Viator Reviews

Unreliable Service. Will leave you stranded without transport contact phone numbers don’t work.

We booked two tours with Viator, one was great but on the second we were scammed by the tour operator and Viator refused to refund our payment. We supplied all the evidence and a full account of what happened but they refused to refund any of our money. If you read other reviews you will see similar stories where Viator refuse to refund tourists that have been scammed. This event put a complete downer on our last day in Rome. Save yourself the trouble and go elsewhere.

Truly the worst experience ever - a complete scam. We had to dispute charges for the (non-existent) tour through our credit card company. We’ve done tours with other guides and companies all over the world and never had a problem. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

I would avoid Viator at all costs. We booked ground transportation between Rome's Fiumicino airport and the Civitavecchia cruise port several months ago. They failed to pick us up and the number we called was disconnected. We were billed for the service that they never showed up for and we were stuck having to find a taxi to take us on the 45 minute trip. To make matters worse they were supposed to pick us up from the cruise terminal and take us back to the airport and again they never showed up and we were billed for the service. We had to pay over 300 USD to take a private taxi back to the airport or miss our flight. I will NEVER use Viator again!!!

As everyone keeps saying, Viator could care less about your experience. Or if you were not able to take their tour because of THEIR FAULT!! They will not work with you and will cause you a disappointing trip.

I would say for sure book your trip when you get there, not ahead of time...as they do not fulfill their agreement and will not EVER refund even if it is their fault.

The tour company Viator should have informed customers the tour will only take you to Discover Center, not including the glacier ahead of time. There is very limited cell phone signal.

Our family of three booked the “Columbia Icefield Tour including the Glacier Skywalk from Calgary” from Viator.com. When we arrived at the pickup location Delta Downtown Hotel, tour guide Mark informed us that the tour includes Discovery Center but not the Glacier.

However, he offered no help on how to purchase additional ticket to the Glacier. When we were searching for the ticket to the Glacier on the road, he told us the cell phone signal would go out in few minutes.

My family were in a hurry to buy online but were unable to complete transaction before signal went out. When we arrived at the center, he asked us to buy Skywalk ticket only (the ticket was sold in either a combo of Glacier and Skywalk or Skywalk only) because we must return by 3 pm.

We were not happy but we listened to him. When we returned to parking lot at 3 pm, we found Mark was looking for a missing guest. The group were not able to leave the parking lot until 5 pm. So, we would have made it back to the group even if we had bought the 3 pm combo ticket.

In hindsight, Mark did not handle it well because he told us that he could skip other attractions such as Bow Lake and Peyto Lake, and directly go to Discovery Center as needed. He explained that the tour could get to the lakes as it returned on the same route. But he did not do so. If the group arrived in the center early, we would have enough time to complete both attractions.

That Mark offered no assistance in helping us to purchase the tickets either online or at the center is a shame. Also he waited until we were already on the road to inform us about cell phone signal being out was his fault because he knew buying ticket requires cell phone service.

The company Viator should have emphasized the tour takes guests to Discovery Center ONLY not the Glacier attraction because the title of “Glacier Skywalk” is misleading.

I canceled tour 5 days before payment due date. They charged me anyway.

They do not want to issue the refund. Theft company.

Viator has been a huge disappointment in Spain and Portugal. We booked 3 tours. There was miscommunication, grouchy guides, cancellations. Would not use again.

Viator does not have your back

I purchased 3 tickets through Viator 6 months ago for a helicopter trip provided by Blue Hawaiian. I was later informed I would need to pay an additional fee of $170 because of my weight. I requested the fee be waived, which blue Hawaiian agreed to.

On the day of the flight they demanded the fee anyways. I refused and they would not refund me. Viator claims they are there for the consumer, but they sided with Blue Hawaiian in the dispute, I do not believe they took my case seriously. As blue Hawaiian broke our agreement the day of the flight. Don't trust Viator to do the right thing.

