Timmy Choi

Review of West Coast Holidays

Tour Guide: Kevin Wang

Tour Guide: Kevin Wang
The way West Coast Holidays operate (at least for the Yellowstone Tour) is kind of like a distribution center where the cargo is filled to their truck where there is space and same destination. Tourist could be with one group of people one day and you would be on another tour on your 3rd day. This creates a lot of confusion with the tourist and the tour guide. The tour guide we had was rude and lazy, Kevin Wang picked us up at the 2nd stop at Vegas, we got on the bus and the bus just started driving. He did not indicate where we are going or introduce the tour. He came to us and stated we cannot use the bathroom on the bus as this will create unpleasant smell for other customer and no coffee/open drink on the bus. There were so many restrictions on the bus
A lot of time when we get on the bus, tour guide do not tell you anything until we are about 10 mins out. E.g. okay we are now Lake Powell, let s come back to the bus in 30 mins. There is very little to no background to the attraction to the place, you are on your own to find out.
Tour guide was rude to the tourist, several times some tourist was trying to question the tour guide on some issue and the tour guide just shut them out and asked them to stay quiet what kind of service is that?! There was another time we were at Yellowstone where we need to walk a far distance to an attraction. The tour guide was holding out the flag and walking. Our tour had 58 peoples and the tour guide was walking so fast none of the tourist could catch up to me. Yes, he was literally walking himself. After he realized no one was following him, he waited and starting clapping his hands and telling people you guys walk like and old solders . After about 30 mins, some people arrived at the attraction first and the tour guide said let s take your picture and get back to the bus. On a separate occasion, some of the tourist was late to the meeting time; we had to wait for about 10 mins. When we finally have all the people on board, the tour guide was not happy and said I am petty and will remember who was late. Next time I will not wait for you.
In my opinion, our tour guide was somewhat dishonest too. There were several times he told tourist we would go to this Chinese buffet (optional/self-pay) and the food there is very good. We felt for that several times and felt that the food there was below average. Of course, the tour guide collects cash from the tourist and made some profit there. There was another time the tourists have to fill out the form for optional item for Las Vegas (such as night tour/ High Roller/ Shows etc). We had received similar form prior going to the trip and it had the night tour and high roller in separate category. However on the form the tour guide provided, he had these 2 items combined together. When we asked if we can just join one of the item he said we could but would not recommend it. He then took the form from us (we had prefill it as we did not know we could just pick one) and he continued with the next tourist.
The bus driver was not very professional either. At one attraction where there was sand on the ground and we had to walk for about 30 mins, after the walk, we took off the shoes and clean off the sand. Once we were on the bus, I noticed there was still some sand in the socks so I just cleaned it up on the bus. A few attractions later, the bus driver came to me started yelling Chinese having sand on the floor. How could you yell at anyone especially a paying customer? Even if the customer is in the wrong, you do not need to yell at customer
Our tour guide started collecting the service charge (tips) on the fourth day of the trip (our trip was for 7 days). I am guessing he collect the service charge since some of the tourist had a shorter trip. To me, you should not collect the service fee until the trip is coming to an end. At the very least, I do not think the tour guide deserve the $8/day/person tip.