One of the most enjoyable aspects of preparing for a significant vacation is selecting all the exciting activities to partake in during your stay, especially when considering Viator tours.
Whether you’re staying relatively close to home or going farther afield, new cities and countries have lots to offer and do, to suit travelers of all kinds.
However, narrowing down your itinerary to create memorable experiences in the timeframe you have available to you can also be a difficult and even daunting part.
How do you know what the best sights to see are, or the best food in town? Which beaches or resorts are the best to visit?
What activities will offer the most fun for your family and friends?
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Viator Tours Review
To make the job of choosing a suitable itinerary a little easier, there are lots of sites and software out there that can help you narrow down all the options to craft the perfect vacation for your needs.
One of the biggest online travel agencies is Viator, We are providing this Viator Tours Review: It is a travel aggregator powered by TripAdvisor Company and offering the world’s largest experiences marketplace to connect travelers of all sorts with booking tours and activities that will make their vacation as memorable as possible.
Viator claims to help solve your problems by providing you with a platform for you to find the perfect itinerary.
But is Viator as good as it sounds?
Is Viator Tours worth it compared to other travel booking sites?
Hotel Booking
Viator is certainly not the first or the only existing booking site for consumers, but it has certain benefits that many travelers find appealing.
For first-time travelers, using a booking company to plan excursions to places they’ve never been is the best way to travel stress-free.
Companies like Viator make planning and embarking on trips much easier, whether you’re traveling solo, with a partner, or with the whole family.
No matter where you’re going or what you’re into – wine tastings, cooking classes, walking tours, site visits, boat tours, historic sites, museums, or beach hopping.
Viator offers more than 300,000 experiences in 200 countries around the world, all in one place to book tours and building your stay simply and affordably.
Viator is certainly not the only service of its sort on the market, but is it the best?
Let’s take a closer look at everything Viator has to offer to see if it’s really better than other websites for planning and booking travel.
How Viator Works
Although Viator was around for several years prior, in 2014 it joined the TripAdvisor family.
You’re probably very familiar with TripAdvisor, as one of the top travel booking and reviews websites.
The two sites also work very well together as part of the same family.
On the main TripAdvisor site, you can book your travel itself – from flights and hotels to cruises and rental cars – while Viator allows you to plan the things you want to do while you’re at your destination.
At Viator, you’ll find tickets, experiences, and tours that will work for any party of travelers.
Detailed descriptions of each tour make it clear what you can expect, so you can decide if it’s right for you.
Beyond that detailed information about each excursion, you’ll find everything else you need to know as well, including information about departures and returns, reviews from others who have taken the tour, and a FAQ section to ensure all your questions are answered.
Viator also prides itself on flexibility, making it easy to cancel (with full refunds for cancellations at least 24 hours in advance on many tours).
They offer payment plans and options that will help you work your chosen tours and experiences into your budget.
With millions of reviews available as well, you can ensure that you’re choosing the best experiences and excursions at any location.
Simplify Your Trip Planning
If you’re going somewhere new and have absolutely no idea where to start putting together a list of things to do, Viator might be just the ticket.
All you have to do is put in your destination and Viator will aggregate a list of things to do in that area, as well as make it easy to book tours, attraction visits, day trips, and other activities.
You can easily sort activities by type, perfect whether you’re a foodie, history buff, or outdoor enthusiast.
Viator also offers other filters to sort activities, such as duration, time of day, group size, and price point.
If budget-friendly is your biggest priority, try filtering for “deals and discounts” to grab a great deal on things to do.
Beyond making it easy to book experiences right on the platform, Viator also offers lists of things to do in just about any destination.
If you want to do some shopping while you wait for entry to your chosen tour, or need to grab something to eat after visiting a popular website.
These lists, sorted by city or country, offer tips and reviews on things to do almost anywhere you can imagine.
How to Book on Viator
Book on Viator
Viator puts all your bookings right at your fingertips. Once you sign up for an account, you can access all your bookings in one location, either on the website or through Viator’s mobile apps.
Next, when you’ve started browsing for tours in your chosen destination, you can further narrow down what will be available by entering the dates you’ll be traveling, your group size, and your budget.
Then it’s just a matter of finding the tours and experiences that catch your eye, and making a reservation.
Be sure to carefully read through all the information provided about the tour, including the price, duration, departure and return time and location, and perhaps most importantly, cancellation policy.
Each tour has its own page, with photos, details of what you can expect to see and do while on the tour, and all the other details.
