I booked this trip for myself and my daughter, we chose the hour long express trip and booked about two weeks prior to being in NYC.
Most of the online booking form was easy, apart from it won’t let you confirm your booking unless you opt to pay a 20% gratuity up front. There is no option, you have to pay it or you cannot proceed any further with your booking. Who pays gratuities up front any way? So our bill for this tour cost $210. Total ( $ 75 each person, $30 gratuity $30 taxes and fees.)
When you confirm your booking you then get a message “ Friendly reminder: 20% customary gratuity/tip for your driver/tour guide is NOT included in the price you paid so far”. Upon seeing this message and having just paid a tip of $30, I was confused so emailed the company to clarify if I was expected to tip the driver again on the day. No response. I emailed again a few days later, no response.
Other than this ,communication with the company was generally good, telling us where we needed to meet our driver. 55th street,7th Ave, meet inside Starbucks.
On the day of the trip, my daughter and I went to the agreed meeting point about 5 minutes early. No sign of any guide of a pedicab outside Starbucks. We asked the staff in there if they knew of gossip girl tours but they had no idea. We then walked around the corner to another Starbucks to find the same situation. When we phoned the company, ZaZa said he was on his way. When eventually met up , we were 15 minutes into the tour.
There was an A4 size sign facing you on the pedicab, suggesting various gratuities…… $11 -$20…. Thank you…….$20-$30 ….thank you very much…. $30-$50 we love you….. and so on up to $100?
As for the actual tour, Za Za did take us to see various Gossip Girl interest points and shared various interesting points with us. Lauderee, Central park etc and generally I think the tour was ok. He was polite and willing to stop to take photos and we just about got our hours worth of the tour.
I don’t think the tour was worth the money but then everything in any major city is expensive. Despite this I would recommend the tour but the company need to be at the meeting point on time and the up front gratuity needs addressing. These points left us feeling anxious we were being scammed, which was not the case.
When we ended the tour I alighted the pedicab and thanked our guide but I didn’t leave a gratuity simply because, he was late collecting us which lead to unnecessary confusion as to us being in the right place but mostly because I has already given a $30 gratuity up front.