Get Your Guide review: how to book tours online

Looking for a detailed Get Your Guide review? Over many years of traveling, we have learnt that one of the best ways to get to know the history and culture of a city, destination or attraction is to hire a tour guide, or take a tour.

But without a travel agent or recommendation it is hard to work out which tours to choose. How do you know what tours are available and if they are any good? There are now several online booking engines to help you book tours online.

We have tested most of them and wanted to share one of our favourite online booking sites with our Get Your Guide review – including tips on how to make the most of using this service.

Summary: Get Your Guide review

An easy to use online booking engine for tours, attractions and activities, Get Your Guide has the industry’s widest range of tours and activities. Including many you may not thought of.

Detailed descriptions including what level of fitness is required, tour inclusions and cancellation policies mean that you get a good idea of what you are signing up for.

Reviews by tour participants are often detailed and can help clarify any remaining questions you might have. If not, we have found the Get Your Guide customer service team to be very helpful.

Once you choose your preferred tours, it is easy to check availability so you can manage your schedule and itinerary.

The booking engine is safe and secure allowing credit card, debit card, Google Pay and PayPal payments.

And prices are guaranteed. If you find the same tour operator offering an experience at a lower price in the same currency, Get Your Guide will refund the difference.

Once you have paid, all your tour information is stored on the Get Your Guide app so there is no need to remember to carry around paper confirmations. The app is available for Apple and Android devices.

Get Your Guide have clear and easy to understand messaging regarding Covid-19 precautions and safety measures on tours offered on their platform.

CHECK TERMS AND CONDITIONS

When booking any tours online make sure to check the terms and conditions. Cancelation varies by tour and attraction. Many activities can be canceled up to 24 hours in advance with a full refund however this is at the discretion of the provider.

What is Get Your Guide

Get Your Guide is an online booking engine that lists available tours and tickets for attractions in destinations around the world.

When we last checked, they listed over 35,000 activities in 7,440 destinations. Phew that’s a lot of tours!

Based in Berlin, the company has a very strong list of tours and attractions in Europe and this is where we have tested them the most. They are also very popular for luxury experiences in and around Dubai.

Does Get Your Guide run tours?

Get Your Guide is not primarily a tour company. Tour operators list their tours on Get Your Guide who collect a commission when tours are sold.

Tip – You can check the operator running the tour by scrolling to the bottom of the tour listing

In popular locations like New York, London and Paris you can book small group tours run by GetYourGuide, known as Get Your Guide Originals but the vast majority are run by other operators.

Reasons to use an online booking service for tours and attractions

Before the internet and online market places, booking tours depended on the knowledge of your travel agent or what brochures were available at your hotel.

There was really no good way to know what tours were available. I’m so glad those days are over!

Here are some reasons why you should consider booking tours and tickets online.

1. Inspiration awaits – find the best things to do on your trip when you search for activities in one online portal. That’s how I found this wonderful vintage car tour for a trip to Paris
2. You can browse and compare tours for your trip well in advance – this means you can confirm your itinerary and relax
3. Take advantage of last minute bookings. Have a few spare hours on your trip to fill? Easily find an activity to do without searching the entire internet.
4. Book skip the line tickets quickly. This is also great for when you realise that you don’t want to waste your entire Italy vacation in the line to see the Vatican
5. Confirm and book tours easily using a secure online system – no need to handle lots of foreign currency when you are abroad
6. Keep all your documents in one place online – no need to carry around paper vouchers for your trip

How to use Get Your Guide to book tours and attractions

Here is our step by step guide to using the Get Your Guide service

Search for tours and attractions

Once you have the dates of your trip itinerary start searching the destination in Get Your Guide for tours and activities.

If you are going to a popular destination like London, Paris, Rome or New York, have a look for Skip the Line or Fast Pass tickets for the major attractions. Buying these tickets in advance will save precious vacation time as the lines at attractions like the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Colosseum in Rome can last for hours. 

Another alternative is to choose a Get Your Guide Originals tour. These top rated tours are curated to ensure customers experience the very best of their chosen destination

If you’re looking for a more specific tour here are some examples of options and activities available in popular destinations around the world.

Tour inspiration for London | Get Your Guide London

Tour inspiration for Paris | Get Your Guide Paris

Click here for all tickets and tours in Paris

Tour inspiration for Rome | Get Your Guide Rome

Click here for all tickets and tours in Rome

Narrow down your selection

You can narrow the search down further by choosing the length of tour (duration), type of activity (tour, tickets, etc) and even the language the tour is conducted in.

Under the services filter there is an option to search for wheel chair accessible tours.

In the case above there were over 700 tours offered in Rome on the dates I chose, but as we wanted to do a food tour under 3 hours I could narrow it down to 29 tours.

I like to save our favourite tours by adding them to our wish list.

You can set your preferred currency – helpful for understanding the costs of your trip.

Pro tip for families traveling with kids – simply add your destination and the word kids to the search bar for family friendly tours EG Rome kids  

  

Choose the best activities for your trip

Once you have a wish list, start reading the full description of the tour and the reviews to make sure the tour will meet your expectations.

