Viator Reviews

Terrible company cancelled tour overnight. Rebooked at extra cost then sent link which did not work, just terrible. Then claims not their fault, do not use them for anything.

Warning. I have been literally ripped off. I paid $760 for a family private tour of statute of liberty and Ellis island on July 3 and when I arrived, no one was there… none..nothing.. I kept waiting for more than one hour.. I reached to their local partner via the app, which is the only way they have provided, but no one replied. I also reached out to them by phone and by email. And guess what.. they emailed me saying “ we regret to inform you that we are unable to issue a refund for this booking”. I am a frequent traveler and have dealt with so many agents before, I have never seen such negligence.. a horrible experience by all means!

Bad Experience with Viator in Dominican Republic

Booked Viator in Dominican Republic for our tour of Santo Domingo. Firstly, no prior arrangements made with us, just a random text saying "Hi" on Whatsapp. Just showed up at our hotel unannounced.

The Viator website advertised it to be a "private party" tour with ONLY my group. Turned out to be completely false.

First it was a minivan stuffed like sardines, with 13-14 people total and roaches EVERYWHERE.

Then we got taken to a gas station and deposited into a HUGE tour bus and over 40 people on the bus. The drivers were all insanely fast (it might be a Dominican Republic way of driving) For $500 USD....

I definitely would never do this again. Please consider booking your tour with the resort you are staying at. Double the price but much better experience.

Used Viator to book a walking tour of York, UK. They were the main “middle man” that came up in every search & could facilitate a booking. I booked through them, had a verbal conversation with one of their agents to ensure a good, secure booking. Jolly was her name & she was very helpful. Took my money quite easily too.

When we arrived for our tour there was no one waiting so we waited, walked around & eventually had to call my husband at home, to contact Viator as I only got a recorded message. He reached the actual TourCompany who said they had no bookings for that day. They followed through and found my booking. The tour guide lived locally & called me apologising profusely for this error (which was not his to apologise for). He arrived within 15 minutes and gave us an extraordinary tour, longer than we paid for and full of fascinating stories.

He claimed that Viator had been a consistent problem for their company as Viator was excellent at reaching people & getting them booked & taking their money but massively failed on follow through and confirmation with the tour company.

They will not do anything at all to help you if you get ripped off by one of their tout listings, they will not even respond to you.

We booked several excursions for our family vacation in France through Viator, and when we had customer service issues and were not provided the services as described, Viator did absolutely nothing about it. Did not ever reply to us!

We spent over $1,500 for a Private, Guided tour of three castles in the Loire Valley.

The listing says specifically "Professional Guide" The reviews all talk about how knowledgeable the guide was, and how much information he had for them. For our trip there was no guide at all. I asked the drive if he would tell us about the valley and the castles before we arrived, and he said "I am not a guide, I am only a driver" He said he did not know where the guide was who usually rides with him!? So we drove for 2 1/2 hours to the castles in Silence!

We told Viator this is false advertising. The listing says specifically Professional Guide. We were not given the one main element of the trip we paid for.

Viator and the tour company did not even respond to us. We emailed, called and reviewed the company, no response at all. Viator completely let us down.

We also booked a Private Van to shuttle us from the airport to our hotel. They ended up leaving us standing in the airport for 90 minutes waiting. Every single other person on the plane had been picked up by the dozens of shuttle drivers waiting at the airport. We were the last group of people by far. So, it could not have been the traffic.

We called the company multiple times while we were waiting at the airport. They had forgotten about us. They sent a taxi instead, and he said he could not fit us. He said to us "I will be right back" Then literally walked out of the airport and just left. So, we had to call again and ask where is our private van we paid for?! So, we had to sit and wait and after 6 or 7 phone calls and 90 minutes later a van finally came. Isn't that a great way to start your vacation, after a 10 hour flight? You try to book reliable transportation for your family and end up with a headache trying to get to your hotel.

We ask for a partial refund. No response from the company and Nothing at all from Viator.

Viator will not help you if you have any issues with their listings. Even blatantly false advertising, they do not care and will not advocate on your behalf. The tour companies listing their services on Viator are their customers whom they make money from, not you.

Do not trust Viator!

I just lost $420, I booked a tour for April 22,2023, and they confirmed my tour for April 15th, I called them, no help at all and I only asked for the date changed not a refund since it is no refund booking. I called viator and the local trip advisor, they're all from foreign countries as i understood. They were not kind enough to change my date. I don't know who made the mistake, but I should get the benefit of the doubt. I advise everyone to be careful of these people, it is just robbery. They are horrible, I will never book with them or Trip advisor again. I at least have rights to talk to someone in the USA.

I booked a tour of the Vatican Museums through Viator. I followed the instructions for picking up the tickets, but the tour operator never showed up and did not reply to my messages.

I contacted Viator for a refund, but they refused, citing that their "investigation" showed the tour operator had done their due diligence, even though I provided screenshots of the messages I sent and the lack of any messages received.

Viator partners with bad-faith actors and they know this, but they will not take responsibility for it whatsoever.

DO NOT USE VIATOR, unless you want to completely waste your time and lose money for nothing.

We booked a tour for Musee d' Orsay in Paris for March 29 but in light of the strikes, museum closings, protests, etc., cancelled out trip to Paris. We were not given a refund and told our ticket was not refundable, never mind there is some question about whether or not it was going to be open.

If I could give zero stars I would. My wife purchased a ticket for the VIP experience at Universal Studios Hollywood for our trip in June. I went to purchase the same tour and time however when I got to the payment page to confirm the booking the site came up with an error and wouldn't allow me to make payment and when I went back on to try again the tour time which I had selected had gone.

