Versailles Palace & Gardens Priority Access Guided Tour from Versailles

Unfortunately we did not have a great experience. We arrived at the designated meeting place right at the specified time. Most of the tour group was already there with the tour guide. We then waited for a tour bus to arrive, we assumed for other guests to join us, however after around 30 minutes the bus arrived and we then discovered that the guide was waiting for our entry tickets to be delivered! The guide was very knowledgable, however the audio system is very poor and it is difficult to hear the guides commentary with the amount of noise in Versailles when it is busy. There is no structure to the commentary and no context given before commencing the tour. Overall a little disappointing for the money paid.

Late start, lot of hanging around before the tour started due to people in the wrong place or simply late Not explicitly told the name of the tour company taking the tour, therefore unsure which of the several tour groups one should join Tour was interesting Tour group too large Group was split because of large numbers of other guests in the building were, of necessity, mingling with the group as they made their way around Versailles Earphone was inadequate, missed a lot of the guide's information

This was a disaster. We would have been better served by renting the audio from Versailles. The guide offered very little information, none of which was new or novel. We waited nearly one hour for the tour to start. The guide had no ability to keep the group together in the crowd and since she didn’t telescope her flag up, it was not visible from a distance. The lack of organization and information was appalling. This was an expensive waste of money. We have booked several tours with Viator in the past but this was a complete failure. (Versailles and the gardens are magnificent, and well worth the trip and time. Just go early to avoid the crowds.).

Our tour guide, Natalie, showed up at 9:50 when we were told check-in starts at 9:15 and the tour starts at 9:30. Company did not give us any notice she was going to be late. She knew English well enough to talk one on one, but her thick accent combined with the audio-amplifier headsets the group used made it very hard to hear her half the time. I wish I just used the Palaces’s own audioguides. When she had photos in her binder to show the group, she flashed them past everyone in half a second so nobody was able to view them properly. To her credit, she was quite knowledgeable about the palace and it’s occupants/history.

Guide was an hour late!! Really diminished the time we spent st palace. The guide said there was a train issue in Paris but all the other tours me it seemed time had their guides there early! Spoiled the whole tour by being late and I will believe it’s way overpriced!

Seeing Versailles was incredible and our guide was very knowledgeable. The issue was that our guide arrived late. When no guide arrived, we were trying to get a hold of the company we had booked the tour with. After waiting on hold for more than 15 minutes, the person on the phone wasn't very helpful. He had no records of our booking. The man on the phone assumed we were to blame for the issue. He accused me of being the late party and assumed our guide left without us (despite us being on time and not being the only ones waiting for our guide). When our guide finally arrived, he apologized but said that he had called the company to warn them, but that warning never reached us. Poor communication overall.

This tour starts at the gates of Versailles and does not include transport to Versailles! This was not made clear in the posting of the tour and when I tried to communicate the tour guide about it, they never responded and we were left last minute trying to get transportation to Versailles to take the tour and then we were late and we’re unable to take it the tour and they still charged us for it and will not give us a refund. Then in order to get into Versailles we had to wait online for an hour and a half to buy a second set of tickets which did not include it a tour. All of the other Viator tours we took included transportation to the location and so we assumed it would be the same with this but it wasn’t and since the tour guide refused to respond we were left last minute scrambling. Not knowing what was going on because the tour guide refused to respond cast a stressful shadow on the short time that we had to enjoy Paris.

Our guide was extremely informative and passionate about his job. The gardens weren't in as pristine a shape as er expected.

The guide did not arrive for the tour so we did not experience the Palace. We meant to be receiving a refund but does not help, we travelled to Versailles and got there on time but our day was Ruined and time wasted. We could not book new tickets as they were all sold out, furious this happened as we had limited time in Paris but did joy see Versailles as planned.

The information we were provided by the tour company said to arrive at 2:15 for a 2:30 tour. We arrived at 2:10, being conservative. At 2:25, there was no sign of a tour operator. I called the company (City Wonder), and they told me that the tour guide was running late. Another City Wonder tour guide had shown up in the mean time, but he was working with a private group. He told us the problem was that the train doesn't arrive from Paris until 2:35, so the tour guides coming from Paris are never on time. At 2:55, we still had no sign of a tour guide, and two other families were waiting with us. I called the company again and was placed on hold for a long time. Then the operator told me he should be arriving in 10 minutes. I expressed frustration about this "skip the line tour" starting an hour late, since especially because we'd shown up early we could have just gotten in line and been nearly done with our tour by now. I was told to put in a request for a partial refund later and they might consider it. The tour guide finally arrived at 3:10 - again, we were told to arrive by 2:15. He never said he was sorry for his delay and immediately started barking orders at us, telling us where to stand and to be quiet. He eventually took us through security and asked us to gather by Gate B while he got our tickets. There were about 15 of us at this point, and we all gathered by Gate B. About ten minutes later, he started screaming at us from across the courtyard, telling us to come to him. It seemed like he could have very easily have walked over to where the large group of us were standing, but no, we were supposed to go to where he was standing to receive our tickets and Vox boxes so we could hear his tour. We headed inside, and he gave us 5 minutes to use the bathroom. The tour officially began at 3:45...an hour and a half AFTER we were supposed to meet him. He took us through the main rooms on the tour, and along the way, he made inappropriate sexist and homophobic jokes. We finished the tour around 5:00pm, far too late for us to enjoy the grounds or to explore Versailles further on our own. This was a terrible experience. I wish we had just waited in line and done a self-guided audio tour.