12 Jul 2023
The guide (and owner) was nice and had a great accent. But he spent at least ten minutes at the start telling all of us not to be critical of the tour or tour guide and on and on about making it a positive experience that was a big red flag. We had some knowledge of downtown LA and basics of the crimes so it was disappointing on the tour to have much of it be word for word Wikipedia info or just his conjecture "I think . . " or sweeping generalizations. There wasn't the historical aspect and much more opinion but not based on anything specific. It was way too long for what was covered and ended in a bleak part of town at night so as women we had to uber or walk back alone to our car parked near the start of the tour. He would be wise to make it more of a loop and end closer to the start, and do more in depth research, or tighten it up and cover it. The bar stop was unnecessary, fine, but didn't add much. We've been on other similar tours and this one was disappointing based on the good reviews. It was fine, we wouldn't have walked around these areas of DTLA by ourselves, but it didn't add to what we already knew from looking at Wikipedia before. The long speech at the start about not criticizing the host makes me think we are not alone. Still tipped him and he was fine, but it could be much better. Not much about "ghosts" and very superficial covering of crimes and why significant. It was fine if you didn't know anything I guess and he was nice enough so debated leaving a review at all since it wasn't awful and we got our steps in (!) but hope this helps someone decide and maybe he will beef it up for future groups and not lecture them about their behavior (never had a tour guide give a speech like that before ever, it wasn't needed).