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 1 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“Costa Rica Nightmare I'll be surprised if they post this but here it goes. Don't book Smartours Costa Rica tour. They don't use regular buses. Large mini vans. The bus has no bathroom, packed in like sardines, no electrical outlets, no water ever offered, no wifi and luggage piled up the back on the seats so people have to use the fold out ones going up and down the middle of the mini bus. Luggage in the back actually came crashing down on the people in the back. Huge heavy bags. I've done two other tours in Costa Rica with other companies and none of this happened. Hotels with no air, hot water, or tv's. Yes we were in lodges in the jungle but other hotels in these areas had all of the above. Even had bare wires in one of the bathrooms on top of the shower head to heat the water. One hotel had no bar or restaurant. Had to take a taxi to get food. They advertise first class hotels and lodges. This must be a joke. There were 18 of us on this tour. 5 people were injured in one way or another from horrible travel conditions. Three needed immediate medical attention when they got home. Will never use Smartours again. We have in the past but I wouldn't take the chance of being tortured while on vacation ever again. We were so glad to get home.”

Posted 4 weeks ago

“This company is not to be trusted. I do not recommend it. Since 2021 I have been waiting for the return of money owed to me for a cancellation they made, not me.”

Posted 7 months ago

“I sent a lengthy, very detailed review last week. Didn’t you receive it?”

Posted 1 year ago

Hi Claire. Thank you for your comment. We received your survey response and will be reviewing with our tour team to address the issues mentioned. We are currently reworking the itinerary for future departures as this is a brand new destination and we recognize the itinerary falls short of where it needs to be to provide the experience promised. We apologize that it did not live up to your expectations.

Posted 1 year ago

“Customer service once again screwed us over when we tried to upgrade our seating due to medical reasons. Took 2 weeks to get final response and by that time upgrade was unavailable. All that was needed was a simple email to the group desk at Swiss Air. WE would arrive at some tour destinations and everything was closed. No Covid protocols put in place after someone in our group tested positive on our cruise ship.”

Posted 1 year ago

Hi Barbara! Thank you for taking the time to provide us with this feedback. We’d like to acknowledge that you had a frustrating experience, and we could have done better. I spoke with our customer care team to confirm some of the issues you mentioned. As we are a group travel provider, we are not generally able to provide upgraded seating. However, when you made the request our team made an exception and worked tirelessly to rectify the issue by working with our third-party vendor who then in turn works with the airline. We could not achieve this upgrade by emailing the airline group desk as you stated. As we were within a few weeks of your departure, we were unable to resolve your request in time and we apologize for that. Please know that our team made a valiant effort to accommodate you. In the future, if specific seating is needed for a flight we would encourage you to book our land-only tours and book your flight individually so that you have the flexibility to upgrade and accommodate your needs. Thank you for traveling with smarTours.

Posted 1 year ago

“37 people on the tour - far too many to be safe or to have a satisfactory experience. 3 tested positive for Covid before flight home. 2 of the 6 of us traveling together were positive upon arrival. Mask encouragement and enforcement was non-existent (except by museum staff) and tour leaders were amongst those choosing not to wear/wear their mask properly. Activity level and distances were underestimated. Despite early wake up times, tours were crowded and the outside of Athens experiences were scheduled for the hottest part of the day. This was my first and likely last experience with SmarTours.”

Posted 1 year ago

Thank you for sharing your candid feedback, Lori. We are sorry to hear that the tour did not live up to your expectations. We are following up with our tour leaders and partners to revisit our masking policies, especially given how contagious these latest strains of Covid-19 have been. We hope that everyone in your party has fully recovered and is back to good health. We are also revisiting the pacing and activity level descriptions for this tour. Although the tour itinerary is largely unchanged since pre-covid times, we've received much more feedback from our recent departures about the pace, so we are looking at what we can adjust here to make it more comfortable. We do hope that you were able to enjoy the history, culture and beauty of Greece during your tour.

Posted 1 year ago

“The tour was very unsatisfactory. There were 38 people on our tour and that is way too many. It was unfair to the customers and the tour leaders. Beyond that, we are still in the midst of the Covid pandemic so this large a tour was irresponsible. Five people on the tour caught Covid, including me. Finally, about 1/3 of the people were unable to handle the rigors of this tour. They could barely go up and down the stairs of the bus let alone climb all the acropolises. It was painful to watch them struggle. My conclusion is that SmatTours is more interested in profits than in the health and well being of its clients. This is very likely our last tour with your company.”

Posted 1 year ago

Thank you for providing this feedback, David. We value your opinion and rely on feedback (both positive and constructive) to enhance and improve our tours. We are reviewing the pacing and activity level of this tour, as we have now heard from a few people about this point. We ran this tour with the same itinerary prior to the pandemic and always received positive feedback, but the world is in a different place now and people are responding differently, so we need to adapt. We are so sorry to hear you caught Covid on the trip, and hope that you are fully recovered now, and back safe at home.

