2-Day Yosemite National Park Tour from San Francisco

Mitch our guide was wonderful Yosemite National Park is amazing. It is totally worth it! Can't wait to go back.

Firstly, Yosemite is a must, you have to go. And go for at least 2 days to fully experience it. Specially for the tour, this was ok. It was more of a driver, than a tour guide. For the money we paid, we were somewhat disappointed. The tour guide was nice enough, but a very weird style. Incredibly indirect and sarcastic. When asking questions such as “what mountain is this” his answer would be I gave you a map why don’t you look at it. Or where are we walking today? His answer would be we’ll just walk around see some stuff see how it goes. This really didn’t help for planning our day with food water etc and ended up over spending as we then stopped for meals throughout after being instructed to buy food in the supermarkets. We also couldn’t see Giant Seqoias or glacial point due to snow - not the tours fault but worth knowing before booking. I’d not use this your company again but if you’re tight on time in San Fran and don’t want to hire a car, it’s not too bad an option.

Well. This was a truly magical experience. I came to California from Ireland for a 2 week vacation with my wife and children (13 and 10). I rented a car for driving around Los Angeles and getting to San Francisco. I thought about driving to Yosemite also but I had a look online and I made the right decision in booking a tour through viator.com with Incredible Adventures, after doing enough driving myself. Our wonderful guide James picked us up from our hotel in San Francisco at 6.30am and off we went in an Incredible Adventures mini bus. There was no bad seat on the bus with large windows allowing us to see everything that awaited us. We stopped on the way and got stocked up so we could stop for lunch on the way. We had downloaded things to watch on our devices for the journey but we didn't need them for the whole trip. As we made our way to Yosemite it soon became apparent that James was an expert tour guide. He was very informative throughout and it was relaxing for me not to have to keep my eyes on the road for a change, and take in the beautiful drive. The sheer size of Yosemite was breathtaking and our guide told us all about Half Dome, El Capitan and the amazing waterfalls while we took some beautiful treks and stopped for eye-popping photo opportunities. Looking at the waterfalls from a distance was fantastic, but then getting so close to them that the waterfall spray surrounded us was like an out of body experience. Our guide then said goodbye and agreed to meet us in the morning. We then checked in to our hotel in Yosemite Village, and we had time for dinner. James showed us a great place to stargaze from so we spent the evening under a beautiful sky with the sound of waterfalls and wildlife all around us. We had a great sleep with a lovely view of the woods from our window and a waterfall on our door step. A magical emotional day. We had breakfast in the hotel and met our guide James at 9am. He suggested a few options and we decided to go see the Giant Sequoias. Yet again we were not disappointed, and so happy we chose a tour guide for our first trip to Yosemite to drive us to the best spots, tell us all about our surroundings while giving us time to discover Yosemite on our own. It was a winter wonderland in Mariposa Grove and to stand beside these majestic trees was another special experience. We have just left Yosemite and our guide is driving us back to San Francisco as I write this review. I'm sure Yosemite would have still been a great trip anyway but I'm happy to say I made the right decision in putting our faith in Viator, Incredible Adventures, and our expert guide James to enhance the experience, allowing us all to enjoy it, hence this glowing review. Highly recommended!