On March 30th this year, I purchased Camp-Nou F.C.Barcelona stadium tour tickets from the website www.viator.com

I purchased tickets from this website several times before, and each time, after buying tickets to the experience, the tickets were emailed directly to me.

However, after the purchase, tickets were never emailed to me on this occasion. Instead, I received a "voucher," which needed to be brought to a tour operator to exchange for the actual tickets.

However, nowhere on the Viator website did it state that it would be a voucher sent after the purchase, not the actual tickets. Furthermore, it was not noted anywhere on the Viator website that the customer would need to travel to a tour operator's office (Julia Travel) to exchange the voucher for these tickets.

My issue was that I was hours away from the tour operator's office after purchasing from Viator. Thus, I called the tour operator by phone ( Julia Travel), and they refused to email me the tickets; they stated I must collect them in person, which will also not be possible today. I asked why I could not collect in person, and they advised that the office was closing! Thus, I purchased tickets from Viator.com to go to the Barcelona stadium tour on March 30th at 16:45, and the tour operator where I had to go to exchange the voucher for the actual tickets was closed! So it was never even possible to get the tickets on this date.

I contacted Viator travel, and they told me I needed to get a Refund from Julia travel. Then Julia travel sent me back to Viator, advising that Viator is responsible for the refund. It turns out that Viator needs to do the refund, and Viator has sent me an email now advising that the refund request has been denied. To me, this is clear fraud.

Under the law, I believe I'm entitled to be made aware of a cooling-off period on their website for a product or service, and I also never was at any stage. Nor was I made aware (at time of purchase) I was paying for a voucher, and not the actual tickets. The purchase was made for an experience on March 30th, and as the tour operator was closed, I could not even go to the experience on this date. Due to this, I requested a refund, and Viator has denied the refund request.

I made a video to demonstrate the purchase on their website to clearly show there is no mention of having to exchange a voucher or travel to a tour operator company. Please never use this company. Wish I saw reviews about them before. Complete scam.

Booked two show tickets in LV. Needed to change my "no change" purchase two minutes after I purchased. Viator would not change the requested dates, then took my full purchase price. That is called stealing.

Stay far away from this company.

Terrible. We had used Viator many times in the past and had been pleased because all had gone well. However, we booked a tour in Cancun and I did not receive an email from the local tour operator regarding a pick up time.

The Viator tickets said 0900 and the tour bus showed up at 0800. The company said they sent the email, I never received it, and so we missed the tour.

Viator refused to refund, their reps were rude and said no further consideration would be given. After using this company for all my tours, I will never use them again.

My husband and I booked a tour to Siena, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni . The tour was awful. The guide did not tell the older guests that you would have to walk up hill after hill in Siena, just to reach the middle of town. When we finally got there we were not given easy instructions on how to get back to the restaurant.

Several of us were in a lot of pain from all the walking. Plus the guide they gave us could have cared less about the older ones in the group. It was all rushed. The castle walk was also very hard on all of us that were struggling to get up the hill. At the winery, the owner was more interested in making money than about people's feelings. He made rude remarks against some of the people who wanted to look at the vineyard and take a picture.

Needless to say we will never travel with your company again.

Absolutely avoid this vendor. They work worth unreliable data that does not align with the companies they work with. After confirming on the Viator site, and separately thru a chat with one of their Viator agents, I booked thru their site, credit card was charged. Next day, less than 24 hours before the experience I was contacted and told Viator didn't have the correct availability info and my experience was overbooked.

Booked a cemetery tour of New Orleans which included visits to some of New Orleans infamous characters gravesites. When we got to New Orleans, we found out the cemeteries were closed. Called Viator, but they said we were within the 24 hour window, so no refund. I said we bought a tour to visit cemeteries, and they are closed.....why no refund??

