This company does not operate the tours it advertises but uses other companies mainly ethnic chinese to provide the service
My recent experience on an 8 dy Las Vegas to mount Rushmore tour was an example of what happened . Since then searchs on Trip advisor and Trust Pilot have shown the to be unscrupulous and discrimatry even to the chinese they cater for. Examples
On day one we assembled in the area suggested . Nobody told us or annouced the bus had arrived After that the tour decscended into chaos, with people fighting to load their own luggage. The driver did not assit unti he found that all the luggage would not fit. Eventually loaded we proceed to St george and were told we would be staying at the Zion Hotel This Hotel was a disgrace and not the one that was listed. The AIrconditioner was noisy sounded like a Helicopter. We were told there was a nearby shop where we could purchase food. It was a kilometre walk there and there was no place to keep the food once purchased as the refrigerators were not working . Only one light had a globe in it.
Early the next morning we were switched to differant buses according to our tours. No breakfast facilities in the hotel noiron in the room
The rest of the tour continued in this vain with a Chines guide who knew nothing about where we were and played a violent war movie (The Wind Talkers" ) to explain the Navajo Nation
The stops were at Chinese restaurants and if we asked where the regular restaurants were the guide had no idea. Often the restaurant was not the one we were told was available and they did not care if we ate or got a decent meal.
Finally each day wew were asked for a service fee for the guide. entry to all attractions and a fuel surcharge fee that were aware of but mine was $40.00 but they asked for $60.00. Think of it this way a surcharge is supposed to cover costs if the fuel price went up. It did not.so a bus load of 60 people paid an extra $3600 for something that should have been in the price. Additional fees were charged for Park Entry.
When the bus broke down we were told that we would be offered compensation of a meal. It turned out to be a Maconalds for the evening meal and we could "Take it or leave it" Along the whole trip there was no accounting for amounts asked for. The guide said he would have to pay any momies we did not collect so we had to pay him
So for a 650.00 trip we paid $ 150 more and there was a tip (Called a service fee) which was mandatory. Tips are for service not rip off The whole operation of this company is suspect and should be avoied at all cost. The guides are unproffesional fees are extorted by threat or half truths and no accountong. The duty of care to ill and age is doubtful.
Eight days of similar treatment did not make the trip enjoyable and belied the purpose of a holiday to relax. The policies of the company served to anger me and fellow passengers Take Tours subcontrcats to other operators and does not own a bus, They are just scammers preying on captive customers.
Other sites have had similar complaints https:// au.trustpilot.com/ review/ taketours.com
Thanks for the china trip but i have asked for east coast package!!!!
I have called customer care and was kept on hold for 15 – 20mins as soon as complaint was made.
I would need full refund of my money which I have paid plus 650USD which was forcefully made to transfer to tour
guide. I will be filing a legal case on taketours, tours4fun, l & l travels if you continue to operate this way and don’t
refund my money.
I read the reviews on the site before booking this site, please dont tell me if these are real. All fake reviews.
This trip is total cheating and deceiving with hidden charges and tricky itenary. This is pure form of selling where your
tour guide is forcing indirectly to choose all the tour admissions.
lets start with each day of torture you guys made me through
Day 1: Itinerary talks about exploring Flushing,NY and Elizabeth, NJ and NYC Night Tour. you clearly said that anyone
who arrives before 4:30pm have an option of joining night tour of the City. But there was only option to join night tour if
I don’t transfer to hotel. How can you even imagine someone to roam the city without even having an option to freshup
and change our dress. I would have been expecting to transfer to the hotel , freshup and then then night tour starts.
But you trickily deceived by booking an hotel 40miles from the city giving no option for anyone to explore the city once
they get into hotel. You made walk in hot sun with a baby just dropping us at place in china town where you guys don’t
even have a restroom nor a place to sit, no fan no ac. You made search for food in hot new York weather. I have been
repeatedly asking for the schedule and no one gave correct answer. The only information I got from the pick up people
is “your tour guide will explain you the process tomorrow”. Who is that person no one knows till the second day. So
hotel is booked very far from new York city where we don’t even have an option to good proper food or proper
transportation. I had to book a UBER cab to go to city and come back which costed me 200 USD. Its so far that we
were so tired to get into city and come back loosing all time and wasting money.
