Bob's Wild Horse Tours — Local services in Corolla

My family and I booked this tour online during our vacation this past summer. There were 11 people in our party. There was another party of 6, and yet another with 8. There were 2 touring vehicles. One with a 12 seat capacity and another larger one with a capacity of 16 seats. If you do the math, you can easily see that all parties could have easily sat together with their own party for the tour. The staff at Bob's provided no direction when it was time to board, which somehow resulted in one party being split between two buses. However, our party was in tact on the smaller bus. The split party went back inside and complained to the woman behind the counter. She came outside and instructed us to get off the smaller bus so that the other party could sit together. We did, only to realize that now our party was split in two. We raised the issue to the woman, who proceeded to boldly and rudely make excuses saying that we were the last to arrive so we would have to be split up. When we told her we had booked online the night before, she came up with another excuse. The woman took on an authoritarian demeanor, as if she were on a power trip. I should mention now that our party was the only party of the 3 that was African American. It quickly became clear she was not interested in trying to accommodate both parties, just the white one, and at our expense.

Now remember what I said about the math in this scenario. At the time of boarding, we were not aware of the size of the complaining party. But we knew we had 11 and the smallest party had 6. Both buses departed and arrived at our first stop on the beach. By the time we arrived, I had figured out the math, so I asked a few people to swap places so that ALL parties could sit with their own party. They all graciously obliged, even remarking that they didn't understand why we had been split up in the first place if the solution had been this simple all along.

The tour continued on, but I found it impossible to enjoy after the treatment we experienced from Bob's staff. This is to say nothing of the fact that the driver of the bus I was on was texting or otherwise using his phone while driving to the beach (and not for talking). In my state that is illegal. I'm not sure about NC, but I do know that it's not safe no matter what state you're from. The tour was also ridiculously bumpy. If you have a weak stomach, think twice about eating before you go.

When we returned, I went in to speak with the woman behind the counter. She and her teenage counterpart continued to tell me that it was impossible for all parties to sit together, and that they tell people that parties may be split when they book. I reminded them that we booked online and there was no mention of that online. The older woman admitted they had not updated the website. I then told her that she had not even tried to accommodate all parties and that the way she handled the situation was deplorable. If she had taken a few moments to do the math, she would've figured out that all parties could remain in tact. She then began blaming the drivers, saying that they were responsible for seating arrangements. Funny how during the tour after I asked folks to swap places, the drivers made a point to apologize for our mistreatment, saying that it was the front counter staff's responsibility to make seating arrangements. I then told her that I had rearranged the parties during the first stop on the beach and everyone was able to sit with their party. Only then did she acquiesce.

Bottom line. I do not recommend this tour company. They are heavy into the blame game and do not understand the concepts of teamwork, personal responsibility, and true customer service. They also do not know how to accept constructive criticism. They are only interested in dollars and cents and expending the least amount of effort...

Our tour started out on a bad note. These trucks seat 15 or 16, four rows of four I think or maybe the last row is 3. Our driver forced us to split our party of 6 in such a way that our 3 year old in a car seat had to sit next to a stranger. Our tour had 5-6 seats empty.

In spite of the advertisements that say fun for the whole family, and tell you they can accommodate car seats, I'd not take anyone under 7 on these tours. The ride is just too rough and they should advise against it, not encourage it.

The information provided about the horses was ok, but pretty minimal. The driver took photos with a nice camera and appeared to be offering to sell us prints he had made. He made one off-hand comment about helping people who drove the wrong vehicle on the beach for $40 and a case of beer and joked that he used to ask for a date with your wife, but now he is engaged.

We had a good tour in terms of horse sightings. Most of our sightings were on the beach and dunes, but a good part of the time were were looking in neighborhoods...not exactly what you expect when buying a "wild horse tour" Knowing that horse sightings are more a function of timing than guide skill, I really couldn't attribute the views to the guide, and that is what the guide tells you if you don't happen to see any horses.

They talk too much about what not to do with these horses and not enough about the horses themselves. And they talk abut tips too much.

20 minutes of your tour will be the drive to and from the beach as the office and boarding spot is 10 minutes away. Our guide tailgated some on that drive, and didn't really inspire confidence. On the drive back he was in a hurry and we actually left our seats once because of his speed over the bumpy beach.

Avoid the guide with...

Travesty in my opinion- the brochure outright misrepresents this “wild” tour in my opinion.. We were all fooled at $50 each. This company has a photo of wild horses sitting along this epic shoreline amongst sand dunes. In reality, the drive on the sand along the shoreline is more like a sand highway with tons of truck traffic, people fishing along the shoreline, not a wild horse in sight for miles. Finally we come to a sandy neighborhood of beach homes and there are horses in backyards, front yards, driveways, puddles and even a few behind a roped in fence- there was so much traffic, our driver couldn’t even slow down long enough for us to get any good photos - nothing wild about what we saw- just a huge, boring disappointment - plus the driver had to speed along the bumpy sandy beach to get back within our 2 hour timeframe allotted to this excursion. We all almost lost our lunch! Big waste of time and money- in my opinion. The only fun we had was making jokes about how awful the excursion was. If the brochure had described this place honestly, we would have NEVER paid to do this. And to top it all off, I complained to owner via phone and email, expecting an adjustment of some amount on this terrible experience and I never heard back-...