Pre-Cruise Tour from London to Dover Port via Dover Castle

Viator should be ashamed of itself with its “Pre-cruise Tour from London to Dover Port via Dover Castle”. After paying $543.67 for 2 adults and 1 child, we absolutely felt had due to Viator’s DELIBERATE, false advertising and deceptive language of “via” the Dover Castle. We realize the Castle ticket was not included, but there was absolutely nothing “via” about this tour. Yes, we could look up (WAY UP) in the distance to vaguely see the Castle, but Viator is straight misleading people with this offering. I urge you, do not waste your money on this. We could’ve paid less for a private transfer and been happier.

U still need to pay ticket to enter Dove casltle. The term tour is misleading! Should be label as transportation only

Unfortunately, our experience with this transfer was not the best and not what we had expected, especially the optional Dover Castle visit portion. We had been notified by the company two days earlier, after contacting them for a hotel pick-up time, that we would be collected between 8.45 - 9.15am. The morning of the actual transfer we were sent a message from the driver that he'd be arriving at 7.20am...we didn't even see this message until 7.10am but by some miracle we were actually fully packed and about to come downstairs for a relaxed breakfast before our transfer to Dover! The driver had no idea why we'd been told this later collection time. The vehicle was clean and well maintained and easily stored our luggage and that of the other couple who was using this service also. The driver drove very professionally on the entire two hour journey and arrived at the Dover Castle well before opening time. This is where our other issue arises. We were under the impression from the details of the service on the website, that we would have approximately 2 hours at the castle before being dropped at the cruise terminal. Maybe the trip from London was extra quick because it was a Saturday morning and traffic was lighter than expected, but we were dropped in the castle carpark 40 minutes before the opening time to the castle at 10am and was told he'd be back at 11am to collect us where we had been dropped off. This then gave us a maximum of one hour to explore the castle (included in this time is the actual walk up the quite substantial hill and then back down again because the ticket office is in the carpark not up at the castle). This was nowhere near enough time and very disappointing to say the least especially as there was no rush to be at the cruise terminal because the transfer company knew the ship's departure time was not until late in the afternoon. To us, it seemed like the driver was needing a quick return to London for some reason. In fact, we had previously also booked a return transfer from the port back to London after our cruise but this had been cancelled a few weeks before our departure date due to, we were told, a shortage of drivers. Perhaps this issue had some impact on the driver's apparent rush to need to return to collect us from the castle. If this is at all usual for this optional extra, I would not recommend it as value for money. We saw very little of the castle, and could easily see that the extra hour that we expected to have had would have made a big difference to the entire experience. Overall, I think we should have just used the car service to transfer to the port and then make our own way up to the castle after checking in for our cruise.