I would book through the provider, who as it turns out has a fairly bad cancellation policy while Viator is great. Same tour.

Sometimes a smaller provider may find it financially worth the cut the reseller takes so that they don’t have to handle payments or advertising or maintain a website (this opinion came from a small hotel in Heidelberg).

It’s worth NOT making generalizations.

Both Get Your Guide and Viator do zero checking of quality of tours. Anyone can list with them if they are willing to pay for it.
If you do not list with Viator, you will have a hard time getting on the front page of Trip Advisor, etc. They have taken the tourism business to a different level with their commissions. If you don't pay extra, you drop on the page. It is a racket and the tour companies hate it, yet everyone is playing because it is such a monopoly. Will you pay more for your tour? Yeah, I think so. Any company that is paying 25% of the tour price to Viator or GYG, is going to up the price. Do not believe the "we offer the lowest price" lie that Viator posts. It is not true. They use dynamic pricing. If they see a tour is popular in the summer, on the weekends, you will pay more for it.

Book directly if you can.

They use dynamic pricing. If they see a tour is popular in the summer,
on the weekends, you will pay more for it.

MsJo, that's interesting to know. And it's a change. Quite a few years ago, I checked them out for something I was doing, and at that time, I got to set the price, not Viator. I also had to agree not to list it for less anyplace else. So even if you found me off a my own web site, same price. Back then they were also discontinuing tours that got bad reviews. Again, thanks for the update.

I also use these sites for research only and book directly with provider if they have their own website. Get Your Guide does in deed have the tour providers listed at the very top of the listing to the right of the star rating once you have clicked on the individual tour.

Example:
Kotor: Private Walking Tour with Wine and Food Tasting
***** 5/5 29 Reviews Activity provider: Miro & Sons

You are all giving GREAT suggestions and advice! :)

I appreciate you!

Thanks again,

Ronda

I've used them many times.

They have a good site and app and it's easy to find tours, sort them by price, read reviews and get practical info like the meeting point and what a tour will include, like sample itinerary.

All their tours allow mobile tickets so you show the barcode and the tour operator just scans it.

You can pay with Apple Pay through the app, so no need to enter credit card number.

And best of all, you can wait until the last day or two to book, so that you know what the weather will be like.

Many tours don't refund for instance if it rains. They will give you these thin plastic rain ponchos and expect you to take the tour on the date it was booked.

At least with apps like GYG, you can book instantly.

Now some tours do sell out so you can't wait too late before the scheduled tour date.

But I prefer it than book weeks or even months ahead and find out the weather is going to be unpleasant.

You can cancel up to 24 hours for any reason for a refund.

Also forgot to add, I think a lot of tour operators list their tours because they want to be discovered. They have their own websites too but these tour companies are not always well-known.

Plus they may not have a easy payment system, like on their website you enter credit card numbers and it may not be secure or as convenient.

But mostly, they get business that they otherwise wouldn't get if they weren't on GYG or Viator, which I've also used several times.

People dis third party sites, but they still use them for research because trying to find the same trips on obscure or no web site operators is nigh impossible. I have used Viator and had good results. If you are the kind that wants to pay less and use the operator themselves then you can seek them out. It is undeniable that it is very easy to look at available tours and prices on Viator/Get your Guide, and easy to pay.
If you are feeling for the little guy using Viator and maybe getting less for his tour you might want to think about that tour would not even be advertised or accessible to find without the third party website. Thus, they would get much less business than otherwise.

If you are feeling for the little guy using Viator and maybe getting
less for his tour you might want to think about that tour would not
even be advertised or accessible to find without the third party
website. Thus, they would get much less business than otherwise.

I believe you are correct,
And the tour is not cheaper on the vendor's own site.
And is more likely that Viator will make things right if there is a problem vs a guy working out of his garage that might not be able to.
And Viator does drop vendors that get complaints
And if there is dynamic pricing going on, I suspect it occurs at the vendor's site as well.

I will check the vendor's website and if it looks professional and if they have some good reviews and everything else looks okay then my tendency is to book direct. Any questions, then i use Viator or find another vendor.

