Dylan's Tours — Local services in San Francisco

We completed the 8 hour tour with Dylan's tours today and it was good. Desmond was our tour guide and he did a great job. This guy was excited about his city and he made this an experience that we won't forget. Desmond took us to some really cool spots for pictures including the Golden Gate Bridge, The painted ladies, and many different neighborhoods including Chinatown. He also had some granola bars and water available for us in the van which came in handy during our tour. We arrived at the pickup location for the tour at 7:30am since the tour started at 8 am. Tip#1: I advise you to have something for breakfast before arriving because there is nothing open in the pickup area before 8:30 am. We arrived at the pickup spot and it was like a ghost town. I packed a banana and apple in my backpack for the tour. Tip #2: The pickup up location is not a building but under a white gazebo in an open area in the Fishermans wharf. We missed this in this last email that was sent to us and got lost trying to find an address on a building. Tip#3: Let them know if someone will be joining you on the tour. There were at least 3 to 4 vans that arrived to pick us up. We met my brother and his wife for the tour. Fortunately we were preassigned to the same van and the same tour guide. We stopped at several different cool spots in the city before heading out to Muir Woods. This was a nice stop and this place a must see if you have the time. After Muir Woods we stopped in Sausalito for lunch along with the other company vans that were out on the tour. Tip #4: Look for a place to eat in Sausalito prior to the trip. This is where the tour stops for lunch. There were so many shops and places to eats and these were restaurants that are all local shops. We only had 1 hour to eat and get back to the van. We ended up selecting a restaurant called "Hamburger" which was fine but not a place that I would recommend. 3 of us had burgers and I had a chicken sandwich. Just not enough time to google the restaurants in the area and read the reviews. It would be nice if Dylan's would provide the customers with a list of restaurants so that we can narrow it down to our top 2 choices in the area before the day of the tour. After lunch we made more stops throughout the city including a spectacular view of the bridge from the top of a mountain. We arrived back at the tour stop at 3:30 to ride our e-bikes. The bikes have to be turned at 6 pm. Unfortunately, we didn't have as much time as we expected to ride the e-bikes but we made it work. Recommendation: Make 1 van for customers that want to do a half-day on the e-bikes. The tour was great but we would have cut 1 hour of the tour to have more time to ride the e-bikes. Also, have the tour guide ask the customers if they plan to ride the e-bikes. There were 8 of us in the van and only 4 of us chose to ride the e-bikes. I would make the cutoff time 2:30 for the tour at the latest to allow ample time for the bikes. When we arrived at the bike shop, the guy did a great job of walking us through all of the pre-ride items including how to drive an e-bike. These bikes are nice and they can get you around the city without any problems. The drivers in San Francisco really are patient with bikers and they were very patient with us. They gave us locks to lock up the bikes when we stopped to visit some of the sites throughout the city. Try to avoid some of the congested areas while riding. There are so many great open spots to check out. Overall, this was well worth the money and I would do it again. Don't forget to tip your tour...

Worst tour we have ever taken. In hindsight, wouldn’t go if it was free. We had a private tour booked, confirmed place time pickup by text for them to NOT SHOW UP nor contact us. Left countless messages and took Uber to business but it was then closed. My family lost several hours of fun sightseeing time trying to coordinate the tour that we had just paid for and booked and had all the details on text from that same morning.

The scheduled driver received a message and contacted us. He blamed it on the owner, saying the owner mentioned it but never finalized it and so he went home at the end of the shift. The owner then called and lied, blaming it on the driver. As we had already paid, we rescheduled for later in the week. The owner did deduct $100 from the private tour as we had wasted a half day and spent $30 in an uber to their closed office. The private tour only included my family and our ONLY request was to go over the GG Bridge into Sausalito.

We specifically stated that we had a Chinatown tour booked that afternoon and had already covered North Beach, etc extensively throughout the week. He took us to other communities/sites that we said we have already explored and made several racist comments that we were uncomfortable with. Instead of my three children learning cool history or facts about the area, we listened to him going on a tirade about how his rent-controlled properties are destroying his finances and how he spends his time praying his tenants “move or die.” Even my teenagers were shocked and disgusted by his remarks.

At the 90-minute mark, he told us that he has another tour and won’t be able to take us over the bridge into Sausalito (our main request) because we were out of time. Again, this was our main request at the start of the tour that he agreed to. Instead he suggested us spending the tour walking down billionaire row (we had already done that), driving down Lombard and other historical streets (already done), etc. He acted surprised that he “ran out of time” despite giving these tours for decades?

Incredibly unprofessional… no clue how this guy stays in business. After reading other reviews, it isn’t an isolated incident with this owner or the specific city tour. Every other tour and attraction we experienced in SF was incredible – stay away...

I was on a Dylan's Tours trip to Muir Woods, Sausalito, and the optional Alcatraz addition. My tour guide was Per and he was wonderful. Our group was around 15 people and was made up of all different age groups and physical abilities. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

I couldn't find a lot of information about what to expect from the tour online prior to booking, so for those interested: Per took us to Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, the Presidio, and the base of the Golden Gate Bridge before continuing on to Muir Woods, Sausalito, and we stopped briefly at the Palace of Fine Arts on the way back. Per was knowledgeable-- he had all the movie, celebrity, history, and real estate facts. He was also very funny and comfortable to talk to, giving great recommendations of hikes to take, food to eat, and things to do. He even had a trip playlist timed to coincide appropriately with where we were on our tour. He was a teacher in a former life, so he's very comfortable in his role as a guide. If you get him as your tour director, you will have a great experience.

The Alcatraz portion of the trip was arranged by Dylan's Tours, but not facilitated by them. Everyone in the group chose to add Alcatraz, so Per dropped us off at Pier 33, we picked up our tickets from Will Call and boarded our assigned ferry. The tour from there was at our own pace. The audio guide was great, and the island was well worth the add on. Just note that it is a VERY windy and cold place, so make sure to have...