100% Outstanding tour of the Western Canadian Rockies!
By: Anonymous | Fri Sep 20, 2019 at 12.00 AM
Can’t say enough good things about this tour. From t to finish the Tours was professional, friendly, knowledgeable and shared in the excitement of our upcoming tour. The tour itself was outstanding. A small groups tour that is perfectly d..esigned to showcase the highlights of the Canadian Rockies. Our guide was so much fun, giving a ton of interesting commentary and local stories making sure we had plenty of time to enjoy the parks. The scenery was amazing and the hotels of a very high quality. We really enjoyed our tour with them and will certainly be returning for more tours in the future!Read full review
I am usually the taking-a-rental-car type of traveller, but I am so glad that I did the tour cos it gave me a great introduction not just to the park, but also to all the practicalities around. I would never be able to recognise all the mou..ntains and lakes and all the stories behind if I were to do it on my own.
Also I am glad to see that the national parks in Canada have stricter rules on how many people/cars are allowed to each spot, the parking lots are generally smaller and off-site and people would need to take a shuttle to get there. Not to mention that even the road to the Moraine lake is closed (already around 10pm in early September) when the parking lot (for private cars) is full. However, being on a tourbus you don't have to worry abou none of that since they are designated parking for that.
Note that the cruise to the Maligne lake is very weather dependent, all cruise on the morning of Sep 5 (sunny day) was cancelled due to the heavy fog just surrounding the lake area. The lake staff the best time is to come here in a hot clear day in the afternoon.
I was on two different busses during the 4-day tour with two different guides. The first driver we had – Mike, was a great driver and full of charisma. I saw him documenting each stop we made with his logbook very carefully, also sang for us and explained about the park environmental issues.
Some improvements would be better cleaning of the buses, I could see stains on the bus windows which is not so pleasant when you wnat to take lots of pictures.
And yes the tour is mostly catered to Chinese tourists, some guides are better in English than others, but generally I think all the non-Chinese speaking on our buses were quite content.
You might not get the best hotel rooms with a view, or do an upgrade.
Afterall very content with the tour, ready to go back and explore on my own now I know which are my favorites.Read full review
My wife and I really enjoyed the trip. The majority of guests were Chinese (overall 18 participants that day), but our tour guide Gordon nicely managed to tell everything in Mandarine and in English. The trip was quite cheap compared to oth..er offers on can find, but it was still very pleasant. The tour bus was comfortable and not too big. The Icefield trip (which can be booked additionally) was quite interesting and a nice experience to have! I would recommend to book the optional Columboa Icefield Day with the Skywalk - otherwise the final part of the trip is just spending time at the tourist center (in Jasper Park), which I imagine is not very interesting for the 3.5 hours the stop will be there! On the way to the Jasper Park, there are multiple stops with very nice views, where everyone has about 15 to 20 minutes to take pictures and enjoy the atmosphere. Jasper Park is definitely worth seeing!Read full review
By: A trusted customer | Fri Jul 12, 2019 at 03.50 PM
We have mixed experiences about this tour. First of all I'm mentioning bad onces & then I will cover good parts.
Bad Experiences:
1. 1st Day Hotel experience is really very bad. The Clarion Hotel in Calgary City having lot of problems lik..e - water logging in bathrooms, mal-functionl AC, very rude behaviour from font desk staff, making delay in alotting rooms though there wre plenty of vacant rooms are there and we already booked rooms in that hotel a month ago.
2. Transportation from Calgary Airport to Clarion Hotel was very problematic as the authorized Cab driver as well as Hotel Front Desk staff were not co-operating for re-imbursing the money initially. We got the money after we had round of escalations with Hotel Management & Tours4Fun.
3. We have prior experiences in travelling with a tour group where personally we didn't checkedin the hotel. But, in this scenario, first 2 days, we have seen this issue where we need to show all details and enquire about our hotel resevations. There was no Tours4Fun or Wester representative to handle that.
4. 4th day's lunch was just a disaster. There are lot of resturants in Jasper town with ecomonical options for meal/foods. But, not sure why they had booked for a Korean Resturant(Kimichi House) with extremely bad-tasted-soup-only-meal. We were not able to eat this. And they were not providing altenate meal option also though it was already paid by us. They should understand that the meal option should be acceptable to generic people and not for a specific region. Even most of our chinese travel-mates also could not manage to eat that bogus meal. Wester/Tours4Fun also not refunding that meal money for both of us.
Good Experiences:
1. Bus coach driver Paul & Tour Guide Lisa were really good & friendly. They were showing and explaining the places very descriptive ways.
2. Lunch at Fairmont Spring Banff Hotel was just awesome.
3. Hotel Voyeger Inn at Banff & Athabasca Hote at Jasper town are good hotels and nice arrangements in rooms. Though both of them are lacking elevator as they are very old & refurbishes recently. The sceni views from them just breathtaking.
4. Breakfast bouffets are good in all 3 hotels - Clarion at Calgary, Hotel Voyeger Inn at Banff & Athabasca Hote at Jasper town.
5. The places where we went for visting all are superb and gorgous. I can't explain their beauties in words.Read full review
By: Daniel Valenzuela | Thu Jul 11, 2019 at 10.31 PM
The trip was amazing until unexpected at the end the driver asked for and collected a $9.00 per person tip which the full bus would have been about $200. We assumed the tip would be collected when we purchased our ticket. Luckily we had t..he money on hand. But the rest was done very professionallyRead full review
It was great fun. Very well managed and well paced over the 4 days. Hotels were great (except Clarion), food was great.. Most importantly, we had a great tour guide (Lisa Rong) as well as a very courteous driver (Paul) with Westar. Lisa rea..lly went out of her way to take care of guests and some of our personal requests specially on the food menu. The driver Paul was very knowledgeable - he knew the mountains and lakes and certainly a great story teller.Read full review
Jesse was enthusiastic to show us the best of Canada. He was able effectively looking after English and Mandarin speaking tourists. He showed down the vehicle for us whenever there is an animal sighting. Thanks to him, we took photos ..of a black bear crossing and a mother grizzly with her cub by the roadside.Read full review