Login

Start Free Trial Are you a business?? Click Here

Are you a business?

Terms & Conditions

User Privacy Policy

Business User Privacy Policy

Data Protection

smarTours Reviews

4.4 Rating 1,658 Reviews

86 %

of reviewers recommend smarTours

Company Reviews

Product Reviews

4.4

Based on 1,658 reviews


Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Under An Hour
Customer Service	3.7 out of 5

About smarTours:

smarTours is a leading provider of direct-to-consumer, affordable travel experiences to exotic global destinations. The Company offers travelers curated, pre-packaged itineraries to over 50 destinations across the globe. By offering tours directly to consumers, the Company provides premium-quality experiences at value prices, and as a result, has cultivated a highly passionate and loyal community of repeat travelers. More than 200,000 travelers have taken a smarTours trip since the founding of the Company in 1996. smarTours is… the smarter way to see the world.

Phone:

800-337-7773

Email:

info@smartours.com

Location:

500 7TH AVE, 8TH FL,
NEW YORK
New York
10018

Write Your review

Tell us how smarTours made you happy

Help future customers by talking about customer service, price, delivery, returns & refunds.

Minimum 10 characters

Would you like to add a photos or videos?

Strengthen your review by uploading photos & videos.

Drag files here or browse

(Supported files: jpg, png, mpeg, ogg, mp4 & webm)

What's your name?

Leave this blank if you'd like to publish your review anonymously.

(Optional)

What's your email?

We need your email address to verify that your review is genuine

Please note that we may share your email with the company to verify your order.

smarTours 5 star review on 21st April 2024

smarTours 5 star review on 21st April 2024

smarTours 5 star review on 13th April 2024

smarTours 5 star review on 13th April 2024

smarTours 5 star review on 8th April 2024

smarTours 5 star review on 7th April 2024

smarTours 4 star review on 1st April 2024

714

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

Filter: Rated 3 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“We were on the "Incredible Iceland and Northern Light Tour." We were not pleased to have to pay for our own Northern Lights tour with Grey Lines at an additional cost. We were told Smartours only covered the cost of the Northern Lights tour for the first three days, when we did not go out, due to snowing conditions. This extra cost makes no sense on a tour titled Northern Lights. Also, before the tour we emailed to get additional information as new travelers to Smartours and our email was not answered. On our phone contact, one representative was snippy in her attitude.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Hotels was good kibbutz was dirty adina Mayer was knowledgable but boring if we had known that masada was closed every January for maintenance would have gone in February the bus driver in petra picked up one of his friends to drive him home on our time.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Hotels was good kibbutz was dirty adina Mayer was knowledgable but boring if we had known that masada was closed every January for maintenance would have gone in February the bus driver in petra picked up one of his friends to drive him home on our time.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Tour director was just ok. She was very organized and punctual. She lacked empathy to the clients it seems and not very focused on catering to them. Given the $ amount spent on this trip it seems as though she could have done better and put forward more effort towards making our experience more enjoyable.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Hotels and food provided were sub par”

Posted 5 years ago

“Our guide started with I am an excellent guide, I have been doing this for 8 years. I had to ask several times to answer questions. She read the history and a few other things out of a note book and kept making errors with the read. she dropped us at the hotel and said you are on your own. I will see you tomarrow. she did give us suggestions. All other guides with you have been excellent. Vic Hotel was so hot and dinner was cold. All else was o. k.”

Posted 5 years ago

“We have traveled with Smartours before and had good memorable experiences. This Egypt tour, however, fell short of expectation. The Egypt air flight from JFK was held up on the tarmac for 1-1/2 hours and no updates or announcements were ever made. The Aswan- Abu Salem flights were disastrous! The outgoing flight was delayed an hour and the return flight was most chaotic ever with multiple repetitive screenings with associated lost/misplaced items. The whole Abu Salem tour was poorly planned. The original schedule allowed barely enough time [2 hours] and the delay reduced it further making it the most expensive and unwise investment of time and resources. Other groups traveled by cruise ship and spend a night there. Smartours could schedule a night there in the ship instead of an idle day at Luxor. While the Tour Director was a scholarly person and very supportive, same cannot be said about the other ground staff. The Manager provided some inaccurate, contradictory info. on optional tours and fees and failed to offer any regrets. The farewell dinner at Marriott was mismanaged, especially for the vegetarians. The cruise ship was average, but services fell short of expectations. Wifi was unavailable even in the reception area for Smartours clients and food services were very restricted. No tea or snacks were available in-between meal times. Too many early flights, midnight wakeup calls and crowded scheduling [too many commercial store visits] made it a strenuous trip even to many of our seasoned travelers in the group. Overall while it was an educational and valuable trip for us it could have been made more enjoyable with better itinerary scheduling and improved local services. Hope this would be treated by Smartours as constructive criticism from a loyal customer.”

