19 Sep 2019
This was a good tour, but appeared to have been passed off by the original hired company to another company. Therefore, our expectations of having the guide and experience that is mentioned in many of the reviews was not the experience we had. Nonetheless, the driver and guide Billy was very friendly and took us to many off the beaten path places, was always happy to take photos of my wife and me, and was accommodating as to photo stops along the journey. My only criticisms would be to have a discussion at the beginning of the tour to cover expectations of the itinerary, what we wanted to see vs not see, that sort of thing. We kind of did that as the tour went on, but it would have been better to set the expectations about stops and timing from the get go. Also, though the trip was scenic, efficient, and friendly, there was not much insight or depth to the guide - in other words, we wanted to hear more about the history, lore, and character of the places, not just where we were but the "why" behind their significance. In all, the tour was good, and could be improved just by the up front discussion about what the guests wanted to see to set expectations, followed by some more insight and narrative from the guide about the depth of the places, things that you woudn't get from the big bus tours or from the Wikipedia pages. Armed with this info, though, I think we would do this tour again and found it to be worth the money to get a private view of this beautiful area off the beaten path from the cruise ship cram packed bus tours.