"They say e-tickets will be available in 3 days after purchase. NEVER HAPPENS. two weeks later and long waits on phone and still no tickets. Don't waste your time or money on this group's so-called claims and promises."
"I will NEVER go near this group again. Ruined our day in Cozumel completely. Directions sent us to the wrong place to meet the guide. When the guide showed up, we had to walk further (with my mother who doesn’t walk well) in the heat and humidity to get to the car that would take us to our excursion. Car was small and had no A/C. The guide dumped us at one location and then disappeared and we were never taken to the place where we were supposed to spend the day. I made 4 phone calls to the local and US numbers and spent over an hour of roaming minutes trying to get their mess cleaned up and then to demand a refund for the current excursion and the one we had purchased the next day. The supposed “manager” I spoke with lied repeatedly, try to put me at fault for their problems and refused my demands for a refund. I had purchased excursions with them for a cruise in May, which I am cancelling. My travel agent is now fighting with them to get my refunds and I am considering suing them if she can’t get any results. RUN AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!"
"I booked an excursion with this company. While on my cruise, I noticed that the meeting time was before our ship even docked at the port. I called the number provided, and explained my concerns with this. They called back stating that they spoke with the local operators of the excursion and they were aware of our itinerary change and to just show up when we got there. This still concerned me that we were not given a new meeting time, and were just supposed to show up when we got there. Our ship did not let us off of the boat until 10:10 local time and it took us 20 minutes to get out of the terminal. When we met the guides, they told us we were late and the group left without us. I informed them that there is no way we could be late, as we were told to show up when we got there. There were 7 other cruise ships in that port, so the people who were "on time" clearly got off their ship before we did. Fifteen minutes after they told us we could not go on the excursion, they came to find us in the market center and said they would take us anyways. Our tour guide, Ramon, did a great job try to salvage our experience. The package we purchased said that lunch was included. The tour guide told us at the start of our excursion that lunch was included. When we got to the resort, we had to purchase our lunch. When I got back, I contacted the Shore Excursions Group, and informed them that we had to pay for lunch even though what we purchased was supposed to include it. The person that helped me, read the description of the excursion, then said out loud to me...yes, I see here where it says lunch should have been included. He asked what sort of compensation I was looking for. I told him I just wanted the price of lunch to be refunded since it should have been included. That same person has just emailed me a week later stating that the excursion does not say that it includes lunch, yet last week he stated that it did. It is incredibly irritating to know what was supposed to be included, the guide knowing it was supposed to be included, and even the Shore Excursion Rep that I spoke to confirming that it should have been included, to now stating that it wasn't included and our being late to the excursion was somehow our fault."
"The tour we purchased for Split, Croatia was guided tour, however, we were put on the local hop-on hop-off bus tour which costs 1/3 of what we've paid. Yes, we've paid 3 times more and were put on the exact same bus!!! I was scammed by American company 8,000 miles away and it was worst feeling ever and ruined the whole day. I complained and they don't even apologize. Not an honest company and I would not recommend using their service.
"
"If you need PRIVATE shore excursions avoid this operator at all costs. This operator will not return phone calls, agents are ill trained in the destinations they book, emails are not returned. Filing complaints with management yield no results. Agents REFUSE to transfer to owners or higher up supervisors to solve problems. I have been trying to reach out to upper management about bad service issues for 7 months with no results. Which has resulted in a loss of business for me as clients booked elsewhere."
"I had a bad experience with one of their subcontractors. Shore Excursions reached out to me to resolve this... they refunded my money, and they're addressing the issue with that company.
What happened?
We drove the jeep out of the parking lot, hit the brakes and the pedal went to the floor. I pumped, pumped and pulled the parking brake to get it to stop. Thankfully, I was able to do it without hitting anyone (and we were in traffic.)
They took about 30 minutes to get me another jeep. (We lost this time on our tour with no compensation.)
The first and second jeep had over 130K miles. The second jeep had the ABS light on, the traction control light on, the check engine light on. Oh well... we drove and had no problems from there.
After the sinkhole tour, you go to the tequila tasting room where you get about 7 shots of hard liquor and liqueur. It's equal to about 2-3 full drinks. I didn't feel it too much, but the lady in the jeep in front of me said she didn't feel sober enough to drive... but she did anyway.
So... old jeeps... unsafe equipment (brake failure and seatbelt), unsafe tour plan (tequila tasting and then driving) and they censor negative reviews.