I would not recommend using GetYourGuide because the customer service is sketchy and they didn't show up.
My passport information was collected the day before a one day trip to Kos (Bodrum to Kos).
The pick up was supposed to be at the hotel, before 7 in the morning. I waited outside - no show, no messages from the person who reached out the day before to collect passport info. Nothing.
I finally started calling around to find out what was going on. The person I eventually got on the phone told me to use whatsapp to text a number for the information I was looking for.
And guess what?! It was the same number as the one I used to call! I was actually speaking with the guy I was supposed to be texting!!
So then this guy puts me on hold. Then comes back to tell me that he was texting the reason for the cancellation! I mean I was on the phone with this person! I didn't understand what was happening. Why text me when we're actually talking on the phone?? Nevermind I'd been waiting outside for an hour to find out if the driver was coming or not.
I had to ask why he would first of all, ask me to text the same number I had actually called, to get the information he was putting me on hold for, so that he could text me to say the same thing he could've just directly told me the phone?!
You would think it was for documentation purposes, but nope.
I asked for him to just tell me what was going on as I was tired of waiting. He then said that the trip was canceled due to bad weather - and that he would text me that. Why they didn't notify customers of this, who knows? I had to seek out the information.

I asked for a refund immediately. He said it would take 1 -7 business days.
That time has passed and no refund. They are now saying it takes 14 days, after I started emailing them to demand why after over a week, I had not received any email about the trip they canceled on me and where my refund was.

Do not book with them.

Never tried them but I would always prefer asking the local tourist office for a guide.

In a few cases this forum seems to have also good tips, e. g. guides for Berlin.

On the Viator site (not sure about GetYourGuide) they do list the
company providing the service so I recommend going directly to the
company site and booking thru them.

Where on the listing do they list this? Everytime I read a comment like this I randomly look at a Viator tour but can never see where the actual tour company as listed. For example, where on this listing does it state it? https://www.viator.com/tours/Rome/Rome-Colosseum-Roman-Forum-and-Palatine-Hill-Guided-Tour/d511-15932P15

They do not always list the tour operator and that’s because sometimes they don’t really know who’s going to do it. They’re selling things that may not have an official operator. So they’ll sell you a tour of whatever and then they see if their operators will take you. So they might have two or three options let’s say for the Eiffel Tower they take your money and then they see if one of those operators would like to have this. f And if they can’t keep trying until 24 hours before you’re supposed to go when you get “too bad so sad” here’s a refund.

if you can’t find it on a reputable operator side, walk away from the siren call of the third-party middleman.

I've used their services twice (two different trips) ... once for a Wachau Valley day trip of Melk, Dürnstein, and Danube cruise; and more recently [May] for their 'Riviera in a Day' all-day itinerary of Cannes, Antibes, St Paul de Vence, Èze and Monaco/MonteCarlo. They were both fairly positive experiences from an efficiency standpoint, getting to multiple destinations within one small group and having benefit of local knowledge shared by a guide.

In Venice we used Walks of Italy and had a much better guide than with either of our GYG experiences. They would be my recommended source/service for that city. Have never been to Croatia, but someday...

Allan, on your link....

Click on link.

Scroll down to Additional Information.

Click on that screen then scroll down and at the very bottom it says this tour is operated by Crown Tours.

Honestly, I think Viator does every thing they can to keep you from seeing who the operator is but at least that information is available. You have to work for it, though.

I'm impressed that you found the name of the company Pam! I was looking for it to contradict Allan, but couldn't find it.

I'm also impressed that you found it. I had Googled it and found a screeshot that showed it right below the title of the tour. Viator must have decided that was too convenient and decided to bury it.

@EstimatedProphet and Allan, don’t be too impressed…I’ve just done it a lot, lol! I post daily on Trip Advisor and have looked at the Viator pages often for people asking questions about certain tours of the area I post about. They have changed the format of the pages as yes, the company name used to be easier to find.

And also yes, Trip Advisor owns Viator so it’s fairly ironic I spend time on TA usually recommending people not book with Viator! Not that I am paid by TA…strictly volunteer.