My wife's booking had gone through without a problem. I contacted Viator initially through live chat and was on for an hour only to be told that nothing could be done as the 'all sales were final'. I explained that I only wanted for my wife to be rebooked on another tour time so that I could purchase a ticket for the same time and said that the site had crashed when I got to the payment page and that tour time she selected was available at that time but not when I went back on and there was no point us having two separate tour times but I was told there was nothing they could do.

I then telephoned to speak with someone but yet again Viator staff hide behind policies with absolutely no flexibility even though £350 had just been paid for the ticket. I was told that it would be escalated to the dept who deals with tickets and my wife would hear back via email as she had booked the ticket but I got the impression this was simply to fob me off.

When she did hear back it was tough luck basically, nothing they could do and yet again it was repeating the policy. I made another call to them next day and after speaking with someone who initially I thought was going to resolve the matter, it turned out he didn't really understand what I was trying to do and in the end it was simply a repeat of their policy of no refunds (not that I was actually after a refund).

I asked to be put through to escalations only to be told that there wasn't such a department so someone was telling lies. There was no willingness to sort this issue out, no empathy for the problem and it was just getting fobbed off and quoting policy. The customer service in this company is an utter disgrace and I would not be buying from them again.

All well and good if you never need to contact them but seriously beware that they will not deal with your issue and will show no flexibility to their conditions. All sales are final is a complete con and something I'd expect from a dodgy ticket seller but not a supposed legitimate company. The distance selling regulations clearly don't apply to them.

Fortunately I did in the end manage to find another company (Attraction Tickets) who had the same time slot available. Be warned and expect nothing if you ever are in the unfortunate position of contacting them after purchase and make sure you read the fine print.

We booked a Panama City and Miraflores Lock shore excursion tour through Viator. Our guide Rey did not judge the time properly and we were forced to miss the main part of our tour to the Miraflores Locks because we had to be back to our ship. We spent too much time in Panama city. We are Americans and did not appreciate his constant slurs about how Panama was "bullied" by the Americans.

Viator refused to refund our money after cancelling our tour. I booked tickets Dec 2022 for Frida Kahlo Museum through trip advisors. Viator is the main company and the tour operator was Frida Tours 2022.

They send you confirmation of the purchase but not the tickets. I wrote to the tour operator via text on Facebook...the only way I could figure out how to contact them. We had a few conversations because I wanted to know how and when they would send the tickets and they kept giving me very vague answers.

Then they told me that if I wasn't comfortable with their practice I could cancel. When I told them I didn't want to cancel they went ahead and cancelled me anyway and told me I would get a refund. I went ahead and booked new tickets from viator through a different operator and they sent the tickets to us within days.

About 4 days before the tour, the original booking that I thought was cancelled sent me the tickets. So I ended up paying for both tickets that I did not need. PayPal refused to refund my money even though I sent them the screen shot of our text conversation and all the documentation.

Unfortunately for some tours viator is the only choice. Just book with a credit card instead of PayPal if you need to get your money back for any reason when dealing with these guys.

After repeated attempts to have my money refunded due to Viator not showing up for my Tour in Rome , Viator still refuses to make things right. They have my $500+ , and I only received a partial tour, due to them failing to show.

Viator does not follow through when the small businesses fail to provide services. I contracted for a hotel shuttle in Cancun in December. The company Coming2 never showed. I had to pay for rides to/from the airport at a significantly higher rate and was out that money as well. I asked for a refund and was flatly denied.

Disgrace of a company. take your money change the pick up and do not let you acknowledge that you now this. they did not pick me up and then did not answer the numerous calls I made. no refunds and then some BS when you finally get through to them to speak they think you are making a claim.

Booked a number of tours in and around a river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest. Tickets were rejected by tour operators at two out of four attractions in Singapore. I have been denied refunds. The other two had no facility to contact the tour operator. With the help of the concierges at Furama City Hotel managed to eventually contact tour operator 15 minutes after the tour had started.

Do not use this company. It is far easier to use the free wi-fi at the attractions and download your tickets to your phone or use the bar codes in several of the tourist booklets which offer substantial discounts.

Regarding Viator Cesarina food tours in Italy, don't get sucked in to their rhetoric. I had multiple "reservations" or pending reservations subsequently cancelled for rather vague reasons or that they don't book that far in advance (why have a calendar that allows you to pick a date?). Then they try to offer a cooking lesson instead. What is sad is that Trip Advisor is the parent company. It sure poisons my opinion of Trip Advisor.

Viator is a 3rd party company and anyone booking with them will be confused, and lost in a mess of information.

You get no good info on the actual company you booked with. If you call their customer service, they are based in the Philippines. The staff knows nothing about anything.

The worst thing you can do in the travel industry is book through a 3rd party company like this crappy corporation.

The wise thing to do is, find an activity you see on Viator’s sight that you’re interested in, then go to the actual company’s website and book direct. Or at least, book through concierge at your hotel. Judge from all these bad reviews. Stay away from 3rd party apps like this junk.

Good selection and easy to search. Do note many of these tours are available on other sites which seem to give better pay later options. The main issue I have with this as a site is that having taken tours with them and now returned home, it has been impossible to get a tax or proper receipt for the tours we booked. I tried their online help, their customer service, seems now we have been, paid and completed our trips, the care factor has waned. Being told to refer to the booking is not providing a tax receipt. It is not even like there is a link to download the receipt from the booking."

i booked an airport car in Sydney and it never arrived. viator “pretended” to extend support but their intention was never to give a refund. they let me know that the driver exhausted the “free” wait time of 15 minutes and allegedly left. who gets out of an airport in 15 minutes?! no one even bothered to call and check. This service is obviously a scam. Zero stars.

Viator is not reliable and will not guarantee that your booking will always provide you with the services you want. Book directly through the service provider. Viator is a ticket seller and they make lots of errors.