In an effort to combine trips to Keukenhof, Volendam, Marken, and Zaanse Schans in one day, I booked a tour on the website of Local Amsterdam Tours. There appeared to be no problem of availability on the day I selected—which was the only day during my trip with a good forecast—and I promptly received a confirming email indicating booking with isango! My credit card was also promptly charged. But when I arrived at the designated location 45 minutes in advance, I was told that isango! was simply a reseller and the tour operator, Lindburgh, had no record of the reservation. The agent said I could wait around until just before the tour departed to see if there was enough space for us. We did, but there were only two seats, not the three I had reserved. A rebooking was offered, but that wasn’t acceptable—I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful day.
Fortunately, I was aware that it was fairly easy to get to Keukenhof by taking a train to the airport and a special bus from there. As we were near Amsterdam Centraal, that’s what we did. We went to the other locations using bus transportation on other days, but this was a real change to our plans.
I don’t know where the problem was—I later called the isango! phone number and was told that all information had been properly provided to Lindburgh. But there were several other people who had a similar problem for different trips, probably with different resellers, since the agent said that Viator was also a reseller. I also don’t know if Lindburgh has adopted the airline strategy of overbooking to make sure they have full busses, but the situation was totally unacceptable.
I would avoid using Local Amsterdam Tours, isango!, and Lindburgh—and probably Viator, too. I really felt ripped off, even though I eventually received a refund, since what I really wanted was the convenience of the tour on the day I had reserved, which did turn out to be the only completely sunny day of our trip.