Really disappointing tour with a tired tour guide
This was such a disappointing tour and dampened our experience of Vienna. For me, the tour should be called fall OUT of love with Vienna. I shudder every time I think about how much I paid- I have never done a private tour before and it has completely put me off. I was so excited going in to it, too!
Our guide Nicolletta was on her third tour of the day and she let us know it more than once. Considering it was a private tour, I would have expected her to have been enthusiastic and make it a personalised exerience in terms of route and feel. She did not even ask us if there was anything in particular we wanted to see in the city, and we launched straight in to her standard route. She did know some facts about the city and a bit about the history, but it felt scripted, and the few questions I asked she did not know the answer to, and almost made me feel bad for asking ("how on earth am i suppsed to know about every statue", was one reply she gave) She talked over us at some points, and called me back when i walked ahead, and told me to listen! I had walked ahead because her pace was PAINFULLY slow and I was hinting to speed up. (But she was tired from her other tours). She has only been a guide for one year, and before that she has had lots of different jobs, many of them in hospitality in the city. She lets you know this on the tour, as well as telling us how much money she makes from the tours. She took us to a very expensive cafe, didn't want to order anything herself (she said she had eaten so much on the other tours!) but pushed us to order tea and cake... she rather rudely sat there and swigged from her own bottle of fizzy pop, which made me feel uncomfortable in such a nice cafe... I really wasn't fussed on food or drink and would rather have seen more of the city, but honestly it felt backwards, when i mentioned it, she encouraged us to stay as she was tired and needed a break, plus this was a designated stop on the tour?!?!?! At this point I was really tempted to call it quits, but thought that would sour our experience even more on our first night, so we perservered. I assumed the cafe would be included in the enormous price we had paid for the tour, but when it came to the bill, not so! So we then had spent another €35 euros (!) stopped in a cafe we didn't really want to be stopped at, ordering food and drink we didn't need.
It was a nice cafe, and for a real special treat would have been nice if it was just me and my partner, but it was ruined by having her there talking about how she wanted to get in to music.
She gave us a personalised itinerary, and a small biscuit bar, which was a nice touch, and the itinerary taught us some german words and told us the emergency numbers. However the web would do a better job of the 2 day itinerary... it was just one suggestion for morning and afternoon. It also had a free city map which she'd got at the tourist info centre.
Anyway, after the cafe stop we very very slowly moved on and did a few more stops, some of them intro resteraunts and cafés, some in front of historic buildings. Note this tour is a lot about culture rather than history, so expect to go into cafes and look at cakes. If that's you're thing, brill, if not, DO NOT DO THIS TOUR, you will feel awkward sticking your nose in to cafes and watching people eat.
We finished "bang on time" in front of the opera, which she was proud of, but we had walked at like 0.1 kmph. We could have done the 'history' part of her tour in less than an hour and the culture part (going in and out of cake shops) in another 15, had we been moving quicker.
I know I'm going against the grain here with this review but honestly I can't fathom how every other review has been five stars... it just isn't that good of a tour.
In summary, an INSANE amount to spend for a slow and unpersonalised tour. This is not for people who want to know the history of the city. If getting photographed and snapping pictures of cafes is your thing, then maybe...
This activity isn’t bookable for now.!
Vienna
Mobile Ticket
Offered in: Deutsch
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