Gondola Adventures, Inc. - Irving — Attraction in Irving

I proposed to my girlfriend’s daughter and my girlfriend this weekend! Everything was amazing and worked out perfectly as planned. I would highly recommend this company for anyone considering, and if you’re doing it in Irving I would highly recommend using Melissa from Allison Images (their recommended photographer). I did a dessert cruise from the Marriott, and the desserts they made were top notch! We had cheesecake and chocolate bundt cakes. The message in the bottle was a great touch as well! As for other services, I opted to not use Gondola Adventures again because I wasn’t too sure of the quality. If you don’t care about the marketing an public image you portray to potential customers, you can assume they’ll go with other professionals. I choose to have champagne, sparking juice, and roses from a florist placed in our room, by the hotel, and the Marriott more than took care of us. Our gondolier was absolutely amazing, and he was 5 stars!! We did the upgrade to the rowing gondola.

A couple suggestions. This website is in need a major overhaul with professional photography and/or marketing. Majority of the images you see do not do any justice, and I almost did not use their services because of the shotty imagery. I believe a website overhaul would gain y’all a lot more business and convince those who are on the fence. I was on the fence for doing a dinner cruise, but the food did not look that great and pictures didn’t seem that great, so I opted to go to a steakhouse pre cruise. Second, if you are doing professional photography (which I was worried about given the website images) I would get the photographers recommendation for a time before booking. We went by what Gondola Adventures said and were not able to change (unlike they told me) and the sun and light were already gone by the time the cruise ended, so that was a bummer that they chose to not listen to the photographer, especially when you’re spending more money for photos than the cruise itself. Because they are located in California in or by the beach, I don’t think they understand the sunset in Texas is different especially when you’re in a city surrounded by buildings. Even though the sun may not be completely set all the sunlight was hidden due to the buildings.

With that being said, we had an amazing experience! However Gondola Adventures has a little work to do to be perfect and receive...

My wife and I decided to celebrate our anniversary with Gondola Adventures. We made a point to be as beautiful as can be and enjoy the experience. We did enjoy the experience.

We did not have any issues accessing the meeting place. We were met by the sweetest Gondolier, however, he wasn't ours. Our Gondolier was nice and very accommodating, but not as personable as the first one who initially greeted us. Our photographer met us on the deck for 30 minutes of pictures prior to the cruise and he did the first 30 minutes during the cruise.

The food was good. Read the descriptions... Some of the selections sound like pasta dishes, but I ordered a chicken parmesan sandwich basically. As previously stated, it still was good! My wife had the chicken piccata... And it was delicious as well, not even heavy on the capers!

So why did we rate it a 3/5 stars... For what we pay as consumers, I should be rating this a 5/5! And it came down to the memories and money... Our photos. $300 for photos and we have pre cruise photos with cords in the background of the dock... Some photos where he caught the smirk prior to the smile... And it was only 40 photos.... In one hour. We love love love maybe half of those. I honestly did not think an hour of photography was worth $300, but it was our anniversary and we celebrate it to the fullest every year! But now I know, that is an extra that I would not suggest. It really made me understand why the company is adamant about not using any other photographer or drone. I feel like its a monopoly.

We didnt ask for a singing Gondolier, but it was beautiful to just have one. However, he was a little cough-fy on some of the songs. Just being honest.

Lastly, I received an email that stated, unless otherwise noted, gratuities are not included in your standard rate and are suggested at 15-20%. But they charged us the gratuities in our bill anyway. Deserved by our Gondolier..., but I believe we should have been able to make the amount based on...

We thoroughly our gondola ride with Gondola Adventures. Our gondolier was excellent. We offered to take pictures for us and was very knowledgeable about his position and with other questions that we had on the tour. A word of advice to anyone looking to book is that we booked our tour for 6:30 pm. I would recommend a tour later in the evening as it would've been more romantic in the dark with the candle light they provided. Finally, on the day that we initially booked our tour I was traveling to Irving from San Antonio on Greyhound bus when the bus cause a flat tire. We were stuck just outside of San Antonio for several hours. I called the company 30 minutes after the bus went down. I explained my situation and let them know that I wasn't sure when the bus would be operational again. They asked that I kept them updated on the situation. I made a call to the company after every update from the bus driver. Once we got a final estimated arrival time into Irving I informed the gondola company. They rescheduled my tour but I had to pay a rescheduling fee. I understand they have policies in place but I couldn't make it at no fault of my own. Greyhound was willing to explain in writing of the mishap. I do however appreciate the gondola company reducing the rescheduling fee but it would've been extremely nice if it could've been...