Everything went wrong on this trip. I booked and opted the boattrip for my 50th birthday but received an e-mail in wich I was asked by AmigoTours if we were able to reschedule to the 20th instead. I answered the mail several times but didn't get any confirmation. The hotel receptionist called the office and got an answering machine.... We were supposed to get on the bus at 4am but it was late and the driver waited for something or someone until just before 5 am. 15 minutes after we finally drove of we heard an alarm suggesting the doors didn't close properly. It took 20 minutes to silence it. We arrived in Niagara Falls 12.30pm, it's there where our guide Nancy from over the falls tours got on the bus. Instead of taking us to the falls, she took us to the casino to have lunch for an hour. 2pm we made it to the falls and our voucher turned out to be WORTHLESS, because AmigoTours apparently hadn't paid the park our money for entering the park and the boat. AmigoTours is NOT known to them.... So we had to buy 2 new tickets at the entrance, the manager was called to assist, he spoke to AmigoTours on my phone and meanwhile our tourguide Nancy was nowhere to be found, she claims to have counted her group....but it turns out she was already on the boat with all the other people on the tour without us 2 because we were still at the entrance trying to get our ticket. The Falls were great, the boattrip was awesome but AmigoTours and Nancy from over the falls tours were worthless and useless.
I'm actually not even sure if some of the reviews for this trip are real. It was disgraceful. The pick-up time was 4am but we didn't get on the road until at least 30mins later. By the time we got to the falls it was lunch time. Half the tour who were Spanish speaking had a buffet lunch and the rest of us were told to get lunch and meet back NO LATER than a certain time. Then the guide and the buffet group were 15 to 20mins later. We then walked to the falls but weren't allowed to look at them or take photos as we could do that in our free time 5mins or so it turned out to be later. Then we went on the Maid of the Mist - this was amazing and is 90 of the two stars I have given. I absolutely recommend it. Our guide then took us on a short walk with a bit of information and history. He had to repeat everything as it was a double language tour, which meant it took 60mins to hear 30mins of info. We then had about 5mins to use the bathroom, buy souvenirs, and take photos. This was not nearly enough time. If the lunch group wasn't so late we would have had ample time. We travelled from Australia and will likely never get to experience this again - it was very upsetting that we didn't get the few minutes needed to take a couple of photos and enjoy the falls. We then got back on the bus around 4pm and drove...and drove...and drove. We stopped around 11pm for a bathroom break - no one told us we wouldn't be stopping for dinner, or even a bottle of water. We finally got back to the city after midnight.
There were so many ways this tour could have been improved. Communication is the main one. If wrist bands or stickers were given for the various optional parts lunch and boat ride we wouldn't have to have our names ticked off three times. If snacks were provided we wouldn't have had to skip dinner. The bus could have played movies on the 7hr drive - even documentaries about the falls, so the guide didn't have to regurgitate Wikipedia.
The two stars are for the falls alone, which I'm glad to have seen. The tour itself deserves negative stars. I've never been so disgusted or disappointed to have spent money on a tour before.
Wonderful experience. I have visited NY many times, and never thought about experiencing Niagara Falls in one day. When some friends recommended us this tour, we decided to go for it, and we are pleased we did it. The round trip it's very comfortable, and the time spent in Niagara was great. We really recommend the boat experience in summer time. 100 recommended.