OnBoard New York Tours

02/22/12

Hoping a second chance does the trick

by ghawk24

To celebrate our 10th anniversary, my wife and I decided to spend a long weekend in the City. Our good friends from California joined us, and we decided to play tourist for one of the days and take a tour. Following the glowing review of a couple we are close to, we decided to take the "See It All" tour from OnBoard.

We arrived at the meet-up site early, and waited along with a number of other people to be checked in. No one there had name tags, so it was hard to figure out who was a tourist and who was with OnBoard. One woman came up (Fran, maybe), saw the three buses, said "what's this?" and started talking to the bus drivers.

She must have seen the problems, because after telling us they were likely going to be upgrading us to the "premium" tour, she announced she was leaving and the bus drivers were in charge. Then she enjoyed a joke with one of the drivers as to whether she was carrying a 9mm or a 12 gauge shotgun. Very cute.

It took 15 more minutes before we could deduce that Darween was in "charge." She wouldn't answer my questions as to which bus I should get on, and so we waited outside the buses as they filled up. One of the tour guides, Shawn, tried to avoid helping out at all, and so he either hung out with the bus drivers drinking his coffee, or hid back on the bus stairs.

Finally, there was confusion as to whether there were three or four seats left on the bus that we were ultimately told was ours. It turns out there were four, but they were scattered throughout the bus. And at that point we were so incensed with Shawn that we couldn't imaging dealing with his smarminess for 5 1/2 hours. So we asked Darween if we could get a refund. She said yes, and that she would process it when she returned to the office. I confirmed this by calling the office, and customer service agent said that Darween had to do so, but that they would work on it that day.

The next morning, I received an email from an administrative assistant that they would not be refunding our money. So now we are out $320 for relying upon the promises of their employees. Two days later, after a promise that the admin's boss would look into it and respond to me, the admin once again informed me that the refund was being rejected. Apparently I made a mistake because I relied upon the word of their agent who told me she would process the refund. She had no authority to tell me that, and I should not have relied upon that.

* Edit: After a couple of days of discussion, management spoke with Darween, who confirmed our story about the refund. OnBoard agreed to refund our money, and has promised us a tour in the future. I hope to publish a glowing review after we actually get to take it.

11/09/11

Never never take this tour!!!

by Deborah Gantwerker

This was the worst tour I have ever been on. I was taking my cousin who was visiting from Arizona to see the sights of New York and decided on the NYC Freedom tour which was to include the 911 memorial, Statue of Libery, Ellis Island, Fire Fighter Memorial, St Pauls Trinity Church and Wall Street. Our first stop was the memorial. We were told at the memorial that it was to be the only stop before we headed back to the water taxi which would take us around the State of Liberty. The tour was to be 5 hours long but didn't even come close. To make matter worse we were told to exit the memorial and meet out on the street. Our tour guide disappeared and we were left to fend for ourselves. We called the company about having a bus meet us back at the pier to go back to the our original meeting place which was the Winter Garden Theater. We were told our guide would call us back. He did not. The water taxi people told us this tour loses people all the time. When we got back to the pier we were forced to walk back to midtown since no bus arrived. I again called the company demanding a refund and was told I would get some kind of compensation but she would have to talk to her manager. She emailed me later that afternoon to say her manager denied any kind of refund saying the tour guide said he was easy to be found and we wandered away from him.I am just furious with this company and want to let everyone know what a miserable experience it was and discourage people from giving them anymore business.

08/31/11

No Compassion for the Elderly!!!

by pepperjack10

Our experience with OnBoard New York Tours left me in tears. My elderly grandmother, who traveled all the way from Louisiana, was completely robbed of her once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the greatest attractions in the city of NY. When we told her we were taking her to see the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero, the excitement this generated in her was priceless. But when our experience turned into a sheer disaster with the tour bus continuing on without us at one of the stops, we were left in a strange place feeling terrified and abandoned. We immediately called the company and were given the cell phone number of the tour guide, whom we were told we needed to contact. Much to our dismay, we were told to take a cab to some seaport to try and catch up with the group to board a ferry, if we should be so lucky to make it through rush hour traffic in time. It was obvious that if we didn’t make it in time, we would be out of luck and out of expensive cab fares both to and from this location. We even had our personal belongings and expensive souvenirs on the tour bus, which we had to wait to retrieve when the bus returned to the pickup site 4 hours later!!!

08/29/11

This Company is Awful!

by stepitup85

This company did not turn out to be the reputable company it appeared to be when we decided to use its services for our first trip to New York. To make a long story short, my family of five, including my 79 year-old mother, was deserted in Rockefeller Plaza. We had planned a one-day trip to New York just to do this tour. Not only did we miss more than half of what we came to see, but the company refused to refund any portion of the nearly $400 that we paid for this awful experience. This is an expensive touring option, and I would not recommend it.

08/23/11

Don't Waste Your Money!!!

by rawboss

For the amount of money that we paid for this tour, we were sorely disappointed. The tour guide did not seem as knowledgeable as we would have expected and even more so, she appeared inexperienced and not well trained. The microphone didn’t work, so it was difficult at best to hear anything she was saying. She kept trying to yell so everyone could hear her but it was nothing short of annoying. In addition, the tour was so rushed that it was hard to take in very much at each of the stops. For anyone considering this tour, here’s a piece of advice: Save your money!