Best Tours

My experience with Best Tours was not positive. The first time I reserved my coffee tour in Boston, it was canceled the week of the tour. Today (2 months after making the first reservation), I finally went on the tour and was confused and disappointed. I was naturally expecting to sample some different coffees from the many cafes in Back Bay, yet we only had coffee at ONE of the 5 locations, and it was espresso which not everyone on the tour drank. There also was no «barista demonstration» as the advertised highlights suggested. While having coffee cake and a coffee chocolate truffle was nice, it was not what I expected, and could have easily been accompanied with a tiny cup of coffee at each spot. This was more of a dessert tour than a coffee tour, which is not what I signed up for. Our last stop included a red velvet cupcake which made no sense to me since it was not related to coffee at all! Each spot felt a rushed, which wasn’t necessary since the tour ended early, and the explanation about what we were eating and why it was selected was lacking.

I’d give zero stars if I could!
I purchased a Living Social voucher for 2 ‘Cupcake and Macaron Tours’ in Seattle, as did 3 additional friends (for a total of 5 customers) in early March. We scheduled our tour right away to celebrate one of the customer’s birthday. Our original scheduled day was Saturday May 7^th.
On May 6^th, less than 48 hour prior to the tour (as stated in the contract), we received notice of cancellation. At that point, I contact the company and was told it was not financially feasible to do a tour with less than 10 guests. I was assured it was a very rare occurrence that a cancellation should happen and that 90% of tours ran on time (which, frankly, is a horrible business practice — I would not use a vendor that showed up 90% of the time for any reason!).
One member of the group asked for a list of vendors after our 1^st cancellation, thinking perhaps we’d do a self-​guided tour. That request was denied, leading us to believe this tour is non-​existent (while it may be considered poor business practice to give your ‘secret spots’ away, not working with customers in this situation as well as the future things that happen lead me to make this otherwise-​rash opinion.).
The birthday was ruined, but we were committed to taking our friend on this tour, as he loves macarons. We coordinated calendars and found the only date in the near future that this could work for us — Saturday — June 3^rd. 3 people in the party cancelled a weekend trip because we knew that scheduling for this group would be difficult.
However, the Thursday morning prior I received a text message that said the tour had been cancelled. This is the 2^nd cancellation. The text, much like the last, said to check email for rescheduling instructions. However, in both cases, the email did not arrive within a timely fashion — some of the group received the email for reschedule 24 hours prior to the event; some group members never received it. Unprofessional to say the least! I do appreciate the 48 hour notice, this time, but it is still not acceptable. Because now, nearly 2 months after our initial purchase of vouchers, the birthday celebration has been ruined twice.
All members of the group proceeded to contact Best Tours. The only way to do so is via an online chatroom or an email. I sent an email (very similar to this) and then tried the chat. Each of my friends tried the chat as well. One friend asked if she was to reschedule, would it be guaranteed a group of 5 people would not be canceled on a 3^rd time, out of courtesy of our persistence to use their company? She was told no — they will not promised a tour at all.
Another friend talked to the chat and was told that Best Tours is «trying to establish a business in Seattle» and that’s why they’re not actually able to give tours. She reported that they’re still figuring out how to run this tour.
The person I talked to on the chat asked what I’d like to be done to solve the problem. I said I’d like to take the tour I paid for at the time I selected. They said, «Sure! Contact Living Social to do that for you — they’re your vendor.» This is a paraphrase, but the short version of it. I was then told to email the email listed, which I said I had done already. I asked to be sure I got a reply. The chat employee said, «Sure thing,» and left the conversation.
4 days later, I had not heard back. I contacted the company via the chat room again, as the email was obviously not working. I was asked how they could help — could I tell them what the email said? When I said I could but I had been told to email, they said, «Okay, that’s fine.» I was then told that the company receives «so many complaint emails on the weekends it’ll take a few more days.» That’s not exactly a promising indicator of the service provided.
9 days later, I have heard nothing. I tried to talk to the chat room again today, but no answer.
This business practice is fraud. There is no evidence that we will be able to take the tour. And in the meantime, you are holding our money, making interest off funds you are not rendering service for. Should we have known this business lacks professionalism or any customer service, we would not have fronted money and could be investing it for several months prior to the tour.
Each of the people who booked were finally able to contact Living Social. We had different experiences, but a few of us were told they’ve had trouble with Best Tours before. I had the experience where the agent needed to contact Best Tours to ensure I wasn’t given the service I paid for before they decide about a refund or something and couldn’t get ahold of them for over 30 minutes (during business hours). I had to give up because I can’t sit on the phone any longer while I do my job. :)

Terrible company. I have booked and re-​booked my cancelled tours 3 times, now I just want my money back. Dealing with living social has not been easy either.

No tour guide and I even confirmed with the company directly two weeks ago. Seems to be a pattern with this company. I hope others read these reviews before buying a groupon or living social … Unfortunately I bought mine months ago prior to reading reviews.

One of the worst companies to deal with. Our tour was canceled but they provided no notification of that. My mother drove to Boston, about 100 miles each way, just for this tour. We showed up, along with everyone else, to wait around for a half hour before giving up. There is no way to talk to a person through their phone number and they will not respond to your emails. Their chat, while rarely available, is also completely unhelpful. They wouldn’t even apologize for my horrible experience. Avoid this company at all costs!!!

