06 Apr 2023
Experienced a little bit of a mixup in the beginning. We previously completed one of these Korean Buddy 4 hour tours earlier in our trip. We booked a second one as we found the first guide especially knowledgeable and helpful. It seems each of our tours booked thru Viator reached out the day before with meetup details and working out an itinerary. Except in this particular booking, no one reached out and I had to contact the agency thru Viator to inquire about the scheduled tour for the following day. Instead of the agency reaching out to the assigned tour guide themselves, they gave me her phone number. After messaging Rose, the tour guide, we settled on an itinerary for the next day.
The day of the booking, a different tour guid, Rebecca, was waiting for her assigned booking, at the lobby of our hotel. After some additional calls she made to the agency, she determine we were the group she was there to pick up. The agency had sent her to fill-in Rose's place and Rose was supposed to let us know but she did not. Very poor communication experience from Rose.
I would have given this Korean Buddy booking only 2 stars had Rebecca's helpfulness and willingness in taking us to the two places we wanted to go, which were not typical tour requests. Despite Rebecca needing to ask many people along the way if they knew the places we wanted to see (Music Zone at Olympic stadium which several people she asked didn't know where it was and the other was a specific store in the Coex Mall in Gangnam) and taxi drivers dropping us off at the wrong stadium, Rebecca made sure our mission was completed. She also brought mugwort rice cakes for us and provided great conversation and stuck around to have dinner with us, past the 4 hour marking the end of the tour. Thank you so much Rebecca!