brianhopkins88
22 Aug 2023
My wife and I booked a tour with this company to see the top sites of Belfast. I'm pasting the text of the 2 star review we gave the company on Viator below. I'm giving this operator one star here because the owner Mick was dishonest in his reply to our two star review. It is sad and disappointing. Here is the problem:
1) We booked with Mick' based on 15 5/5 start reviews on Viator. 14 of those reviews mentioned Mick by name. And we received a message from Mick via Viator confirming that HE would pick up us up at our ship at 7:00 am. See that attached photo of that email.
2) At 7, no-one met us, so we called Mick. He mumbled at us, then hung up and would not return our calls, leaving us confused about our tour, sitting on the pier next to our ship. At 7:35, he called us back and said our driver (not him) was on the pier and ready to pick us up. Surprised that it wasn't Mick, we went our to meet our Driver Eddie, who runs Eddie's Taxi Tours. Eddy said that it was always the plan to have him drive us, and they just mixed up the time. Eddie drove us around and was knowledgable, and helpful, but it didn't meet our expectations because of the reviews we had read about the depth of information and the extend Mick guides you and doesn't just drive you around. That said, I'd give Eddie's Taxi Tours 4 stars if I was reviewing his company, but I'm reviewing Mick's Tours.
3) I wrote a review on Viator (posted below), expressing disappointment because we booked with Mick's tours, got a confirmation that Mick would be meeting us at 7, but instead we got Eddie's Taxi Tours at 7:30. If we'd wanted Eddie's Taxi Tours we would have booked with Eddie. Furthermore we were upset because this driver switch was not communicated to us when we called at 7:00, nor was it addressed in a text thread with Mick that I had while on the tour. In fact he hung up on us at 7 and wouldn't answer our calls, then failed to respond to my last text that pointed out the issue of Mick's vs. Eddie's.
4) Here is the one star part - Mick was completely dishonest in his Viator review response. He denied that he had committed to meeting us himself, and he tried to blame the missed pick up time on the "ship's early arrival." The ship was always scheduled to arrive at 6:00 am and our pick up was always at 7:00, and Mick confirmed it. So what the heck?
So my bottom line is that I understand Mick's Tours is a business and the business owner will occasionally employ other drivers. But when you screw up and do not do what you said you will do (see the attached screen shot), then fess up to it and apologize, don't lie about it.
Further, Mick was insulting in his response to our review by implying the problem was our "expecting to be treated like royalty" and our "frosty attitude when we were not." Seriously? We've been on lots of Viator tours and given lots of 5/5 stars with big tips. I expect tour operators to do what they say they are going to do AT A MINIMUM, and when they don't to apologize, not lie about it. Of course we were frosty at the beginning of the tour...the operators was late, hung up on us, and didn't do what he said he was going to do.
I discourage you from using this company as their owner is unethical and will take advantage of you if given the opportunity
----- text of the Viator review with more details -------
We selected Mick’s Tours Belfast, because of all the 5/5 star reviews and all but one were praising MIck. We assumed that Mick would be our guide since we got an email from him confirming that he would be standing on their pier at 7am to meet us. That didn’t happen. Nobody was there, so we we called the number on our reservation. Mick answered, mumbled some things we couldn’t understand and then said he would get us a driver. When we questioned the fact that we weren’t getting him after all, he hung up on us and didn’t answer when my wife and I called back. Maybe scrambling to find us a driver? I even texted him - no response…so we sat on the pier not knowing what to do and stressing. He finally called me back a bit after 7:30 and said that there had been a mix up on the time and “our driver” was now waiting for us. Why didn’t he say that in the first place when we called him instead of hanging up on us? We suspect he forgot about our booking, double booked himself, and had to scramble to find us an available driver at the last minute. Anyway, we went out to meet our driver, Eddie, who runs his own company, Eddie’s Taxi Service. Not having researched Eddie’s Taxi Service, we looked at each other with some doubt, but decided we had no better options.
Eddie drove us around the island in a comfortable BMW sedan; he was knowledgable and nice and got us to all the sites we asked to see. We are giving Mick’s Tours Belfast two stars because we feel that what is advertised and what we got are two different things. You read the reviews and expect Mick to show up and give you a personal tour, where he perhaps even accompanies you to and explains the sites, such as the Giant’s Causeway. Instead we got a nice driver with some local knowledge who chauffeured us around but didn’t really guide us.
Compounding the issue is that Mick later that day apologized for the ‘30 minute scheduling mix up’ by text, offering to buy us scones and coffee, but we had already bought some on our own. I said this in my reply. I also said our issue was not the 30 minute mix up, it was the fact that we booked with Mick’s Tours Belfast but we got Eddie’s Taxi Service instead. He failed to reply, demonstrating we were no longer important to him.
Apparently swapping around drivers is common practice among these small tour companies who book you under their names but offload excess bookings to drivers at other companies. You need to be sure who you are going to get because the quality of your tour is dependent on the skill of your guide.
Lastly, I’ll say that we expected more of a guide and less of a driver as was indicated in some of the reviews. We aren’t sure what Mick’s company does, but the taxi service we ended up with was nice, but it was a driver service. We were dropped us at each site, but on our own mostly except for the distillery, where Eddie did accompany us for some some local insight. He also helped us score free tickets to the visitor’s center at the Giant’s Causeway, which was much appreciated! We saw other groups actually going on a guided tour at the Causeway and we had hoped that would be us. So just be sure you know what you are a getting, a guide or a driver..our experience is that driver/guides are more drivers and less guides.
Mick provided my wife and I with a wonderful 2 day guided tour. Mick met us at the train station in Belfast on day 1 where we began our 4 hour city tour. Mick provided a wealth of information as we visited all the highlights of the city. On day 2 Mick picked us up at our Belfast hotel and guided us through the valleys of Northern Ireland on an active and informative tour, including stops at the “8th” wonder of the world, The Giant’s Causeway. Look no further, book with Mick for all your touring of Belfast and Northern Ireland.