01 Apr 2023
My friend and I booked this tour as we had heard that sunrise tours of the Taj Mahal were the best option if booking a day trip from Delhi. Our driver was prompt when picking us up, however he drove 140kms the entire way to Agra. This would’ve been manageable, however we could see in the rear view mirror he began falling asleep about 30 minutes into the drive. We had to keep talking to him so he didn’t fall asleep. We picked up the tour guide when we got to Agra, who was nice enough, he took some nice photos of us. After we had seen Agra fort and Taj Mahal the driver and tour guide took us to a carpet shop. They disappeared into a back room, presumably to sit with their friends, and left us to be ‘shown how to make carpet’ for an hour. This turned out to be extremely pushy carpet sales, an item we had no intention of buying in the first place. This made us super uncomfortable. We asked to leave and the driver and tour guide suggested we visit two more shops, not wanting a repeat experience we declined and asked to be taken home to Delhi (3 hours early). We dropped the tour guide off at a hotel which clearly had a partnership with our guide and driver - at which point the guide asked me friend to write a review on the spot, he wouldn’t let us leave until my friend had completed the review. This was extremely uncomfortable. He then forced us to leave a tip for him even though we’d paid $150+ for this tour each. Overall, giving it a 2 star rating because the Taj Mahal is incredible, but I would not recommend this tour. Being put in uncomfortable positions did ultimately take away from the experience of seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time. Look for a different tour operator if you want to see the Taj at sunrise.