Miami Tours — Local services in Miami Beach

You need to know this if you choose to get on a city tour bus in Miami.

On the last day of our 5 day trip to Florida keys and Miami. We made the unfortunate decision to do a bus tour in Miami. The trip this far was awesome with some very beautiful sights and excellent customer service.

If I were to give you any advice it is this. When you’re travelling from another country for a few days, you do not want to encounter aggressive and obstructive people such as the manager on the day ( 14th Sept 2023 12.30 pm). It is understandable that mistakes may happen but when they do even when it is the customers fault ( on this occasion it wasn’t even our fault) you want those in the tourism industry to be kind, accommodating and go the extra mile if needed to give you a good experience. The encounter we had with the floor manager of this tour company was anything but good. The manager on the day is in serious need of training in customer services and communication. The other employees seemed to know better about this. In her role of leadership on the shop floor she was a very poor example to her juniors and I can only hope that one of them did not go home that day thinking that this is how customers need to be dealt with.

I would suggest that you shop around and avoid this company as there are many other tour companies where you may encounter other more kind, accommodating and helpful people and not have your holiday ruined.

I seriously hope that the company can feedback to their employee and provide her with some much needed training in communication and customer service.

This experience has put a big black mark on the otherwise wonderful experience we have had in Florida.

We booked 3 seats on a hop on hop off bus from this company. The receptionist at the hotel who booked this with their company said that this was for 12.30 pm and this suited us as we had other things that we were doing later in the day. We were offered transport from the hotel to the starting point of the bus tour. This transport was sent to us from this bus tour company. The transport arrived at 12.15 pm and we reached the company office where the tour was to start just before 12.30 . The 12.30 bus was just about to leave. The driver asked us to check in at the counter quickly and hop on. It. Turns out due to some miscommunication we were told we were on the 12.30 tour while it was actually the 13.30 tour. The manager who had not even the basic decency to approach us while she spoke, chose to shout at us from behind her computer. She was aggressive, obstructive and bullied us. There was opportunity to put us on the 12.30 which the driver had stopped in the hope of including us but she was adamant that she would not despite her Co workers trying to advocate for us.

My husband then approached her and very politely if she could explain this baffling state of affairs where irrespective of what transpired between the hotel and the tour company we were given to believe that the tour was at 12.30, there was clearly opportunity to put us on this bus , why she had so adamantly and aggressively refused to do so. She then went on to state that it was me who had upset and irritated her and that the 2 men with me were ok. She went on to say that I was not listening to her and that I should allow people to finish their sentences. She told us that the hotel which had booked the tickets was independent of the tour company and we’re making money out of us and that had we called her directly she would have offered us tickets for 30 rather than the 45 dollars we paid.

It seemed little point in speaking to her as she somehow wanted to score points and have the last word. We then retreated and boarded the 13.30

No surprise that reviews show that others encountered the same behaviour in this company. Aggression, angry outburst and obstruction.

At the end of the trip we were dropped off at a random point at bayside with no instructions on what we were to do to get back to our hotels. It felt like a rip off. We got an Uber back...

So we booked this tour which our hotel said was through a reputable company they’ve worked with for years…err…

Upon arrival at the MiamiTours.com office, we were told we needed to wait a little while as there had been an ‘accident’ en route. We were also asked to pay a further $4 for something (not sure why whatever it was for, wasn’t included in our $220 price for 2). This is when we actually bothered to check the reviews, and now we are adding to the proverbial caca-show that has been our day tour with this bunch of lamas.

We’ll start with the bus, which did finally show up at 10am (we’d been waiting now for 1.5 hrs). As per prior reviews, the bus smelt badly of diesel and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since 1983. Bless the driver, he did what he could with what he had, including his dodgy mic. The bus had spandex for shock absorbers so we enjoyed a bouncy castle experience to the first leg.

We arrived at the airboat place (Sawgrass) around 11am. This was actually well managed, in complete fairness to the Sawgrass team, who were great. The airboat ride went well and we saw Alligators in the wild and up close. Unfortunately our follow-up alligator show and petting of a baby alligator was cut short by the now stressed out driver who had to get us back on time - so we were ushered out before a snap and a pic; annoying!