When we asked tour guide windy xi ( am not sure if that is real name) about schedule and why the hotel was booked
so far, the rude answer we got is “you get what you paid for, keep quiet and go to hotel, am working now”. I was not in
a mood to fight or argue with such rude person so left the place.
Summary: DAY 1 is nothing but hotel transfer, there is no tour at all. If you have informed me earlier I would have
booked my flight in the evening so that I can directly get transferred to hotel. This makes the tour to 5 day from the
actual 6 day tour. Rude behavior from tour guide windy. Wasted 200USD to get into city to do nothing.
DAY2: Although disappointed for the first day show, we expected things will go fine on second day. We are asked to
get ready by 6.30am so we are. Tour began at 6.30 as expected, we were very excited. We travelled from our hotel to
other hotel picking other travelers which wasted some time and long travel from new jersey to new York. Asked to
complete the tour of first attraction empire state building in 45mins with big queues giving us no option to use a
restroom or breakfast and we left the place not even watching the attraction completely. Next is statue of liberty Cruise
in HOT SUN in afternoon, guys if you know the temperature in new York don’t you know what time is good or bad for
Cruise. I don’t plan the things keeping the trust in your guys. Its soo hot that we didn’t enjoy coming out of the cruise
to see the view. We are already hungry and tired as we don’t have any breakfast. Most disappointing thing is cruise
doesn’t stop at statue of liberty and just passes through it. Not even a picture at that famous place. Disappointed big
time. Next is Intrepid sea and air museum when we reached we are already fully drained because of hunger and high
temperatures , tour guide windy has already given us tickets in the morning for all the attractions and collected money
well before the tour so cleverly did that we don’t have an option to cancel any of those attractions. We were asked to
finish our lunch, use restrooms and visit the attraction in 1hr 30mins which costed 110USD for 3people giving us no
time to watch the attraction but use only restroom and have food in very bad eatery.
Rest of the attractions like wallstreet, Newyork stock exchange, Trinity Church,times square, world trade center,
ground zero, rockfeller center, united nations, fifth avenue are just passing by attractions where we don’t even s****.>
Started at 7.00am to Washington DC on July 4th independence day, tour guide gave us an option to get some
breakfast and use restrooms in the morning after complaints from many travelers.
Reached Philadelphia in the morning Itinerary talks about Liberty Bell and independence hall. This is tricky again.
Both are just one place. We don’t research on the tour trusting you guys. You just cheated us making us assume you
are covering many places again.
Next is Washington DC which we reached by 12.30pm. Afternoon weather very hot, you stopped at a place for cruise.
Again not a good time for cruise. So I cancelled it. We are made to stand in hot sun as there are no rest rooms not
place to sit. No shade. We had to search for place to sit with a 1.5yr old baby in that hot sun. Tour guide didn’t even
cared to show us a place to sit or use restroom. There are other elderly people from other countries who don’t even
know the place were simply standing in hot sun. No lunch break so far. No Option to sit in bus even. They don’t even
switch on the ac too. We need to stand in hot sun if we don’t want to choose the cruise option. So you are simply
punishing us for not choosing the cruise. You guys just say that attractions are optional but you are forcing indirectly to
choose all attractions otherwise you get punished. So easy to understand that tour guide gains commission in selling
those attraction tickets.
Next is walking tour
We are made to walk almost 5miles in Washington DC to see Lincoln memorial, white house etc because it is
Independence Day and all roads are blocked. Independence is fixed on july 4th every year, there is no change in it,
you should clearly know that all roads will be blocked on that day then why did you even planned this day at this
place? Tour itinerary talks about 7 attractions where in we got time to visit atmost 2 attractions after an hour of
walking. We had to visit one of museum to take some shade. We simply went inside and sat for almost 45mins.
