Gold Panning Selbstgeführte Tour

This tour never happened. It is only transportation to the site. You ride the van with another tour with another destination. We were told we would only have an hour at the site, in order to get a ride back to Anchorage. It was a lot of money for transportation only and very little time was allowed to enjoy the area. Plus, this tour did not include the admission fee which was not clarified until it was too late to cancel and get a full refund. Because of the cost for transportation, we decided to stay with the other tour. Full disclosure was lacking with this tour.

The shuttle was really nice! Shuttle was clean and we learned a lot. As we had extra time, we even stopped at places not on the list like a waterfall and Potter Marsh. Gold panning was an awesome experience. The owners were fun and informative and we all left with some gold! Not much gold, but we can now say we panned for our own gold. Without the worries of driving, this mom had a great day!!!

The tour bus/van company moved our start time from 11:00am to 1:45pm the evening before our tour. So we rearranged our plans for that day to accommodate the bus tour company. They promised to take our group to The Alaska Wildberry Products company to see the worlds largest chocolate waterfall, due to the inconvenience. Then the day of the tour they texted at 1:18pm stating they’d arrive at 2:00pm now. My family and another family were already there waiting on them. Make note that once you get to the address they provide to be picked up, there are other companies and services that pick up and drop off at the exact same location but there is no signage or instructions as to exactly where to go to wait, which causes confusion. And on top of the fact that the bus/van was even later than 2:00pm to get there made everyone concerned we had been scammed. But, the bus/van did finally arrive at approximately 2:30pm. When you finally arrive at the gold panning location, panning for the gold was fun. Since the driver did not stop at the Alaska Widberry Product company on the way to the gold panning, we all thought we’d be stopping there on the way back. It did not appear the driver Ben was planning on stopping anywhere, so I asked when we would be there. He replied, he didn’t have time to take us there now because he was running behind. Even though he and the tour bus/van company are the ones who promised us and the other passengers to take us there for them inconveniencing us. Through the website I booked this tour I requested a refund. Within minutes of submitting my request, Ben the driver calls me to say he could offer to take us on a tour the next day, but he would not be giving me a refund. I explained to Ben that we already had made prior plans and just would like a refund due to them lying and moving times at the last minute and being late on top of that. He began to argue with me and refused to issue a refund. My family understands unexpected things come up to cause times to change or maybe even people to be late. But to promise paying customers something and then lying and not taking us where they promised to after they said they would is just flat out lying, rude and disrespectful. They inconvenienced all of us but they couldn’t go out of their way to do what they said they would do. Then to call the paying customer and argue with them on the phone. Unprofessional and disappointing to say the least. Definitely not worth the $287 I paid for a ride to go gold panning, for four people. Could of saved the money and drove there ourselves.