Posted 5 years ago

“I enjoyed my two previous tours with smarTours to Myanmar and Ukraine, but this Thailand & Cambodia trip is nowhere as remarkable or enjoyable. The return connection in Beijing was awful. I almost finished reading War & Peace. We did not get to see downtown Bangkok and the boat ride scenery as seen in most brochures. I wished more meals were included. The coach was comfortable, and our excellent guide Susie was knowledgeable and meticulous.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Some hotels were booked with SMALL single beds. Didn't expect view rooms, but tiny beds are not acceptable when one queen is a couple of $$ more or the same. Flight from Lax to SYD then on to AUK made no sense since we lost a day in Aukland and flew past Aukland 2 1/2 hours waited 2 1/2 hours and flew back to Aukland the first day. Several direct flights to AUK boarded in Lax about the time we left LAX. I had wanted to book my own airfare for this reason, as well as the price difference, but was told that was not possible. I was informed this is what we got for booking a discount trip. After booking Business Class for this trip, it cost the same as many other land tours. At $23K plus, hardly a discount trip. We have booked Africa in May 2019. We hope our Africa trip is not as discounted as this trip was. Tour director could have been much more informative on our daily travels.”

Posted 5 years ago

“The guide was excellent but the travel arrangements were a short coming. I was disappointed in the fact that the bus that was to take us to the airport was late in arriving thus raising the anxiety levels. The trip over was terrible but that was somewhat weather related. The meals are ok but nothin g to rave about. Overall the trip was of”

Posted 5 years ago

“Your tour guide talk down like we were school children. We were In a marathon race, asked the guide to wait until we all get off the bus, as there were slow walkers, I was ignored. I waited for the last person and by the time we got to the guide this lecture was in progress, we missed a lot..He had a superior way about him. this is just for starters.. Finally near the end of the tour Mr.. Albert Gerber and Mr.Bigboy was great tour guide. What made the trip bearable was the the last two guides and the guests.”

Posted 5 years ago

“First time with Smartours. The schedule was very hectic. Didn’t like the 2 am wake up calls. Not much free time. Other tour companies include soft drinks with their meals. Felt it was not very organized.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Choice of hotels in Cairns unacceptable. Misleading information on upgrade to Green Island excursion.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Just completed the 10/31 Thailand tour that was a great tour until time to return home. It took nearly two days to get home and it was the worst travel experience ever!!! The trip home was a killer and the reason I will never travel with smarTours again unless these two questions below are answered to my satisfaction: This is the travel breakdown: 19 hours - flight time for our three legs to get home 14 hours - sitting in airports 5 hours - sitting at Empress Hotel NEARLY TWO DAYS including a drive from LAX to Las Vegas..... 1. The last day, we checked out of the hotel at noon but did not start return home till 5pm, or five hours later. Why could we not check out mid-morning and immediately start the return trip home from Chiang Mai and fly to Beijing? It makes no sense to sit in the hotel for 5 hours, fly south Bangkok only to back track to Beijing!!! Why was the flight necessary? This step kills nearly 10 hours and adds another flight to the trip home!!!!! 2. Sitting in the Beijing airport for 8 hours were the longest and worst part of the trip. This is the longest lay-over ever and must be improved. The airport was cold (they don't turn on heat till end of Nov.), uncomfortable, few good restaurants, no good resting places and wi-fi did not work. Does it make any sense to sit in a airport for 8 hours to you? If you have a contact person regarding these issues, please provide name and phone number and would love to talk with that person. Looking forward to a plausible explanation for this travel plan of two days to get home. If I knew the return trip was that long/bad, I would not have booked. This return process is horrible and must be improved. On the positive side, great tour and Nok was a great tour guide...... THANKS - Roy Oxenrider”

