West Point Tours — Local services in Town of Highlands

Generally entertaining. Information presented was more storytelling than factual. As such, the guide needs to do more extensive research as she got several significant bits of information incorrect according to Westpoint's own archivists and historians. Also, she was a good bit overbearing or maybe self-important. For example, at one point, outside, while using a megaphone, she refused to continue her spiel while my group was talking softly away from the group and well under her amplified voice. Maybe if her spiel was more factual and generally entertaining, we would be more inclined to pay attention. Regardless, if you cannot present through a megaphone without being distracted by incidental outside noise, then maybe another job would be in order. A better option is to get a current faculty or staff member friend to show you around. You will see far more interesting stuff on this excellent campus.

Response to owner: Interesting take, but the information you received from your guide about us was either incorrect, or your assumptions therein were incorrect. When the guide addressed us, it was completely unreasonable and unnecessary due to the circumstances and location. If the guide was experienced as you say, she should have been knowledgeable of several other positive ways to handle the situation. I say this as an experienced former tour guide at a university. The guide chose to act in the fashion she did among many options, and in doing so, she herself was solely responsible for causing this distraction. There were definitively no other times our group was a distraction, and there was no precedent justifying her address towards us. Did we have conversations between the guide's lectures? Of course we did! To restrict that would be absurd. Did we explore details in the various areas within the guidelines provided by the guide? Of course we did! We are people willing to pay for a tour, curious and engaged, not automatons. What I can say, as a former tour guide, is unlike this tour, we engaged the guests, fostering conversation and curiosity. We brought the guests' unique experiences into the conversation, thus engaging them at their interest points and providing a more rich experience for everyone. This tour guide had no knowledge that we were signal engineers and so could not engage us with stories of persons buried in the cemetery who had performed groundbreaking innovations in radar technology around the world wars. Or even engineering feats in general, though there was a short touch on the Panama Canal. On my tours, this is exactly what we tried to do with every guest - engage, pique curiosity, personalize. So... This tour was fine, but lacked engagement, had some (confirmed, mostly minor) incorrect information, and negatively acted against one group of guests in an unnecessary fashion. Thus I stand by my rating and review that this was a...

Overall, we had a great experience working with West Point Tours. We worked with Jeanne to rent a 44 passenger school bus for our wedding in the Hudson Valley. Jeanne let us know when we initially called that our wedding weekend was a busy fall weekend, so we should book asap to confirm. This was a helpful tip and we booked right away.

Our bus schedule was complex as it had multiple hotel stops in advance of the wedding ceremony and after the reception. We did hear that the bus driver actually missed a stop in advance of the wedding, so we did have to delay the start time and a handful of guests were late to the wedding. However, everyone ultimately got to where they needed and people appreciated the service. We had a really fun bus ride on the way to our after party and I enjoyed speaking with the driver. He was very kind and shared sentiments that our DJ / wedding sounded really fun. I’d definitely recommend if you have a larger wedding and concerned about how people are going to get to / from a wedding. They will work with you and help solve this...

This was my second time taking the West Point tour—my first visit was back in 2012, and this time I went so my child could check it out.

Honestly, for the price though, it’s just an okay experience. The highlight is definitely the large chapel, which is stunning, but after that, you mostly just see an open courtyard, a field, and some war memorials. I really wish the tour included a look inside a dorm room or more of the campus facilities.

I also wasn’t very impressed with our tour guide; they had no previous connection to West Point and didn’t seem interested in answering questions, even though there were only a few people on the tour.

On a positive note, the updated museum (from around 2017) is very well done, and the new visitors center is beautiful with an outstanding view.

For comparison, the Annapolis campus tour in Maryland was much better value—they took us into many more areas and offered a richer...