Tours4fun Golden Tours Tours4fun poor experience ripoff Los Angeles Nationwide

We recently experienced the Tours4fun 3-Day San Francisco / Yosemite Bus Tour in and out of LA and were very disappointed with the experience on many levels. The tour was apparently run by Golden Tours who advise Tours4fun are merely booking agents.

Firstly we left LA late as result of all the back and forth collecting people for other tours.

Next, the bus we initially thought was only a transfer bus but was ultimately our actual travel bus was very old and uncomfortable and not suitable for long distance travel. There was little padding in the very upright seats, no safety belts and we were warned not to use the on-board toilets. There was no climate control air conditioning with only one setting of on fully cold (freezing) or off ( stuffy and sweating).

Our safety was jeopardized during the trip when we encountered a rain storm and the bus started leaking water from the roof at the emergency escape and at the side window wetting myself and other passengers. At this point the rain wipers would not work on the outside and the demister would not clear the inside of the windscreen forcing the driver to pull over, leave the door open and only then drive slowly on the highway with fresh air clearing the windscreen from the inside.

The bus driver and our tour guide continually had differing opinions on what route to take and their debating was loud and audible by us even in the back of the bus. This debate lead to the driver taking numerous wrong turns and wasting time finding our destination particularly in/around Fremont and in Yosemite NP.

Our tour guide Eddie, of Asian background, attempted to lighten the mood at times but his lack of grasp of English in both understanding and pronunciation frustrated us and communication was a real issue throughout the trip - it was regularly observed that explanations in Chinese would last many minutes but were followed by a quick 5-10 second English equivalent resulting in us feeling left out.

Accommodation outside of San Francisco was of a high quality but precluded us from readily enjoying the San Francisco nightlife as if it had been in San Francisco.

Food stops were predominantly at Asian establishments which satisfied the predominantly Asian tourists on the bus but the dozen or so of us wanting normal western food had to make do.

I was unfortunate to get food poisoning at the buffet at lunch on our return day which impacted me for the next 4 or 5 days.

The highlight of this trip for us was Yosemite National and it was disappointing how rushed our stay was after spending so much time travelling there. 20 minutes for breakfast and viewing at the base of the waterfall and 5 minutes at the top was really inadequate for such a highlight.

The other issue we were frustrated with was the expectation of attending an "optional" day trip in San Francisco - one we did not want to attend as we had previously travelled to in the past and we knew exactly what parts of town we wanted to spend our free time at. There was intense pressure from Eddie to participate in the day tour despite our assurance we had no intention to attending.

Lastly, we were astounded at the demand for substantial further payments for "service" fees and substantial tips, regardless of our experience or service provided, on top of the tour fees booked and the already additional out of pocket fees for park and attractions. These were not present on the website at the time or stipulated at the time of booking and brought this apparent value for money tour up to the price of the premium tour operators.

In hindsight and aware of the difficulties we encountered, we would not have travelled on this tour and we recommend anyone thinking of travelling to weigh up the hurdles we encountered before forming a decision.

Our factual review of our trip experience on the Tours4fun and TripAdvisor websites have been removed/blocked so we are trying to highlight our concerns on other websites now.