Mike was the consummate tour guide. He picked us up at the airport and showed us around Sydney in a comfortable van. He was very professional and warm and showed us a lot of wonderful sites and shared great stories. We were all a little tired from our long flight, but he kept us engaged throughout the entire tour. I highly recommend a tour with Mike for a great intro to Sydney.
We went on the Central Coast and Glenworth Valley with Go Beyond Tours. Mike is good with correspondence before the tour and will change the tour according to your wants or needs. We especially enjoyed the horseback riding and the fact that we were able to be dropped off at the airport for an evening flight.
Very Disapointing. From reading all the reviews and viewing the photos of others I feel like we were in a different city than others. We were looking for a city tour and wanted to take the climb up at the Pylons of the bridge, as this was our only day in Sydney. Our guide was James, and calling him a guide is a bit overrated. We arreived at the airport and had all instructions to meet Michael at the Mc Donalds, We were at the McDonalds on time and even early. We received a note from James stating he was our guide and we were to meet him in pick up area of yellow express. We inquired to where that was and waited there, no James. We inquired again and told we are in the correct spot, again no James. We communicated to him where we were even giving a lot number, no James. He would tell us where he was at the airport and keep telling us to be in express but we were according to more than one airport employee. Then prior to meeting us and stating wher we should be he now tells us he is 20 minutes away, to go grab a coffee. I guess this was suppose to be the morning tea mentioned in the tour, as there was no stop for that either. Tests went back and fourth about where we were and finding us, he literally had no idea about this airport in his home city and where I am sure he had picked up people prior. After about 45 minutes he found us. His reason for not meeting us at McDonalds was he blamed Michael stating he keeps forgeting he has a van not a bus, so he has no where to park. My thought was Michael must too have a van as he does private tours, additonally park in short term parking and pay the fee to meet us, as we are the customer and paid well for this tour.
The " tour" now began, I firmly belive he made this tour up on the fly. First no water, which was he had to remove his fridge to make room for our luggage. Then we went to some look out spots for views of the bridge and opera house and if we asked a question we received an answer but no addiaonal information along the way. We were mostly driven to some lookout points and told this is a good neighboorhood this one not so much. Just prior to lunch we were asked what time we made our pylon climb for, I stated I did not know what time was scheduled as I did not make arrangements with Michael, I just know we were going there and had to pay on our own. He had to call to verify this with I am sure Michael. We went to lunch, at a nice place I belive it to be the U.S, version of a VFW hall with a view of Bondi Beach, we did not see areas that others are posting of Bondi with the swimming pool etc. We then drove from beach to beach to beach, each time all we heard was, here is another place people surf and got back in the van. If there were walking trails etc, we did not know about them or told we had time to do them. At one stop, James even got back in the car and it was a local, who told us to go up the street where the whales were breaching. We also did a stop at Luna Park, it was not on the tour, but we though the entrance looked cool, so we walked around there for 10 minutes. Then our time to go the the pylons and museum. Again for a local tour guide I would expect more, he could not find it, so stopped at a hotel to ask directions. Once we found the street, he dropped us off where one does the brifge climb, not the museum and pulons, so we had to walk doewn the street until we found the correct entrance, James followed in a van. We did the museum and clim, came back to the van to find James asleep in it. That concluded our day, as stated in title disappointing. James is no tour guide, he is a DJ from what he tells us , but his knowledge is mostly his opinion. Nothing learned in Sydney, and James does nothing for Sydney or for the company.