The Viator representative put me on hold, and called the tour operator, who confirmed the cemeteries are close, but she still refused to refund. She said you can look through the gates!!!! Viator simply doesn't care a lick about their customers or what they sell you.

They will sell you a tour that simply does not exist, and keep your money. Very dishonest company without a lick of integrity.

A complete fraud, they advertise access to the statute of liberty in their tour. Once I got there the tour guy (outsource provider from "TOP DOG") told me that they do not do that. That they have have in multiple occasions told Viator that, but they continue to advertise it. He advised me to not take the tour, and to ask for my refund; due to false advertisement.

I did as told, but Viator still charged me. I have been in contact with Viator but they keep giving me the same line, "We have reviewed the charges and can not refund, because the provider already purchased the tickets" yet, I said to them; that I did not take the tour, because, that is not what I wanted, and that I had specifically requested and confirmed access to the statute with the Viator representative.

They keep telling me to wait for 7 days, and every time is the same story. They are a complete ripoff, I am now disputing the charges with my credit card company.

I am only giving this mob one star simply because reviewopedia does not give the option of no star.

When booking a tour of Macau the following important information is provided:

Important Information

Departure Point

Traveler pickup is offered

At time of booking, kindly select pick up point:

09:40 am - Sofitel Macau

09:45 am - Grand Emperor Hotel

09:55 am - Holiday Inn Macau

10:30 am - Taipa Ferry Terminal

Hotel pickup and drop-off (selected hotels only)

Exclusions

Hotel pickup and drop-off for guests staying at hotels other than those listed as eligible

As such we went to the hotel we selected (the Holiday Inn Macau) and for some inexplicable reason they expect me to be on the lookout for an email from the tour operator claiming we will be picked up from a hotel not shown on that list.

Not only that but they then want to get into an argument and refuse a refund as we were deemed to be a "no show", despite the fact that we waited at our selected pick up point for 20 minutes after the selected pick up time

False advertising as to what to expect, no entry into national park, no sunrise seen, no volcanic crater sunrise view, crappy bikes, snails pace bike ride and all starts at 3 a.m.- why?

Viator is disorganized, they hang up on you, and only 1 in 4 speaks understandable English, trust me I spoke to several agents.

Viator doesn't care about their customers and will always take the opposing side when it comes to the bookings problems that may come your way. We are currently on vacation and had booked a few tours with Amigo Tour, but we already started our vacation with a major headache because of them. Our tour itinerary stated that we were to meet our guide at this one checkpoint at 9am.

It stated that the guide would arrive early at 845am so we showed up at 830am to make sure we didn't miss him/her. Needless to say he/she failed to show up on time and by 920am we were already fed up on waiting on him/her. Of course, we asked around to see if anyone had seen the guide and every time we got the same response from everyone we asked which was, "oh yeah the Amigo Tour guide is usually late".

We called Amigo Tour several times before and after 9am but got no response. Even the employees of the Castle Of Chapultepec, which was the tour site, said the same thing about this agency. There were several people waiting there for the guide besides us. After we decided to do the tour ourselves with no guide, we decided to call the tour agency again. This time we got ahold of them and instead of trying to understand our situation they started to call us liars claiming the guide was there at 845am which of course wasn't the case.

We spent 2hours arguing with the agency demanding a refund, since it wasn't our fault that the guide was not on time to meet us for our tour. The agency had the nerve to confirm that sometimes the guide could possibly arrive a little late and that we should of waited longer for him/her. We got so fed up with arguing with the agency that we decided to cancel all our tours for the week that we had booked through Viator.

Amigo Tours told us that if we wanted a refund that we would have to find the guide there and he/she would issue us a refund but the guide was nowhere to be found after 40minutes of looking. We contacted Viator directly via email after several failed attempts with the tour agency to get a refund, but Viator sided with the agency instead of with us. They flat out told us that we were liars and that they contacted the agency and of course they denied any wrong doing on their part.

