Private Tour of Bratislava from Vienna, Transport and Local Guide

Great day trip from Vienna. The transport was easy, and our guide Lubica was excellent—very knowledgeable about history and the city. A smooth and informative experience.

The worst tour we have ever had through Viator or otherwise. We were traveling as a family with our two children (12, 9). In advance of the tour, I reached out to the tour operator and asked to ensure that the guide knew we were traveling with kids so she could be prepared with the highlights and narrative to suit them. The tour operator got back to me with a curt “you can tell her yourself when you meet her”. That was a sign of more “wonderful” things to come. As the tour begin we were asked by the driver if we spoke Spanish. He was visibly surprised to hear that we only spoke English (same language in which we booked our tour was). That was the only exchange we had with the driver. The entire drive he didn’t ask a single question (whether the AC was OK, or the music/volume appropriate) or offer any commentary throughout the drive. Upon arrival in Bratislava we met our guide and she immediately told us that she typically does these tours in Spanish. While I’m very empathetic to anyone struggling with a language, in this case we we had a confirmed English-speaking tour and this guide had a very, very difficult time speaking English. As a result of course, we could barely understand anything she said. Upon meeting our guide, she of course saw our kids, and we asked her to please tailor the story-telling to something our kids could understand, but she couldn’t really understand what we were asking and considering her struggles with the English language, there was no story-telling or tailoring of anything to anyone. This was a walking tour, so we expected to walk and see the city. The guide was an elderly lady, who also seemed to battling some sort of an injury as she had a very significant limp. This resulted in her walking at an incredibly slow pace. So slow in fact, that we could not to stay behind her without just stopping or walking in place. Mercifully, the tour ended much earlier that expected, as our tour guide ran of out of things to say or couldn’t walk anywhere anymore. Our driver returned to pick us up and the entire drive back proceeded to play some local music at such a high volume that we couldn’t ourselves think, not to mention carry a conversation. Finally, as I reached out to the tour operator and provided a detailed re-telling of the facts and our experience, they not only got defensive, but also started creating narratives that never took place. That they “observed our kids singing in the car” and “appreciated my wife’s apology”. These were complete lies and fabrications as none of these things happened and as opposed to being empathetic and understanding and trying to at the very least be apologetic they either mixed up our tour with another or decided to create their own reality, or are just plainly dishonest. Stay away from this tour company. HORRENDOUS experience all the way around.

Our driver, Tim, was fabulous. A very knowledgeable and courteous driver. We really enjoy the points of interest he shared along the way to Bratislava. The tour guide in town was good. Would have enjoyed more time to explore town, but our legs gave out!