Posted 1 year ago

“Everything about this experience was lacking. Absolute disaster from the pre-trip (non)communication to the final drop-off. Avoid the company. There are better options. There is nothing here anymore beyond the name of the company.”

Posted 1 year ago

Dear Anonymous, we are so sorry to hear about your poor experience. If you feel comfortable reaching out to us at customerservice @ smartours.com, we would love to hear more about your experience so we can make improvements for future travelers.

Posted 1 year ago

“A dream of a trip turned into a nightmare dealing with Smartours' horrendous customer service. Smartours emailed all US passengers that lab techs would be coming to the boat in Dordrecht to give us COVID rapid tests the day prior to our flights home. Smartours lied and no plans were made. Our Smartours guide was clueless about this and told us to tell airline personnel that we had lost our test results. He was very flippant and we worried about getting home for the entire duration of this nightmare trip. Other than this minor issue, the boat's crew, food, and walking tours were surprisingly better than expected...no thanks to Smartours.”

Posted 2 years ago

Walter, thank you for sharing your candid feedback, and we are so sorry that this trip of a lifetime turned out to be such a stressful experience. We have followed up with our guide and partners in destination regarding testing and the messaging provided to your group, and have improved our future departures with better documentation and testing information. As you can imagine, there have been changes to both our team and our internal processes as COVID has impacted what travel looks like moving forward, and we apologize for how this may have affected your experience with us from locating your reservation to your customer service experience. We did experience some issues with our emergency number which have now been addressed, and we have additionally added email support for our customers. We truly appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, and please know we take comments from our travelers very seriously as we rely on feedback like yours to help us plan our future tours and update our internal processes and procedures to ensure a wonderful travel experience. We hope that you will consider traveling with us again.

Posted 1 year ago

“Had the worst experience with smarTours just returned from a South Africa tour found out a week before the flight had huge 8 hour layovers they didn’t ask first if we wanted to go ahead with that arrangement or get out money refunded and buy our own flight also the itinerary was changed due to a political uprising and two whole days were just spent driving and without any sightseeing being done in Durban they dropped us at the hotel at 4 then the area wasn’t safe and we couldn’t even venture out as well as Johannesburg the day was rushed and we were done by 3:30. I also unfortunately had two very nasty couples on the trip that took away from the experience for me and they acted completely entitled and expected everyone to bow down to them one lady kept making up different illnesses for her husband so only he would get the best seat on the safaris first it was motion sickness then it was a ankle problem then back I got called some nasty names for taking the seat because I don’t feel they should be entitled to it every time and out tour guide Jeremy didn’t make the situation any better you would think he would remain neutral and help the situation but he did nothing of that sort. Everyone in the group was also in their seventies so if you’re younger like me that was another mistake made. I highly advise against traveling with them you would do better booking any tours on your own wherever you chose to go”

Posted 2 years ago

“Would not return our money for a Greece trip cancelled twice, very difficult to find anyone with information for several months. Is there any way to give you no stars ?”

Posted 2 years ago

“They canceled my trip last year I was told I could use the $6000 credit towards another trip including optional tours. I’m on a tour to Alaska right now and they are refusing to allow me to us my remaining credit of $2000 towards my optional tours I was forced to pay an additional $1800 on top of everything else. I’m sitting here on my vacation waiting for them to call be back. This is not a vacation I will never travel with them again I’m getting ripped off. Stay away from this company.”

Posted 2 years ago

“We just received a phone call advising us that for the 3rd time the tour we books was cancelled. we insured each trip and we want our money back. Smartours does not want to give us our money back. Each time it has cost us money to book these trips. Apparently their insurance is a scam also.”

Posted 2 years ago

Hello, We thank you for your feedback and are sorry for the frustration you experienced. As it became clear that COVID-19 would have a lasting impact on our ability to travel, we were forced to make very difficult and unprecedented decisions as a business. One of those decisions was to update our cancellation policy and offer affected customers a future tour credit in place of a monetary refund. We know that you have tried to reschedule to alternate tours in 2021 and that those tours were also cancelled. While variants continue to make travel difficult, we know that our need to cancel these tours has been frustrating and hope you understand we didn't come to this decision lightly. We hope to accommodate you on an upcoming 2022 tour and hope you'll continue to share feedback with us as we work to restore the levels of service you expect so that we can continue to offer the once-in-a-lifetime tours. Thank you, The smarTours Team

Posted 2 years ago

“Called multiple times to no avail.their email does not work for me.Trying to advise I may not be able to attend Cruise of the czars,still no info if still cancelled First experience with this company.Not surprised they had to file for bankruptcy”

Posted 3 years ago

Hello, We apologize that you were unable to get a hold of one of our representatives about your upcoming cruise. A member of our customer service team will be reaching out shortly to assist you. Thank you, The smarTours Team

Posted 3 years ago

“smarTours would not refund our deposit after they cancelled our September 2020 trip to Spain because of Covid-19. We will never recommend this travel agency to anyone, and travelers should be aware they do not refund anything because of Covid-19. Do they refund money for any other situation, it is not known. We will never use this travel agency, and we will never recommend smarTours to anyone.”

