Hollywood LA Tours — Local services in Los Angeles

We came off the Metro at Hollywood & Vine, glanced at a street map, and before we could even think about where to go, we were ambushed by Jo from Hollywood LA Tours. Jo immediately launched into his pitch: apparently, the part of Downtown we were standing in was “awful” and had “nothing worth seeing.” But not to worry, his company would show us the real Hollywood.

His big hook? We’d drive right up to the Hollywood Sign, hop out, and take pictures. He was explicit that his company had special permits that let customers get out at the sign. Well, that was an out-and-out lie. Not a misunderstanding. Not a little white fib. A bald-faced, shameless lie.

When the “bus” finally arrived, half an hour later than promised, it wasn’t the shiny new ride Jo had bragged about. Nope. It was a beat-up old van that looked like the windows had literally been cut out and framed with crooked, homemade trims screwed on like some DIY nightmare. Classy.

The tour kicked off with our guide, X. To his credit, he was energetic and fun, honestly the only decent thing about this circus. But within minutes, the truth came out: no one gets to the Hollywood Sign anymore. Not today, not yesterday, not ever. The access has been shut down for years due to fires and restrictions. Jo had sold us pure fiction, and we were dumb enough to believe him because, hey, we’re only tourists.

The “tour” itself was laughable. It consisted of driving past gates, fences, and the occasional glimpse of a roof that supposedly belonged to celebrities. Case in point: “David and Victoria Beckham’s house.” Except, no, it was their laundry facility at the bottom of the drive, where we were treated to the thrilling sight of a washing machine. Next up: “Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s house.” Nope again, just a porch roof barely visible at the end of a long driveway. And on it went: gates, hedges, shadows, and empty promises.

The privilege of this scam? A “special deal” of $90 for the two of us. Ninety bucks for the pleasure of being lied to, herded into a junk van, and driven around to stare at other people’s security gates.

TL;DR: Total rip-off. Avoid Hollywood LA Tours and especially Jo the hustler who prowls by the 7th Street Metro stop. Even our guide admitted he didn't appreciate the sales staff making things up and apologised for the lies, blaming Jo for being “new.” That says it all. We were suckered. Don’t let...

Differently not worth $100 per person. First, the building had one small dirty restroom with NO paper towles. Then the driver made it clear she was not happy when she found out she would only have Five people on the bus. (Probably because she knew their would be a small amount of tips.) Then she stopped at a liquor store around the corner and expected everyone to run in with her. When she realized only one person was going in she had to stay with the bus (claimed she gets snacks in there. But there was a 7-eleven right across the street she could have gone to before we left)🤔. The person was the store for at least 10-15 minutes and asked if she could drink her booze on the bus. The driver said yeah as long as you have a glass or a cup for it, no drinking out of the bottle. We finally left, and we were then told, that she has decided to change the route because she was cold and just got over sickness and did not want to get sick again. We wizzed by most houses while she told us were people lived, but was not very clear which house we should look at most of the time. According to the itinerary we were to have 30 min on Rodeo drive. We drove straight through and was told we would not have time to stop at the pier if stopped there. When we got to the pier, our driver tried to start a fight with a police office, because he would not let her park where she wanted. Then by the time we got off the bus we were told we only had 30 minutes, it took 15 min to walk there and 15 min back. Four out five us were Three min late. And we were told we took to long, so we can't do anything else except go to the Farmers Market. So from the pier we drove for 1 hour on the freeway, freezing cold and she played very loud music. When someone of suggested the music be turned off, she did nothing. When we got to the Farmers Market, where we were supposed to have dinner, she asked if we really wanted our intire hour there and was not happy when we said yes. Her response was, well i guess I'll just sit here then. My wife and decided we were not going back with her and would rather take an Ubur back to our hotol. We texted her to let her know that we would not be riding back. When she responded she told us how we could still tip her through different apps. 😐 Not a very good experience at all. She was very UNprofessional. Would not recommend...

It takes a lot for me to send a review that is negative for a business. We were visiting town for a friend’s birthday and last minute decided to try a Hollywood tour. We found this business and decided to go for it. We didn’t schedule an appointment but showed up to the trinket shop to schedule a tour. We were told “cash only” for tours and they’d be available for our group of 8 in 20 min. We should have turned around once we heard cash only. We were loaded up into a van, crammed full with no working seatbelts. The tour guide kept trying to sell us on the celebrity photos on his phone, super confused about the hard sell since we were already on the van ready to go. He also said he had a secret way to get us up to the Hollywood sign that only he could take us on. When he told us they’d be picking up another customer around the corner to sit in a broken seat next to my friend we had to raise the flag. After a big show of talking to the “boss” they re-boarded us onto a bus instead. It took over an hour to get our tour started after that. Our driver (different guy) went around the block to get a sandwich and ate the sandwich while he was driving, while holding his headset microphone (instead of putting it on his head) and constantly fiddling with the radio volume. We did end up driving up and down many of the same main streets, pointing out obvious businesses and then potentially seeing a few “celebrity” houses, maybe? We did stand in the middle of a street to try and get a photo of the Hollywood sign, when our driver almost left one of the passengers he let out by accident, it was all really sketchy. The tour mostly ended with the Beverly Hills sign for a 15 minute break outside the van. The highlight of this disappointing tour was when the tour guide said if we wanted to eat or drink that was ok, but if we had something to “light up” we needed to pass it to him. And if you think he was joking, I’m confident he wasn’t. Overall, not recommended and with all of the reviews I’ve done on Yelp it takes a lot for me to negatively review a business but this one was well earned. Find another business to spend your money at if you want any value in your...