Stirling Castle & Loch Day Tour

I will start by saying that I’ve been using Viatour for years and this is the first time that we been totally disappointed with our trip. We were booked on a tour that promoted small group of “up to 16”. When we arrived on the dock our group of 4 was led to a small van. Another group of 14 was placed on a large van. We were told that our Tour guide was with the large group and we had a driver (who happened to be on his first day with the company). We proceeded with the 8 hr trip with no tour guide. At no fault to the driver, we had no guided history of any stops we made. Just on and off the van. Over and over. At Sterling castle we finally found the guide after his group of 14 had entered the castle- and asked for some history of the area. Total waste of an 8 hr trip. Sure hope this isn’t a sign of the rest of our booked excursions this year.

We had complications with information from our printout of reservation as to where to meet our driver. We had to pay 75.00 for a taxi to go from cruise port of Greenoch to Glascow train station to meet our tour as per directions on our printout. Another bus driver at the train location finally contacted the tour contact and the driver and came to pick us up and had to reverse the tour to make it work. Lovely tour and enjoyed the amazing Stirling Castle the most. Hopefully we will be compensated for the wrong directions and our extra expense of the taxi.

John did an excellent job. We were on the excursion with a very nasty couple. From the very start, they did not like things. John tried to calm them down. He took us to many different places and gave us ample time to see them. he also was involved in a very slight motor vehicle accident which involved his mirror, but he handled that quite appropriately. He was an excellent tour guide.

This tour was fantastic! We were picked up from our cruise terminal and had a great day exploring Scotland. We were in a small group of 4 and our driver was awesome. We had plenty of time to explore at each stop and our driver even added a couple of additional stops along the way for us to explore. Our driver didn't narrate the whole way, but he did point out certain sites for us to look at and tried to make our trip fun and memorable.

A very interesting tour and a great day. Our guide Cullen, (Not certain of the pronunciation) did a great job, enjoyed his company very much. I require my walker and our guide made certain it was always available. I’d recommend either less people attend these tours if the size of the vehicle remains this size. The vehicle was a passenger van. We had 6 passengers in the vehicle, this totally maxed the vehicle capacity considering any comfort level. After we completed our tour group who arrived slightly late, my wife and sister became moved to the rear of the vehicle while I sat in the passenger seat in the front. This separated our group with the three new quests sitting in the middle. My wife is extremely hard of hearing so this pretty well finished the tour for us from the start. To make matters worse the headrest in this vehicle was very large allowing only poor vision forwards. The locations visited were all very nice. Sterling Castle visit was posted as handicapped assessable. Well its not, in fact it can be very dangerous. The entrance is at a steep angle, the stone are extremely uneven creating a serious condition. I got up to the ticket sales area but appreciated that I couldn’t go further with great concern having to negotiate the trip back to the parking lot. I got a chance to talk with our guide and two of his friends. Great guys and enjoyed their presence. I’m a bit mixed with this tour. Considering it’s downfalls it was very expensive with not much reward. The countryside was fantastic, the guide was fantastic. The vehicle greatly limited what this tour could have been. The tour could use a reminder the entrance fee to Sterling Castle is extra also.