I would strongly second the recommendation to not use GetYourGuide. We were in Florence recently with prepaid guide tickets to the Academies to see the David. We were admittedly, running about 20 minutes late and when we arrived, the guy had obviously already gone in with a group, (if there was one). we tried to show our tickets on our app that we should’ve had access to to enter but they said we would have to be with the guide to do that. So we started chatting calling the customer service said we would just have to buy new tickets again. The museum attendants told us to wait in a certain area so we wasted about 30 minutes doing that. We ended up buying tickets again and going through and it was just all a very stressful event. After the fact, we emailed them for a small credit or a small refund just for the price of our tickets but they went back-and-forth with us unwilling to do anything about it. My husband booked with the tour guy in Rome for the Colosseum. Same thing he didn’t realize the time of the ticket was different . They went out of their way to call him to make sure he was there or offer something else.- wonderful customer service. That’s the way it should be with these companies. We’re visiting, things come up. We’re running late. Whatever it is. We totally get our part of the fault but to be unwilling completely to do anything about it - It’s a very small museum in Florence. We never saw the guide inside so it was just all very sketch and very bad customer service but that was our experience.

applegate_angela, why do you think GetYourGuide should refund you anything?

First off, they paid the tour operator, and the tour operator isn't going to refund GetYourGuide because you missed the tour. They might have had to turn away other participants because the tour was full. (The fact that you didn't see the guide in the museum nearly an hour later doesn't mean they weren't there.)

How nice that you were pleased with the way the guide in Rome dealt with your screw-up, but that has nothing to do with GetYourGuide.

When you've booked an experience and you show up late, it's on you. 100%. Nothing is owed you.

WIthout GetYourGuide and Viator there would be a lot fewer small operators.

Mr. E. that is just wild speculation.
Trip Advisor had a ton of tour listings on their pages before Viator, without anyone making money off of them. There are a ton of tour companies out there that do not list with Viator nor with Get Your Guide.

You, the consumer are paying for those high commissions on all of those re-sellers, or do you think all those tour companies just eat that 25% commission as a loss?

^^^ Yes, I preferred TA postings before they bought Viator.

And - TA used to have recommendations for independent drivers and driver/guides that travelers would post. I connected with multiple guides and/or drivers this way for travels in Asia. No longer.

Not totally wild. I have 3 friends that live off Viator listings. But they are startups. I suspect if Viator makes them successful, they might drop Viator. You have never used them or similar for your business?

Of course I use them, that is why I know how they work and because I am on multiple FB pages with other tour companies, I know what tour companies around the world think of them.

Okay, I understand now. I think. I wasnt arguing which of the third parties was best for the vendor or even for the customer, just that third parties were a good concept for the little guys. Picking the right one for a vendor to team with is something else and not really what I think about when on a tourist (customer) forum. For the vendor I assume they made their choice freely so I respect that .... but I do try and find their independent page cause I know it makes them more money.

I have never used GetYourGuide. Why? Dont know. Viator I have used sucessfullly a lot.

DON'T USE THEM! We signed up for a cooking class & showed up to the address, which was a very sketchy apt complex, not a kitchen. The contact we called said it had been cancelled and we would get a refund. I never got any info about it being cancelled and requested a refund from Get Your Guide, which they refused because the cancellation period ended 24hr before the class. I pointed out that we showed up ready to take the class and I think the whole class had been fake from the beginning, which meant that they contracted with some sketchy con person & they said they can't do anything about it. I had to start a dispute for the $200 charge through my bank.

So yesterday got a very upset from a call from my friend of mine.

Using the tricks on here, I was able to to help them find the actual operator and they reached out to them. He told them that he told Viator months ago when they booked this that he was not going to be available this week. The guy was very apologetic, but he assumed that his reseller had done the right thing. So in other words, the reseller knew two months ago that this event scheduled for yesterday would not take place and didn’t tell the family until eight hours in advance

Someone said that they use this company because they will make it right. I don’t have any idea how this can be considered making something right

I am thinking of using Viator or Get Your Guide to get tickets on a day the museum shows none available. That worked for me on the Eiffel Tower and now I need tickets to a museum in Madrid. I don't want a guide but would take one to get a ticket. I was told Guide companies reserve blocks of tickets and that I could get tickets from them when the museum is offering none. Does that sound correct?