That said... the tour itself was pretty decent. Safety is my concern. But, Shore Excursion Group is working to fix this. "
"Don't use Shore Excursions Group,LLC! We bought an excursion from them for Amsterdam. The directions gave a location to walk to in 10 minutes. That location turned out to be a peninsula about a mile long, and they gave us no clue where to then go. We wandered around a long time and missed our tour. They agreed to provide a refund, but our day had been partially ruined. They offered nothing but a refund, no future discounts. When I asked for discounts, they offered 25% off excursions for one future cruise, provided I did a review on a different tour we had taken with them. I did that review and received a confirmation number for that future discount. But when I tried to use that discount and gave these people that confirmation number, they couldn't find it! She said they'd look further and call me back. They never did! I complained to Costco, but they also got no satisfaction from Shore Excursions Group,LLC. Bad company!"
"I booked 8 excursions with Shore Excursion Group. The majority were good, some were OK and one was terrible.
The worst excursion was one where the main attraction was closed. The secondary attraction was far from what was promised (we had to pay for entry to a "premier" beach which was a piece of sand crammed with sun beds which we also had to pay for). The third attraction was replaced with a visit to a tacky tourist rip off shop. $100 for a 90 minute drive in a bus...
After complaining, Shore Excursions Group amended their website and then claimed that we had been informed of the additional costs prior to the tour. I don't see the point in paying a premium on top of booking direct with tour providers and then being left high and dry when things aren't as promised.
I will book direct in future, shore excursions group offer no customer service when things go wrong. The most unpleasant aspect was their underhand tactics of changing the tour description on their website after the fact. Very dishonest practices."
"As others have said, run away from this company as they will take your money without providing the business as promised. If my review inputs can discourage one person from giving them more business, I'm satisfied. I hope they will be out of business soon. Shame on them for taking advantage of hard working, honest people. "
"Don't buy their Excursion Protection Plan. It is completely a waste of money. We had problem getting to our tour's meeting point on time, thinking we can get a refund because we bought the Excursion Protection Plan. However, they refuse to refund us. What is the point of buying Excursion Protection Plan if you cannot get a refund in case of emergency. What's worse is their customer service, we emailed first about our refund. They emailed back ask us to call them. When we called, it took them about 2 weeks to get back to us and denied our refund on a Saturday. So we have to wait until Monday to call them back to complain, because they don't "work" on weekends. That is very convenient of you to bring the bad news to your customers when they cannot reach you!"
"All,
Please do not use this service. I paid $1285 for my tour to Keywest tour. No service provided and they stole all my money. No refund."
"Book a volcano hike on St kitts. A 6 in tour with lunch and refreshments. Once in the van we were told we were going on a 2 hour nature hike. No lunch, refreshments and our guide was a 15 year old kid. It was the worst excursion I have ever been on. Of course no refund or discount was offered. Stay away!"
"Horrible Experience.
I booked an excursion with them for my husband & I in Cannes for November 2015.
Of course we had to pre-pay.
We waited for them on a freezing cold for an hour - they didn't show up.
We watched all the other people getting picked up by their guides...
I called them twice while waiting.
First call to their regular line after half an hour of waiting - left them a voice mail. No call back.
Second call to their emergency line after an hour of waiting - I was left on hold for about 10 minutes. I finally hung up. Getting charged for both international calls.
We finally ended up being picked up by another guide, a very nice lady. She took us off cold & said we could ride with her & her group if we wanted to. The problem was - that tour group was going to places we have been before, NOT what we paid for.
She called Shore Excursions Group office to find out why we weren't picked up & she was told " Sorry, We don't know how it happened"
We got back to States last week & I called their office to get a refund.
I was told they will look into it & call me back.
More than a week later - no call.
I just called them again & was told they can offer me 10% refund because it is our fault that we didn't show up for our tour.
I was so upset I was going to explode.
They said they would resubmit the claim & to call back in another week.
Will never deal with them again. Horrible. I should have just done a charge back, but I thought it would be decent to contact them first & give them a chance to fix the mistake.
"
"Very bad experience. DO NOT USE! Poor subcontractors with unsafe practices, bad time management. Originally booked morning excursion, the shore excursion company switched it to afternoon. We cancelled and they called back promising they were very close to the dock--TOTAL LIE! The dock and the excursion were 20 minutes apart. We had to shorten our excursion to get back to the tender boats on time. We cut out 30 minutes and were almost the last tender boat getting back to the ship. Received mildewed life jackets, jet skis that needed to be serviced, and little instruction regarding safe operation. No one was concerned about us getting back to the boat on time. WILL NEVER CONSIDER USING A NON-CRUISE SHIP OPERATOR AGAIN! Booked Grand Cayman jet skis to starfish beach and sting ray excursion. Called later to get a partial refund based on experience and was not given anything. BUYER BEWARE!"
"They are only as good as their agent at the port of call. October 2014 Zeebrugge (for Bruges) was very poor and I requested and got a refund, April 2015 Civitavecchia for Rome was fair and April 2015 Livorno for Florence and Pisa was excellent."