Hollywood City Tours — Attraction in Los Angeles

The tour guide “Mr. Hollywood” got annoyed at my father after he took an important 2-minute phone call during a 7-hour trip. Look, I completely understand that we should be courteous as an audience, but my dad is elderly and hard of hearing. Him being on a quick, necessary call didn’t ruin the trip for anyone. The bus was half empty, people were spread out, it was an open-air vehicle with wind drowning out most noise, and the guide was on a loudspeaker — everyone could hear him just fine despite the city noise. The guide didn’t even notice my dad was on the phone until the call was nearly over. It didn’t disrupt anything. But he went from 0 to 100, got annoyed, and started interrupting my dad unnecessarily. There were definitely better ways to go about this. Like, we aren’t in jail or in a classroom. As a daughter, it was just hurtful to see someone speak to my father like that over something so mundane — especially when it clearly came down to the guide’s ego rather than any actual disruption.

Do you know what did ruin the experience? The constant tipping pressure. The guide asked us for a 20% tip before the tour even started, then reminded people to tip him nearly every hour. His first words at our last stop were pointing out where the ATM was so people could get cash — because cash was his “preferred form of tip.” At the end, he stood by the bus door waiting for everyone to tip him and even called after a couple who didn’t, asking where his tip was. I’ve literally never seen anything like it. It was unprofessional.

Despite it being a 7-hour tour, I feel like I saw less than I did on a 2-hour tour I took during a previous visit. We were stuck in traffic most of the time — which I understand isn’t the guide’s fault — but that translated into rushed stops, and we didn’t even see everything listed on the itinerary. The website said we’d get 1 hour at Rodeo Drive — we got 20 minutes. Griffith Park was supposed to be a 1-hour stop too, but it was barely 25 minutes. That’s two straight-up lies.

I learned nothing of real value during the drive. The guide was okay, but he mostly rambled — there wasn’t much interesting history or context, and the route didn’t seem well thought out. There were 10 people on a bus that holds 24–25, and the guide kept making passive-aggressive comments about how the group wasn’t being as “responsive” as he wanted. I get that it’s frustrating to have a quiet crowd, but on top of getting angry at someone for a 2-minute phone call and constantly talking about tips, those comments didn’t help the vibe. Maybe, just maybe, WE weren’t the problem?

Additionally, he wanted us to clap for a couple who boarded the bus 2 minutes late on a stop that was advertised to be 1 hour long but was actually only 20 minutes long. He can’t force us to participate in behavior like that. It was just weird how he wanted us to do everything he said, including the passive aggressive behavior towards other people in the group.

He also wanted us to write a review while we were only half way through the tour, which just felt like a shady business practice, and made a lot of things clear to me, like: 1) why he uses a pseudonym instead of an actual name, is it so that you can bypass negative reviews? And 2) Why he literally demands tips (with an expectation of no less than 20%) because he just doesn’t want to put in the actual work to build up to that number.

This was a tour to properly see all the listed sites on the company’s website (which didn’t even happen), not your performance stage where you could call us out like a school teacher calls out misbehaving kids, or be so passive aggressive when we aren’t responding how you want us to. It was just so odd and in poor taste.

In the end, it felt like the guide was demanding tips and respect without trying to earn either.

But, since the guide insisted, here’s my review: This just wasn’t a good experience, and I don’t recommend it. There are much better tour companies out there that deserve people’s...

My partner and I went on the 2 hour Hollywood City Tour, and it was one of the worst tourist experiences we’ve ever had. The tour was scheduled to start at 1:00 PM, but they didn’t even begin until around 1:25 — and shockingly, after that late start, we had to go back to pick up stragglers, wasting even more time. The whole thing wrapped up by 3:10 PM — not even a full two hours, despite what we paid for.

The tour guide/driver made the experience incredibly uncomfortable. Throughout the ride, he made thinly veiled racist, sexist, classist, and political remarks — including offensive generalizations, inappropriate comments about "females", and even statements along the lines of drug addiction and homelessness being a choice. He casually threw out conspiracy theories about deadly wildfires where people lost their homes and lives and made tone-deaf political comments that had no place on a public tour.

On top of that, he was frequently on his phone while driving, trying to show passengers photos of celebrities he’s seen— instead of paying full attention to the road.

The bus itself was in poor condition — old, worn out, pieces missing, and uncomfortable. It felt more like riding in a rundown shuttle than a professional city tour vehicle. No A/C.

The biggest disappointment? We didn’t even see the up close key landmarks that were advertised. No Hollywood Sign. No Griffith Observatory. No Chinese Theatre. Just a slow, meandering loop past celebrity homes.

At the end of the tour, they offered free t-shirts — which came across as a weak attempt to bribe people into leaving good reviews. Honestly, it’s baffling how this company has so many positive ratings unless people were incentivized or pressured to post them.

This tour was unprofessional, misleading, and at times, downright offensive. My partner and I left feeling uncomfortable, disappointed, and like we wasted both our time and money. I strongly suggest finding another tour company or just exploring the city...

We were pretty excited about this tour for months. We parked nearby at 1410 Ivar avenue Los Angeles California 90028 which is a parking garage for $15 all day. It was only about a one block walk. We noticed it was gated and chained when we got there. We sat on the bench outside and at about 3 minutes until our tour started we called them and asked them where they were.

They said that location have been closed down and they were a few minutes down the street. They gave us the address and it was about a 4-minute walk. They waited for us.

We were in a covered mini bus where the windows had been taken out. We are very excited to see some homes of the stars. We went up and down the mountain and I would say maybe 6 or 7 Stars homes were called out. And even those that were pointed out were mostly behind Gates or bushes. We couldn't see much.

We were pointed toward places where there were a swath of stars homes but didn't have very many called out in particular.

Apparently the stars are coming against the tour bus operators and have posted many signs that they are not allowed to stop on the roads anymore or go to slowly and the police are in full force. Our tour operator got 3 $500 tickets in the last month.

Towards the end we went down Rodeo Drive and Beverly Drive. We also had a 10-minute stop near the welcome to Beverly Hills sign.

I don't know if this is typical and how these tours go since I've never been on one. But given the amount of stars homes that we saw, or should I say didn't see, we were pretty disappointed. We were told many times by the tour operator that we could come up here with our own car if we had one and stop as much as we wanted and take as many photos as we wanted since we wouldn't be in a tour bus. But that is not really the...