We just saw lincon memorial that too tired, hungry, drenched in rain, full of sweat. Everything. What the hell ? is this
what I have paid for ? I have spent close to 3500USD for this trip for this torture ?
We book tours for fun, joy and relaxing but this turned out to be torture and walking in hot sun. even elderly people had no option but to walk and walk. Funny part is dinner, tour guide planned for dinner buffet with Chinese menu which we don’t want to have. The only option left was to have some food in “Dollor Tree”. There are no other place to have food. Again he made us forced to starve if we don’t accept the dinner buffet which he has choosen. Even after requesting and arguing with tour guide he didn’t give us another break for dinner. The place choosen for dinner was very far from the city that I couldn’t even book a cab on my own and have food. We went to hotel starving ordering a delivery which had extra delivery fee and having dinner at 12.30 am.
Summary: I don’t even consider this as day covered, what we did is walking and walking and starving for
food. This made tour to 4 days removing first day and day 3 from 6 day package.
Day 4: After long travel reached Niagara falls, tour guide rudely dropped few people in a place where there is no
proper rest area for who are not interested in visiting old Niagara fort. Same logic again if you don’t pay for tour guide
attraction you have to suffer in hot sun. he is cleverly pushing people. Maid of the mist was good tour. Again no stop
for dinner so we had to suffer to get proper food near Niagara. When asked he simply shouts that “this is America”, I
don’t understand if this is America cant he stop at good place to have food.
Summary: Just Niagara falls in this day was worth , half a day to count.
DAY5 and DAY6: Both the days are fully travelling in bus, please don’t even call them as attractions by just watching
from bus or watching the walls of MIT or Harvard. You just tricked us to think that these are places or attractions to
visit. Day fully spent in bus travelling.
Overall feedback: This tour is terrible, wasted for 3500USD which we spent in air tickets, fee which we paid for tour ,
additional service charge your tour guide forced us to pay and 7 days of vacation wasted starving for food. Tired,
hectic, china trip, fights, money waste, time waste are good tags for your company.
Only good part was hotel which are not great but decent.
Take Tours Reviews
This company does not operate the tours it advertises but uses other companies mainly ethnic chinese to provide the service
My recent experience on an 8 dy Las Vegas to mount Rushmore tour was an example of what happened . Since then searchs on Trip advisor and Trust Pilot have shown the to be unscrupulous and discrimatry even to the chinese they cater for. Examples
On day one we assembled in the area suggested . Nobody told us or annouced the bus had arrived After that the tour decscended into chaos, with people fighting to load their own luggage. The driver did not assit unti he found that all the luggage would not fit. Eventually loaded we proceed to St george and were told we would be staying at the Zion Hotel This Hotel was a disgrace and not the one that was listed. The AIrconditioner was noisy sounded like a Helicopter. We were told there was a nearby shop where we could purchase food. It was a kilometre walk there and there was no place to keep the food once purchased as the refrigerators were not working . Only one light had a globe in it.
Early the next morning we were switched to differant buses according to our tours. No breakfast facilities in the hotel noiron in the room
The rest of the tour continued in this vain with a Chines guide who knew nothing about where we were and played a violent war movie (The Wind Talkers" ) to explain the Navajo Nation
The stops were at Chinese restaurants and if we asked where the regular restaurants were the guide had no idea. Often the restaurant was not the one we were told was available and they did not care if we ate or got a decent meal.
Finally each day wew were asked for a service fee for the guide. entry to all attractions and a fuel surcharge fee that were aware of but mine was $40.00 but they asked for $60.00. Think of it this way a surcharge is supposed to cover costs if the fuel price went up. It did not.so a bus load of 60 people paid an extra $3600 for something that should have been in the price. Additional fees were charged for Park Entry.
When the bus broke down we were told that we would be offered compensation of a meal. It turned out to be a Maconalds for the evening meal and we could "Take it or leave it" Along the whole trip there was no accounting for amounts asked for. The guide said he would have to pay any momies we did not collect so we had to pay him
So for a 650.00 trip we paid $ 150 more and there was a tip (Called a service fee) which was mandatory. Tips are for service not rip off The whole operation of this company is suspect and should be avoied at all cost. The guides are unproffesional fees are extorted by threat or half truths and no accountong. The duty of care to ill and age is doubtful.
