Tour Don’t Dos: A Travel Company’s Guide

Last week the team here at TourMega embarked on our second company outing. This time, we decided to book one of our own tour offerings to get a first hand look at our customer experience. In typical TourMega fashion, things did not go as planned.

Note: this was because of our own mistakes. There were no issues with our booking process.

 

Perhaps the biggest lesson we learned on our journey in San Francisco was that it is important to meticulously keep track of time. Very important. Especially when you are trying to catch a boat tour that leaves the dock at 1:45 on the dot.

Upon arrival, we left Pier 39, where our tour was located, and headed to the Tourist Information Center on Market Street. Looking to do some quick industry research, we were a bit frazzled when it took nearly half an hour to drive 2 miles. However, I must give a quick shoutout to our CEO, who took advantage of the time to give the rest of us a lesson in effectively networking with Uber drivers.

Finally, we arrived at the info center. Maybe we looked frazzled to customers, because those we tried to interview waved us off like we were nuts. Perhaps with a bit more time we could have gained some valuable insights, but it was worth a shot. We gave it our all, and we left for lunch before the tour. But when we looked at our watches, we discovered we had under an hour to eat and get back to Pier 39 for our tour. This was gonna be tight.

We scrambled to find a nearby restaurant. “Should we just get something from a hot dog stand at the pier?” “Nah, I’m sure we can find something here.”

Lunch time…

Our CEO peered down a street, and there was an Indian restaurant at the end of the block. We charged to the door, rushed inside, and helped our waiter scoot some chairs to a table to fit 6 of us. In the blink of an eye we ordered our food, ever aware of our rapidly approaching departure time. Finally, the food arrived and we scrambled to eat our Chicken Tikka Masala and Lamb Curry as fast as we could. It was quite impressive actually.

Oh, the time! We need an Uber! The tour leaves in 15 minutes!

I’ll kill the suspense right now. We missed the tour. That San Francisco traffic came back to bite us again. Lucky for us, the Blue and Gold Fleet was able to put us on a different tour that ended about the same time as our original booking. All was well. Thanks to the Blue and Gold Fleet for their accommodation and Get Your Guide for supplying the tour we booked.

 

We collectively breathed a sigh of relief as we boarded our boat and set sail for the tour. We relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful, iconic sights of the San Francisco Bay. Personally, I have lived in the area for 17 years and have never seen the Golden Gate Bridge from as stunning of a view as I did from that tour. I would definitely recommend a tour of the bay to all San Francisco tourists.

Also, the Indian food was better than a hot dog from a stand.

But take it from us: plan your pre-tour time wisely, and keep in mind how bad city traffic can be.

Visit tourmega.com for a selection of over 50,000 tours and activities, from San Francisco and beyond.