And what did we come back for? Yup, another hour to wait until the next barrel of laughs. At 3pm we boarded the roofless solar torture wagon they call an open-deck tour. The first stop was at Wyndham to see the prolific graffiti all over the show. Nice enough, but having been cooked for 30 mins at 30 degrees, our interest had wained. The stop had no shops, water or shade; basically a side road by the freeway. We realised that the reason for this was to make us extra thirsty. As soon as we re-boarded the bus the sales pitch for next stop at Little Havana started. It lasted the whole drive, some BS about the best and most refreshing mojitos this side of Cuba, Cuban cigarios, blah, blah, blah. With my wife now melting, and the last of our water poured over our heads to cool down, the thing we least wanted was booze. We arrived and walked up and down the strip for a small shop selling water…best we found was a bakery with fresh orange juice on the end of the street, which helped at least. After a fairly uneventful stroll there, we re-boarded for the last stretch on the human slow cooker. Then came (for the second time today), the tip speech. Given what I’d already spent on this debacle, I ignored the requests for more cash.

We were taken off the bus for the final part of our day trip; the boat cruise. Our group was the last to join the boat, meaning no seats for us! Having expected nothing less, my wife collapsed by the bin while I stood…to write this! The day is not done, we’re 1.5 hours later than told, and I’ve stopped listening to the over excited boat guide cracking some bad celebrity jokes. A few nice celebrity homes seen, but beyond caring.

Update: We’ve given up trying to get back via their mobile floor is lava, given it will likely self-combust, and are taking an urgent Uber back to our hotel, where a cold shower and some painkillers await.

Do yourselves a favour and just hire a scooter, bike or take a taxi to see the three places mentioned above. It will be a lot cheaper, quicker and you might even avoid becoming a man size fritter with ur backside melted into ur spinal cord.

Miamitours.com how are you still...

TLDR tips: The tour will be longer than you expect They will upsell you on everything (do not buy VIP, book online) Expect to pay in cash before the tour Expect to be harassed for tips BE PUNCTUAL or be left behind This is NOT an ACCESSIBLE tour option Your tour depends completely upon your tour guide - no consistency

We booked online last night for just the Miami city tour this morning - it was supposed to be $29 and to pay by card. I'm so glad we booked online because it seems like if you book in person they upsell you like crazy. I saw people with "VIP" stickers - VIP means nothing. At best dishonest and at worst, predatory.

Once you book they tell you that you'll need to pay in person a half hour before your trip, which for us was 8:30. Once we paid, we were on the bus and moving AT 9 am, so make sure you are punctual.

When we arrived to pay 8:30 am, the people at the counter were annoyed that we were there (we must have interrupted their social hour) and told us at their systems were down so we HAD to pay by cash. Ok, sure. It ended up being $65 instead of $58. Keep in mind that every driver and tour guide you have with this company will be aggressively nudging you for tips.

The bus seats are very dirty and the stairs are narrow as heck. I saw this tour was advertised as completely accessible. This is not true. If you are a wheelchair user, do not book this tour.

The ride wasn't very educational (you can learn more by Wikipedia), but it would have cost us more in car rental or Ubers to explore the city ourselves, so it gains one star for that. The tour guide was also pausing his "tour" to yell at every single person who looked to be a tourist that we were on a tour and they should join us.

We were told this tour would be 2.5 hours with an hour lunch break. We were at the office at 8:30 to check in like they requested, and didn't get back to our starting point until 1:30 pm. The only way we could've gotten back earlier would've been to ditch the bus and get an uber or Lyft.

At about 11 am, the driver and tour guide dropped us at a glorified bus station (fake turf, 2 toilets, 2 food trucks, a bar, and cornhole) for over an hour, after promising we'd be gone in a half hour and vaguely threatening us to be on time. We did not leave that bus station until 12:30. I called the main office twice to check where our bus was and if they were even still coming to pick us up. An hour and a half wait is insane especially when you expect a half hour.

We also did not purchase a boat tour (thank god) so we had to wait on the bus as they tried to get more customers and stopped at every bus stop between the Marina and their office on Lincoln. We didn't get off the bus from 12:30-1:30, and were vaguely laughed at when we asked the ETA.

IDK, we had some good points of this tour, but we were not expecting for a FIVE HOUR expedition where they tried to upsell us at every turn, and then treated us like nothing when we didn't pay more or didn't have extra cash to tip since we didn't know we had to pay in cash for the tickets.

We lucked out by booking the 9 am otherwise our entire day would've been wasted by being held hostage by this tour company. We were lucky to have the rest of the day after we were finally dropped...