We have used many of the online tour booking portals and find that Get Your Guide has the most useful and accurate tour descriptions. 

Look for timings including opening hours, inclusions, special instructions and the cancelation policy as this will vary by tour. 

Often we are traveling with kids so will make sure the tour is suitable for children.

It’s a good idea to read some reviews in detail. People are generous with their feedback and you might just discover some information that will help with your decision making. 

Book your tours and activities

Now you have decided which tours and activities to take it’s time to make your booking. It’s very easy to do this in Get Your Guide.

Just select the date, number of participants and preferred time (if available) and you are ready to make your purchase. It is at this point where you can add in other important information like dietary requirements.

Paying for your tours

Once you have made your selection you can easily pay for your tours in your preferred currency using a credit card, debit card, Google Pay or PayPal.

Get Your Guide is a large company that uses internationally recognized and secure payment systems to process credit card transactions. So we had no reservations about booking online with them.

They offer several useful policies for financial transactions:

• they do not charge a booking fee
• if a tour is cancelled you receive a full refund within 7 days
• cancelation available up to 24 hours before the tour –  you need to check the tour policies individually for any penalties however generally a full refund is available

Lastly, if you find that the activity you booked (by the same local tour operator in the same currency) can be purchased for less, Get Your Guide will refund the difference.

I save my credit card details in my profile in case we want to make any purchases on the road.

Meeting your guide and finding your tour

Once your tours are all organised and paid for, I recommend downloading the Get Your Guide app (available for Apple and Android devices). This will make finding your tour a breeze.

When you log in, the details all your tour vouchers and tour information are available.

You can add the tours to your calendar automatically, get directions for the tour meeting point and understand what will happen on the day.

There is also an inbuilt map that links to Google maps with directions. If something goes wrong, just hit a button and you are put directly in contact with the tour provider.

Afterwards you can even leave a tour review on the app. 

I am a bit of an app nerd and I really like this one! 

Note – I have tried the app on both Apple iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy S20 and it works well on both devices. 

Get Your Guide customer service

When I try a new online service, it is fair to say that I am often a little nervous about what will happen if something goes wrong. Having used Get Your Guide and accessed their customer service on several occasions I am happy to say I am impressed.

Through no fault of their own a food tour company needed to cancel our tour in Venice. Get Your Guide refunded the full amount of that tour and found us another tour at a very busy time. And that’s how we discovered cicchetti!

Customer Service information

Customer service is easy to contact via phone 24×7, email or WhatsApp

• USA: +1 844-326-5840 (toll free)
• Canada: +1 844-326-5840 (toll free)
• Australia: +61 2 4708 9546
• UK: +44 (0) 20 3962 0237
• Germany: +49 (0) 30 56839445
• Switzerland: +41 (0) 43 505 14 95
• Italy: +39 (0) 6 9480 0677
• Spain: +34 911 23 56 12
• France: +33 (0) 1 75 85 97 22
• International: +49 (0) 30 56839445

WhatsApp English chat  +49 151 23457858

> click here for Get Your Guide customer service information

Is Get Your Guide reliable?

Having used this service many times I have no hesitation in recommending them to our readers, friends and family. Generally speaking, our experience with them has been smooth sailing however when things have gone wrong, we’ve been satisfied with the speed and quality of resolution.

In doing research for this post I discovered that Get Your Guide has strong support for customers and suppliers globally and it shows. The company vets all tour providers and there is easy access to customer service if required.

Our interactions with them so far have been positive.

Similar booking services to Get Your Guide

In 2013, the BBC identified several sites for booking tours online including Get Your Guide. Since then the tours and attractions business has boomed with travel operators like AirBnB and Booking.com now offering experiences .

Here are some we have used in the past.

Klook – for tours and attractions in Asia

Klook.com

If you are visiting destinations in Asia, Klook  is a great resource. This website offers tours, tickets to attractions, airport transfers, SIM cards and more with a particular focus on cities and countries in Asia.

Based in Singapore and Hong Kong they seem to have the best deals for places like Tokyo Disney and Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay.

Klook has an easy to use app for browsing and booking tours and attractions. You can check them all out here too.

Viator – TripAdvisor’s tours site

Viator (owned by TripAdvisor) is another big booking site that we have used in the past.

With a huge range of tours and attractions in destinations worldwide it is definitely worth checking Viator if you don’t find what you are looking for on Get Your Guide.

I think their range of tours in North America is particularly strong with best sellers including skip the line tickets for the Empire State building and a city architecture river tour of Chicago.

Final verdict on Get Your Guide

Using Get Your Guide has made a big difference to the way we travel. Part of the fun of planning our trips is choosing the activities and tours we do so having so many options at our fingertips makes that process even more fun.

I’m a planner so getting everything organised before we go away is important to me. But I also appreciate the ability to book last minute tickets through a vendor I trust.

The booking and confirmation system is easy. And I like that we don’t have to carry as much cash around with us to pay for tours on our international trips. When we are are away, the online app makes finding your tour and showing proof of purchase a breeze.

 

Get your guide faq

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