Pay careful attention to the cancellation policy – while Viator itself offers free cancellation within at least 24 hours of the reservation.
It depends on the tour company itself whether you will be able to get a refund in the event of a cancellation or not.
Additional Pros of Viator
The functionality of Viator is what makes it one of the most popular travel aggregators on the market.
Having the ability to search pages and pages of activities by location, and narrow down the options further by budget, travel dates, group size, family-friendliness, and more makes it easy to customize every trip for every traveler.
Additionally, Viator offers unique experiences in cities around the world, putting thousands of options right at your fingertips to save you time and money on planning your trip.
Extensive details about each excursion and experience, as well as millions of reviews from other travelers, also makes Viator appealing to many tourists.
You’ll get far more information here than you will from many of its competitors, and even from individual tour company websites.
The reviews allow you to get real, unbiased experiences from others who have actually taken the tours as well, making your decision easier and allowing you to know what to expect and make informed plans that best suit your needs.
Do Your Research
Viator’s filters also allow you to find hidden gems and unexpected options that you might not know about otherwise, and perfectly plan every day of your trip.
Additionally, Viator’s parent company, TripAdvisor, is well known as a reputable company in the travel industry, so you can feel safe and secure booking your tours and excursions through Viator.
You’ll also enjoy SSL Encryption to keep your financial information private and safe from hackers and data breaches, so you don’t have to worry about making payments through the site.
And both the site and mobile apps make it easy to manage your tours and payments, make adjustments and modifications, and cancel tours whether you’re at home or already on the go.
Finally, Viator’s Low Price Guarantee means you’ll get the most affordable prices on every experience available on the site.
In fact, Viator is so confident that they offer the best prices that if you find a better price on the same tour or experience within three months of your booking, they’ll refund you the difference!
For further budget-friendliness, you can use the Reserve Now & Pay Later function, which lets you secure your spot on a tour without having to worry about paying too much up front while you’re still making all your plans.
Downsides of Using Viator
No service is perfect, of course, and there are also some obvious downsides to using a service like Viator.
The biggest complaint from most Viator users is the communication issue between travelers and tour companies.
As a third-party aggregator, Viator serves as the middleman between the tour companies and tourists.
That means that if you need to communicate with the operator of your tour, you must go through Viator rather than reaching out directly to the tour company, and some users report that this has not been the smoothest method in the past.
Third-party communication can lead to misunderstandings or a complete lack of communication, which can be frustrating, especially if you’re visiting a place you’ve never been before or don’t know the language.
Similarly, some users have run into issues with Viator’s customer care.
The company offers round-the-clock, multilingual customer service and support, but some reviewers say they’ve had trouble getting the support they needed.
This may be in the form of communication problems with their tour operators, or it may extend to poor interactions with the customer service reps themselves.
Others have reported having to escalate complaints without resolutions and running into issues while attempting to book excursions.
Some travelers weren’t impressed with Viator’s ticketing service or, in extreme circumstances, were allowed to book tickets after events no longer allowed entry.
Many negative reviews speak to less than enthusiastic guides, crowded venues, or subpar meals, factors outside Viator’s control.
Is Viator worth it?
We believe that Viator Tours are worth it to find fun and different experiences for your next destination of choice!
Viator has various things from which to choose and have detailed descriptions, so you know what you’re getting when you book.
Viator does offer an online help center that can assist in resolving simple issues with booking, refunds, cancellations, and other things, but more complex problems will best be solved by reaching out to the customer service team, and based on others’ experiences, you may need to be prepared to exercise some patience along the way.
The Viator cancellation policy is generous — travelers will receive a full refund if they cancel at least 24 hours in advance of most tours.
This cancellation policy does not account for every single tour; it’s important for guests to double-check their booking and the rules that apply.
The Final Word: Is Viator Tours Worthwhile?
Whether you’re new to traveling to a particular area or you’re just looking for something different to do in a favorite location, Viator definitely offers a wealth of opportunities for exploring locales all over the world.
The ease of searching for tours to suit your individual needs and booking them right within Viator’s interface makes it worthwhile to use this travel aggregator.
However, like any other service, make sure you do your best to research every potential excursion and read the fine print so you know details about the tour and its terms and conditions.
Read reviews, bearing in mind that individual circumstances can play a part in a negative review, and be sure you know what you’re paying for.
Then, get ready to enjoy your next trip with all its fun excursions and experiences!
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