Getting help with a reservation for this company was impossible. The website didn’t work, the password they sent me didn’t work, and all attempts to contact them to confirm a reservation didn’t work. If their tour is anything like their customer service, don’t go there.

The tour guide never showed up and the tour never happened.
I had this tour booked and confirmed for this past Saturday. We met at the specified meeting spot at the specified time, where a group of other people who also signed up for the tour were waiting as well. We waited for about half an hour before realizing the guide wasn’t coming and the tour wasn’t happening.
I bought this through Groupon, and luckily Groupon did refund my purchase but still, it was a huge waste of time.

I have had one great experience, with the chocolate tour, but one bad experience with the cupcake tour. I’m sure the tour content doesn’t matter but this company is very unprofessional and the website is very primitive.
The Beverly Hills Chocolate Tour was pretty great, since our tour guide, Lyndia, was very passionate about the city of Beverly Hills. The chocolate tour went to Sprinkles Cupcake, Sprinkles Ice Cream, Teuscher, Le Mervetty, and Sugarfina. While the selection of places to go to has decreased since Beverly Hills Brownie Company and Vosges Haut-​Chocolat have closed, I believe this tour was really good.
The Cupcake Tour of Hollywood was my second experience with this company through Livingsocial/​Groupon. This second interaction was really ridiculously bad. They had previously cancelled the chocolate tour and texted me that they would reschedule, which is fine, and also happened with this tour (due to low numbers). This time they did not send an email with a reschedule link. I had to go to the website to find a reschedule button to reschedule it to the following weekend. When I emailed them to ask where my reschedule link was (since I would have felt more comfortable using their link), they just asked «Which tour was this for?». I answered and they did not respond after that.
Following this, we showed up for the tour with the new time. The tour guide never showed up. No one got an email that this was cancelled. When I wrote to them that the tour guide never showed up, all they said was: «We had unforeseen circumstances and we certainly wouldn’t like that to happen but sometimes these things are completely out of control. Hope you will understand. Would it still be possible to reschedule your tour? Which tour is this again?»
This was very annoying, even though I had my Order Number AND tour name in the original thread.
By then I had already gotten a refund through Groupon. I replied to Best Tours, «Cupcake Tour of Hollywood. Will you be sending a reschedule link? Even after I got a refund through Groupon?». No answer. I have re-​sent this a few times to see if they would ever give me a reschedule link. I’m guessing they’re keeping this ticket open so I wouldn’t rate their service badly.
I tried to write a review on their website and Tripadvisor, but someone must be filtering the reviews and keeping only the positive reviews up. I hope more people read Unilocal and will be warned! Hopefully your experience will be good; for the most part you can reschedule but if the tour guide doesn’t show up, it won’t bode well. How will you show proof? Best Tours should give people the contact info of the tour guide or something.

Not the Best. Well maybe the tour is but the service is not. I have a groupon and am not given the option to input. So I tried online chat at various times of the day and night, they are not online. So I found a phone number and some cute thing about service and if Chat is not your thing call us. I called multiple times and tried each prompt only to have a recorded voice tell me to use online chat. Why have a phone number if you do not have humans? Next I emailed support and they never emailed back. Overall service. Is negative stars.

I took the chocolate tour and it was a great time or should I say a sweet time! Can’t stop thinking about the butter crunch from lilac chocolates and oh god that cookie from milk and cookies. Tour guide was energetic and entertaining even though it was cold out. Plus i loved the little fun facts about the neighborhoods. Add a hot chocolate spot for the winter!

I did the Italian walking tour in Nyc, it was interesting and we had four stops but two of them were pizza and I think there are so many other traditional Italian foods that could have been offered as part of the tour. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and friendly, but I think the places and the food could have been more and better.

I just did the New York Italian Food tour which gave us a nice walking tour of little Italy. We sampled mozzarella & prosciutto, two different kinds of pizzas and cannoli. Which was all good, but seems like a poor food choice for such a vast and delicious food culture Italy has. However, the tour guide was knowledgable and gave us historic bits of different areas throughout the tour. I was given this as a groupon so for me it was good enough. ******I did the chocolate food tour of New York a year ago and that I give 4 ½ stars because that took us to a lot more places and it was longer and we sampled a lot of different choices and went to a lot of cute little chocolate shops. That one I definitely would recommend!

AVOID THIS AGGRAVATION! After altering my holiday plans and driving into Boston the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I arrived ½ hour early for this tour, only to wait… and wait… and wait for the tour guide that never showed up. When I spoke with two participants on a chocolate tour departing from the same Copley Square location, they told me they also suffered a coffee tour guide no show the previous month. This, despite the fact, that I received two reminder emails the day before and astoundingly, an email hours after the no show asking my opinion of the tour!!! Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Of course, while waiting for our no show guide, I tried to contact the company by phone, which prompted me to contact their online chat, which was «OFFLINE» for the first hour of the supposed tour. This company stinks, don’t waste your time or money.