Posted 5 years ago

“Overall 3 stars. The guide was very good. 5 stars The hotels were comfortable. 4 stars The attractions were well chosen. 5 stars. 1 star for the following: There was too much time spent on the bus. It was uncomfortable to be seated for so long (two days!) The return air trip was AWFUL. The trip took 31 hours from Chiang Mai to LAX due to poor connections and long layovers arranged by Smartours! The long layovers in Bangkok and Beijing were simply not acceptable. They were excessive and stressful. Leaving Bangkok at 1:05am was very bad planning by ST. We arrived from Chiang Mai at @6pm and left for Beijing after a 7 hour layover! It is almost a week after the return flight and I am still exhausted due to the bad flight planning. The NY office staff was disorganized and non-communicative for long periods of time. I had to contact them for information that should have been sent but wasn't. They seemed unaware of problems even when explanation was given repeatedly. They required a doctor's letter for a seat request which Air China repeatedly told me they did not receive or require. The ST staff refused any other help with the matter, not even supplying a contact number at Air China, which was extremely difficult to contact. Help finally came from another airline giving a number at AC that was actually answered. This trip's travel plans were in stark contrast to the wonderful previous trip I made to Africa with ST.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Usually my Smartours experiences are a five. The tour to Egypt was a great experience. We had the best tour director Soha and assistant Mohamed. However, the tour organization was done wrong. Almost every morning we had to be up by either one o’clock am or three o’clock am to either go through a flight or a sight seeing. Soha did a marvelous job to accommodate all 40 people. But waking up every morning that early and going through a very heavy loaded day was very tiring. The hotels were great and the boat was great. I believe the tour has to be rearranged and maybe add one more day to the tour to make it less exhausting for the travelers. Needed at least one more day in Cairo at the end. Soha took us to the Cairo museum and she has a vast knowledge of history. She explained every article and statue and item so well. However, we were so tired from the early morning wake up. Afterwards went to Bazar and spend only one hour in the restaurant. No time for looking around and shopping. As I said, the whole trip has to be rearranged and rescheduled. I would rate it a three and a half because it was so exhausting.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Lots of potential. Great employees.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Information was not complete about using American currency. You should have been upfront about bills being almost completely new without any extraneous marks on them. You should also prepare us for how many more people would be expecting tips. Our tour guide, Chico, was good. I found the hotels we stayed in very nice, and the side tours good.”

Posted 5 years ago

“Accommodations were great, including the Movenpick Royal Lily. Especially enjoyed our time on the Nile. Randa, our “tour manager” was less effective than the tour managers we had on our prior two smarTours trips. She is very personable - would be good to share drinks or a meal with, however, she was virtually unable to keep to a schedule & was not very good at communicating needed info in a timely manner. Finally, we found the Egyptians we met to be very friendly but the country itself is dirty & trashy. The “great monuments” were vastly overrated, in our opinion, and Randa’s explanations at the various key sites were very uninspired and “canned” without any interesting contextual basis - the exact opposite of our experience when we went to South Africa with smarTours. Also, we appreciate that we had such good security protection - but, had we known the security situation was that fragile & dicey we would not have gone (e.g. day after we left, terrorists attacked a bus of Egyptian Christians several miles south of Cairo, killed 7 & wounded 19!!). Glad we got out alive. Finally, the folks in our tour group were very nice and enjoyable to travel with.”

Posted 5 years ago

“There should never be 21 people traveling together in a group of 39. It was a constant battle for seats on the bus, places in line, and tables on stops. You should have given them their own tour because they felt and acted like they were the only ones who mattered. While the guide was beyond fabulous in his knowledge base, he was not a mediator for 21 pushy, ill mannered individuals. It soured many a moment as verbal confrontations broke out more than once.”

Posted 5 years ago

«
1
2
...
3
4
5
6
7
»

smarTours is rated 4.4 based on 1,658 reviews