Viator then told us in that email that it was our fault for not showing up and that they would not give us a refund and thanked us for understanding. We got no support whatsoever from Viator not even a possibility of an investigation!! We of course emailed them back telling them that since Viator is not willing to investigate that we will contact American Express directly and file a complaint for that fraudulent service that we received and if we have to we will proceed further to prevent all charges against us for the week.

After we contacted American Express we received an email from Viator stating that they would show good will by refunding us $75 out of $600 for that one day tour. Really?!!! Yeah no!!! They don't care about their customers and will pocket your money unless you act against them!

If there is a rating less than 1, I would choose that!

We used Viator on a 2016 trip to Cusco, Macchu Picchu since we trusted TripAdvisor-- what a mistake! Never Again! I gave negative reviews on tripadvisor and Viator website but it never got published!

The negative experience: we were contacted by our 'tour' person via email after our payment, so I was feeling confident-- but when we got to Cusco, Peru, our contact did not show! I called several times and finally got through and we were picked-up by a taxi-driver. We were brought to a hotel that did not have a reservation for us! So we waited... then had to be brought to another hotel who still did not have reservation for us but finally took us in! All this and I was still adjusting to the altitude at Cusco and feeling dizzy. Tour for the afternoon went OK... but then...

Next day, trip was supposed to start at 5am. We were told to be at the hotel lobby on time or we will be left behind. We were at the lobby 15 minutes before departure; we waited and were never picked up! 2-hours passed and I called our contact and finally some taxicab took us to rendezvous with a tour bus who had purely Spanish speaking guests! Realizing we were English speakers, the bus guide made some calls and finally was able to arrange swaps and we got on to another tour bus (English speaking) 2 hours later. At this point we already missed many of the sites. It was frustrating but the day went on fine.

So next day we were supposed to leave for Aguas Calientes on the way to Machu Picchu; we were picked up late by a small minivan with other passengers, and it appeared we will not be able to make it in time for the train departure to Aguas Calientes. So the driver hailed a few taxicab (haggling in front of us), to take us to the train station, about 2 hours away. Finally he found a taxicab willing to take us, and off we went and made it in time for the train departure to Aguas Calientes.

When we got to Aguas Calientes, another representative was supposed to meet us at the train station and bring us to our hotel-- surprise surprise, nobody showed! Again I called and was just so frustrated with our viator contact-- we were the only ones left at the train station without contacts! I was beside myself! Finally someone did show up and got us to our hotel.

At the Machu Picchu site: we had a guide who was not really a designated viator guide. It seems he was just around the site getting contracted by others needing help. He was our guide for a few minutes until he decided to 'trade' with someone else who can barely speak English. This is simply unbelievable! I did not pay much attention to the guide since I can barely understand him, and instead focused on the beauty and majesty of Macchu Picchu. After a couple of hours with the guide, he left us on our devises anyway and just made recommendations on where we can go.

For our trip back to Cusco, my husband and I were praying that we would get picked up by someone (since our past experience had been just horrendous) since the train from Aguas Calientes was arriving late at night and we still had two hours drive back to Cusco. Fortunately we were assigned to one of the tour buses which then took us back to Cusco and we did get back to our hotel-- whew!!!

This experience with Viator was just horrendous! NEVER AGAIN and I keep telling my friends to stay away. It seems to be crapshoot. Viator does not really have its own people but just contracts with local providers. In their website they mention vetting, but there is really no vetting going on-- how can they "vet" when they have not even met their local contacts? Our contact in Peru even mentioned this and how difficult it was to work with Viator (I assumed this had something to do with payments).

This was the only trip during our 3-country tour of South America that went sour. I made all the reservations/flights/bookings for Argentina, Iguazu Falls, Lima and Chile, and everything was great. I highly recommend that people do their own reservations for Cusco/Machu Picchu. There are so many tour companies in Cusco and many seemed very professional. I should have trusted my instincts and made the reservations myself directly with the tour companies on site.