Posted 3 years ago

Hello, Thank you for your comments, and we are sorry for the frustration you experienced. Traditionally, our deposits are non-refundable and require a change fee to be transferred to a new reservation, but due to the extraordinary circumstances that COVID-19 brought upon the travel industry, we were able to offer affected customers a future tour credit for monies paid including the deposit and have waived the associated change fees. Our restructuring after filing for Chapter 11 has allowed us to honor these credits, which have no expiration date. As we work hard to rebuild our business and restore the levels of service you expect, we hope you'll consider using your future tour credit and traveling with us in the future. Thank you, The smarTours Team

Posted 2 years ago

“Despicable company and despicable company policy. Obviously they canceled my May 2020 trip to Greece and have forced me to accept rebooking next May. Woe to anyone in my group because I will be very unhappy to have to travel with this company next year or ever. I called, I emailed, I wrote the president a letter asking for a refund. How dare they continue to have the use of my money – full payment – when they fail to provide the services I contracted for?I also requested information regarding travel insurance for the 2021 trip and, no surprise, no response at all! Horrible company, horrible customer service. You are warned. I suspect they are keeping my money because they are close to going bankrupt - Why else would they be so afraid to return what is rightly mine and hope that I will reschedule all on my own?”

Posted 3 years ago

Hello, As mentioned in our responses to your other posts, we'd like to thank you for sharing your feedback and we're sorry for the frustration you experienced. Like many businesses, we lost much of our staff during the early and toughest days of the pandemic, and struggled to keep up with our customers' needs. Due to the extraordinary circumstances that the pandemic brought upon the travel industry, we were forced to make very difficult and unprecedented decisions as a business. One of those decisions was to update our cancelation policy and offer affected customers a future tour credit in place of a monetary refund. After our Chapter 11 restructuring, our court-approved plan allows us to offer 100% credit for any payments made on tours that were impacted by COVID with no expiration date. We hope you'll consider using your credit on a future trip. We understand the frustrations caused to our travelers by this outcome, and as we work hard to rebuild our business, we are also working to restore the levels of service you expect so that we can continue to offer the once-in-a-lifetime tours we have offered for the last 25 years well into the future. Thank you, The smarTours Team

Posted 2 years ago

“Although our tour guide in Iceland was extraordinarily good, we will never use SmarTours again. We are telling all of our family and friends about this. SmarTours used to be a good travel company, but something has happened since we used them five years ago. They have devolved into nothing more than an unprofessional, clueless call center. SmarTours lures you in with a $100/per person discount if you pay your deposit by e-check. Six months later, when the balance is due, if you pay with a credit card, you will get an unpleasant surprise: your invoice will have a line that says "Forfeiture of eCheck Discount" and $100/person is added to the balance. You CANNOT pay by phone. The online system DOES NOT ALERT YOU of this "forfeiture." When I saw the invoice, the payment was still Pending on my credit card. THREE SmarTours call center representatives, including a supervisor, said it was no problem to fix this. I just needed to notify my credit card company and call them back, which I did. When I called back, the call center representative said there was nothing she could do. I asked to speak to a manager. She would not connect me but said she would have someone call me back. They never did. I have been BETRAYED, RIPPED OFF, and will NEVER use SmarTours again. You have been warned about this cheapskate, underhanded, chintzy company. BEWARE.”

Posted 4 years ago

Hello Kathryn, Thank you for sharing your experience with us and we're sorry for the frustration. We've tried to make the requirements for the eCheck discount clear in the payment portal, but we understand that there is room for improvement and have been working diligently to explore additional ways to further call this out. Please know we take your feedback seriously and are using your comments to improve our online booking and payment experiences. Thank you, The smarTours Team

Posted 2 years ago

“The tour was very poorly planned the tips were exhausting the tour guide was terrible I will be very hesitant to do another tour with you”

Posted 4 years ago

We're sorry that you didn't enjoy your tour of Egypt, Grace. We'll be reviewing feedback from your departure to determine what can be done better moving forward including exploring other tipping options. Thank you for sharing your feedback with us, and if you have any additional comments, please don't hesitate to email them to feedback@smarTours.com. The smarTours Team

Posted 2 years ago

“I have informed smarTours that I did not feel safe on my tour due to another passenger. He was physically intimidating and verbally abusive toward me during the entire trip. I have asked for a refund of $300 for the cost of meals and tours I was advised to skip in order to avoid this man.”

Posted 4 years ago

“Our guide was GREAT!!! The itinerary was GREAT!!!! The Thai people were lovely! Elephant Nature Park was an amazing experience! I wouldn’t change a thing! Best trip ever!”

Posted 4 years ago

“The worst tour company ever. I spoke to Ms McKeon of your office who was dismissive and rude. When I spoke to her about an insurance claim she hung up on me in mid sentence I wrote to the CEO and never got a response.”

Posted 4 years ago

«
1
2
3
»

smarTours is rated 4.4 based on 1,658 reviews