Priya Almeida

Review of Chicago Trolley and Double-Dec...

On a trip to Chicago this summer with my mother an...

On a trip to Chicago this summer with my mother and sister, our hotel concierge recommended Chicago Trolley & Double Decker Co. to see the sites, and so we bought tickets for the hop on hop off tour. Being a 3-day tour, we experienced the varied styles of numerous guides. I wish every guide had been as friendly, informative, funny and enthusiastic as the guide we had on Day 2! However, this was not the case; I will describe in detail the unpleasant incidents we endured with two of the other guides.

On Day 1, we had an unbelievably unprofessional guide who conducted himself in a very inappropriate manner, including:
-screaming profanities into the mic when he was displeased with the speed at which the bus driver was driving, in front of many young children aboard the bus
-stumbling crotch-first into my sister multiple times because he insisted on standing on the moving bus instead of seating himself safely in one of the many available seats
-complaining to us patrons about the length of his shift and brevity of his lunch break
I was literally cringing in my seat, not wanting to make eye contact with him. My family and I could not wait to get off the bus!

On Day 3 our guide seemed totally disinterested in giving us a proper tour.
-He skipped over pointing out and explaining quite a few sites. He would mumble into the mic, giving a slap-dash bare-bones description after we'd already passed the site.
-He would move around the top deck of the bus so that he could get in the perfect position to take better photos of the sites on his own phone, blocking my view on several occasions.
-His clothes were unkempt and dirty, as if he'd slept in them and not washed them in weeks. There was visible grime in the folds of his neck. It was disgusting.
-When it was time for his lunch break, he took off his poncho, dropped it on the floor of the bus, told the people trying to get off/on the bus to wait so he could grab the money out of his tip jars, and then proceeded to count his tip in front of us, muttering and shaking his head as if he was disappointed with what he'd earned.

Honestly, I was prepared to give this tour 3/5 stars because it was inexpensive and when we had a good guide, things were fine. However, upon returning home from our trip, I wrote all of this in an email to the Chicago Trolley & Double Decker Co. and to date I have received neither a response nor an acknowledgement in the two months since... not even a generic "thank you for your email" auto-response. So I'll downgrade my rating to 2/5 stars.