This tour is advertised as a full day, 8 hour tour. Before booking this tour, I checked that we would make our 6:40pm flight out of LAX at the end of the tour. I was assured that the tour would finish at 4pm, when we would be dropped off at the airport.
Unfortunately we did not get off our ship until after 10. We were one of the later groups allowed off the ship. The driver was courteous enough to wait for us. After loading into the van, we drove around a while and then stopped for the view of the Hollywood Sign and on to Hollywood Boulevard. As we vacated the van, I confirmed with the driver that he knew that we had a flight out of LAX at 6:40pm. He was unaware of this. He then said he would drop us off at LAX at 5pm, but we would have to skip Santa Monica Beach. He would have to rearrange the tour, but would make sure to have us at the airport at 5pm. After we all loaded back into the van at the end of the designated time at Hollywood Boulevard, the driver announced that because a group had an early flight, we would be cutting the lunch break down to 45 minutes and skipping both beaches to get to the airport on time. He said he would finish the full tour with the remaining people after dropping the group off at the airport for their early flight. After we loaded back up after lunch, the driver announced that we were going to be heading to the airport immediately because you never knew what traffic would be like. He said he would quickly go through Beverly Hills and then on to the airport. We arrived at the airport at 3pm. We were more than three hours early for our flight.
Part of the reason for booking this tour was the opportunity to see the beaches. We weren’t able to make it to either one. That was very disappointing to us. It was also frustrating that the driver kept stating that our group had an early flight, so we had to be dropped off at the airport early. We never considered our 6:40pm flight as an early flight.
Our tour lasted less than 5 hours. I did reach out to the company to request a partial refund due to missing the beaches and having less than 5 hours. The response back was: So sorry for your disappointment, But please note: Our pick up time from the port is at 9:00 to 9:15 am, which means if passengers are late for "any reasons" we are not responsible for their delay and we shall not wait any further after that time. In your case we waited till 10:00 am , till you were able to exit the ship. I don't believe offering a reimbursement would be a fair deal to us after all above!
So, BUYER BEWARE, don't book unless you can guarantee to be available for the pickup at 9-9:15am. As most cruisers know, it is impossible to guarantee that you will disembark the ship at a certain time.
Відповідь від хоста
Nov 2022
Thank you for taking the time to submit your comments concerning your recent tour with us. As you indicated throughout your review, time is frequently an issue. Making modifications to accommodate requests is a challenge especially if the request involves only a few individuals on the tour. In your case, we did wait for nearly an hour beyond our normal time for you to disembark from your cruise ship. That delay necessitated adjusting some of the time spent at attractions along the tour. When the request also includes connecting with a flight, the time adjustment challenge is even more complex. Our guide adapted to your request by modifying the itinerary to assure you would be at the airport in time for your flight. He determined that going through Santa Monica and Venice together with the rush hour freeway traffic would make getting you to the airport on time risky. He opted to modify the itinerary to honor your request by taking you to the airport and then doubling back to all the others on the tour with the beach portion of the tour. That modification got you to the airport while minimally inconveniencing the other guests who, incidentally, had their tour delayed by your disembarcation from your cruise ship. Getting to the airport earlier is better than getting there too late for your flight. To date, we have not received any complaints from the other guests on that tour even though the modification did result in their tour running longer than scheduled.