Eight days of similar treatment did not make the trip enjoyable and belied the purpose of a holiday to relax. The policies of the company served to anger me and fellow passengers Take Tours subcontrcats to other operators and does not own a bus, They are just scammers preying on captive customers.
Other sites have had similar complaints https:// au.trustpilot.com/ review/ taketours.com
Thanks for the china trip but i have asked for east coast package!!!!
I have called customer care and was kept on hold for 15 – 20mins as soon as complaint was made.
I would need full refund of my money which I have paid plus 650USD which was forcefully made to transfer to tour
guide. I will be filing a legal case on taketours, tours4fun, l & l travels if you continue to operate this way and don’t
refund my money.
I read the reviews on the site before booking this site, please dont tell me if these are real. All fake reviews.
This trip is total cheating and deceiving with hidden charges and tricky itenary. This is pure form of selling where your
tour guide is forcing indirectly to choose all the tour admissions.
lets start with each day of torture you guys made me through
Day 1: Itinerary talks about exploring Flushing,NY and Elizabeth, NJ and NYC Night Tour. you clearly said that anyone
who arrives before 4:30pm have an option of joining night tour of the City. But there was only option to join night tour if
I don’t transfer to hotel. How can you even imagine someone to roam the city without even having an option to freshup
and change our dress. I would have been expecting to transfer to the hotel , freshup and then then night tour starts.
But you trickily deceived by booking an hotel 40miles from the city giving no option for anyone to explore the city once
they get into hotel. You made walk in hot sun with a baby just dropping us at place in china town where you guys don’t
even have a restroom nor a place to sit, no fan no ac. You made search for food in hot new York weather. I have been
repeatedly asking for the schedule and no one gave correct answer. The only information I got from the pick up people
is “your tour guide will explain you the process tomorrow”. Who is that person no one knows till the second day. So
hotel is booked very far from new York city where we don’t even have an option to good proper food or proper
transportation. I had to book a UBER cab to go to city and come back which costed me 200 USD. Its so far that we
were so tired to get into city and come back loosing all time and wasting money.
When we asked tour guide windy xi ( am not sure if that is real name) about schedule and why the hotel was booked
so far, the rude answer we got is “you get what you paid for, keep quiet and go to hotel, am working now”. I was not in
a mood to fight or argue with such rude person so left the place.
Summary: DAY 1 is nothing but hotel transfer, there is no tour at all. If you have informed me earlier I would have
booked my flight in the evening so that I can directly get transferred to hotel. This makes the tour to 5 day from the
actual 6 day tour. Rude behavior from tour guide windy. Wasted 200USD to get into city to do nothing.
DAY2: Although disappointed for the first day show, we expected things will go fine on second day. We are asked to
get ready by 6.30am so we are. Tour began at 6.30 as expected, we were very excited. We travelled from our hotel to
other hotel picking other travelers which wasted some time and long travel from new jersey to new York. Asked to
complete the tour of first attraction empire state building in 45mins with big queues giving us no option to use a
restroom or breakfast and we left the place not even watching the attraction completely. Next is statue of liberty Cruise
in HOT SUN in afternoon, guys if you know the temperature in new York don’t you know what time is good or bad for
Cruise. I don’t plan the things keeping the trust in your guys. Its soo hot that we didn’t enjoy coming out of the cruise
to see the view. We are already hungry and tired as we don’t have any breakfast. Most disappointing thing is cruise
doesn’t stop at statue of liberty and just passes through it. Not even a picture at that famous place. Disappointed big
time. Next is Intrepid sea and air museum when we reached we are already fully drained because of hunger and high
temperatures , tour guide windy has already given us tickets in the morning for all the attractions and collected money
well before the tour so cleverly did that we don’t have an option to cancel any of those attractions. We were asked to
finish our lunch, use restrooms and visit the attraction in 1hr 30mins which costed 110USD for 3people giving us no
time to watch the attraction but use only restroom and have food in very bad eatery.