I went on the Drunk History tour today in Boston with a Groupon that stated would get the tour, plus stops at 4 bars with a shot plus a specialty drink at each bar. We had a large group, and the guides were great. Then we arrived at the 1^st bar — and were given pitchers of light beer. We were then told that the corporate office will only give enough money to buy beer. Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t have paid $ 45 if I’d known I was getting cheap lite beer. I’ve already complained to Groupon, next to Best Tours. Talk about false advertising — there will be many more complaints as others weren’t too happy either!

Today was a beautiful day to be in NYC and we went on the cupcake tour. Our guide, Ben, was excellent and he deserves 4 stars. He was personable, and a font of info about the city and the area of the tour. The lower rating is due to the weak items included in the tour. There were 3 cupcake stops (all were mini cupcakes), macaron, and gelato, and no stop at Milk and Cookies (which was included on the website as part of the tour). I used a groupon so didn’t feel that badly but the full price of $ 50/​person would be a serious ripoff. When we finished the tour at 2 we were very hungry (not what one expects after going on a food tour!). Given the high price and the truly weak food items, I wouldn’t recommend this tour.

For those of you not taking of the Groupon deal for the NY Walking Chocolate Tour, SHAME SHAME! The tour started in Chelsea Market and ended in SoHo, about 2 hours long and approximately a mile walking — thank goodness we choose a brisk sunny fall day for it! During our trek to SoHo we stopped at a total of 7 establishments. After a short introduction and sample at each of the shops we were given ample time to look around each shop and make any purchases that our hearts desired.
Aside from the chocolate, my favorite part of this tour was the added bonus fun facts about New York that were thrown in. Did you know there is a «proper» way to eat chocolate? First you let the chocolate sit on your tongue until it has started to melt and then cover it with the roof of your mouth until the top begins to melt and then and only then do you begin to chew.
The first stop was at LiLac Chocolate, the oldest chocolate shop in NYC dating back to 1923. All of their chocolates are hand dipped and made in small batched in Brooklyn — if you find yourself here make sure you try the butter crunch original!
Our next was Magnolia Bakery, although they are most well known for their banana pudding do yourself a favor and try their chocolate cupcake. According to our guide the proper way to eat a cupcake is to cut it in half and flip the bottom so that the frosting is in the middle. Although we only got a mini cupcake, it was bursting with flavor. I generally shy away from chocolate cupcakes due to their overwhelming sweetness, however the cake portion was not overly sweet or dry, the fluffy frosting itself created a great balance of sweet and slightly chocolatey bitterness.
Next we stopped at Milk and Cookies Bakery where we got to sample one of their double chocolate chunk cookies. Again a good mix of biter and sweet, not to mention huge chocolate chips mixed into the batter. They are most well known for their ice cream sandwiches the PBJ to be exact, strawberry sandwiched between two peanut butter cookies.
We made a quick pit stop at David’s Tea where we got to sample a white chocolate birthday bar with roobios tea in the mixture. In addition, they had a large selection of chocolate infused teas.
My favorite chocolate shop we visited was Royces — a Japanese chocolate company. We got to sample the Hennessy infused dark chocolate as well as a chocolate caramel potato chip. Do yourself and try their signature chocolates, better yet buy them for all your friends. Its a creamy and not overly sweet chocolate that just melts in your mouth.
This is a great way to get to know and learn about the city, whether you have been living her for 5 months or 5 years I guarantee that you will see and learn something you never knew before!

I’ve done the cupcake tour, pizza tour, Italian tour, and Great New York tour. I’ve never been disappointed. Food is delicious and filling, tour guides very friendly and knowledgable about the history behind landmarks and businesses.

Bought another Groupon deal for $ 10. Now they are selling for $ 25. Original price is $ 50 per person.
The Tour: Chocolate Tour in Beverly Hills
Meeting with the guide in front of Sprinkle Cupcake. It is about 1.5 hours walking tour.
List of the chocolate stores:
Sprinkle Cupcake — one mini chocolate cupcake (very moist cupcake)
Sprinkle Ice-​cream — one small scoop of chocolate ice-​cream
Sugarfina — 2 samples and one small bag of candy ($ 2.5)
Le Mervetty — one small Chocolate Merveilleux
Beverly Hills Brownie Company — one small piece of brownie and small scoop of ice-​cream
Less food than cupcake tour. 5 stops instead of 6. Less than 2 hours. Definitely not worth $ 50.
They don’t provide any beverage so bring your own water with you. Because you will need it after all these sweet desserts!

I went on two tours with best tours. One was the chocolate tour which I would give it 5 stars! The selection was great, the history was great and our tour guide Jessie was fantastic. I would recommend it to anyone (just buy it on groupon though).
The second tour was not as good. I am from New York so that is probably why I would give it a low rating. The bars you go to are college bars, altough popular I thought we would be going to older, more historic bars, not fat black pussy cat. Our tour guide Ben was terrible!!! He left us because we couldn’t drink a full beer and a shot in 15 minutes so we joined the second tour which was with Jessie and she was great as usual. If you are not a native New Yorker I think it would’ve been better. You also have to buy a drink in order to get the shot which I didn’t know. Pricey night.