Rest of the attractions like wallstreet, Newyork stock exchange, Trinity Church,times square, world trade center,
ground zero, rockfeller center, united nations, fifth avenue are just passing by attractions where we don’t even s****.>
Started at 7.00am to Washington DC on July 4th independence day, tour guide gave us an option to get some
breakfast and use restrooms in the morning after complaints from many travelers.
Reached Philadelphia in the morning Itinerary talks about Liberty Bell and independence hall. This is tricky again.
Both are just one place. We don’t research on the tour trusting you guys. You just cheated us making us assume you
are covering many places again.
Next is Washington DC which we reached by 12.30pm. Afternoon weather very hot, you stopped at a place for cruise.
Again not a good time for cruise. So I cancelled it. We are made to stand in hot sun as there are no rest rooms not
place to sit. No shade. We had to search for place to sit with a 1.5yr old baby in that hot sun. Tour guide didn’t even
cared to show us a place to sit or use restroom. There are other elderly people from other countries who don’t even
know the place were simply standing in hot sun. No lunch break so far. No Option to sit in bus even. They don’t even
switch on the ac too. We need to stand in hot sun if we don’t want to choose the cruise option. So you are simply
punishing us for not choosing the cruise. You guys just say that attractions are optional but you are forcing indirectly to
choose all attractions otherwise you get punished. So easy to understand that tour guide gains commission in selling
those attraction tickets.
Next is walking tour
We are made to walk almost 5miles in Washington DC to see Lincoln memorial, white house etc because it is
Independence Day and all roads are blocked. Independence is fixed on july 4th every year, there is no change in it,
you should clearly know that all roads will be blocked on that day then why did you even planned this day at this
place? Tour itinerary talks about 7 attractions where in we got time to visit atmost 2 attractions after an hour of
walking. We had to visit one of museum to take some shade. We simply went inside and sat for almost 45mins.
We just saw lincon memorial that too tired, hungry, drenched in rain, full of sweat. Everything. What the hell ? is this
what I have paid for ? I have spent close to 3500USD for this trip for this torture ?
We book tours for fun, joy and relaxing but this turned out to be torture and walking in hot sun. even elderly people had no option but to walk and walk. Funny part is dinner, tour guide planned for dinner buffet with Chinese menu which we don’t want to have. The only option left was to have some food in “Dollor Tree”. There are no other place to have food. Again he made us forced to starve if we don’t accept the dinner buffet which he has choosen. Even after requesting and arguing with tour guide he didn’t give us another break for dinner. The place choosen for dinner was very far from the city that I couldn’t even book a cab on my own and have food. We went to hotel starving ordering a delivery which had extra delivery fee and having dinner at 12.30 am.
Summary: I don’t even consider this as day covered, what we did is walking and walking and starving for
food. This made tour to 4 days removing first day and day 3 from 6 day package.
Day 4: After long travel reached Niagara falls, tour guide rudely dropped few people in a place where there is no
proper rest area for who are not interested in visiting old Niagara fort. Same logic again if you don’t pay for tour guide
attraction you have to suffer in hot sun. he is cleverly pushing people. Maid of the mist was good tour. Again no stop
for dinner so we had to suffer to get proper food near Niagara. When asked he simply shouts that “this is America”, I
don’t understand if this is America cant he stop at good place to have food.
Summary: Just Niagara falls in this day was worth , half a day to count.
DAY5 and DAY6: Both the days are fully travelling in bus, please don’t even call them as attractions by just watching
from bus or watching the walls of MIT or Harvard. You just tricked us to think that these are places or attractions to
visit. Day fully spent in bus travelling.
Overall feedback: This tour is terrible, wasted for 3500USD which we spent in air tickets, fee which we paid for tour ,
additional service charge your tour guide forced us to pay and 7 days of vacation wasted starving for food. Tired,
hectic, china trip, fights, money waste, time waste are good tags for your company.
Only good part was hotel which are not great but decent.