Has anyone used Smart Cruise Tours

[cruz.n.carebear]

We just used them for our Rome excursion. We booked the private driver for the day, and they delivered tenfold. Duccio was a phenomenal driver and very knowledgable of the area and history. He took us to an awesome restaurant where they made their pasta right in front of everyone. One of the best days on our trip!

[philivey]

Unfortunately I had a bad experience with them. I booked a private tour from the port of Rome but nobody was there waiting for us. Not only I've lost my down payment, I sent an email asking for a refund, still waiting for a reply. It seems like this lady is prompt answering some kind of emails, not some others.

[ROCruiser]

We booked their Rome transfer but had to cancel due to time constraint. They promptly refunded our money in just a couple of days.

[TravelingDiva1]

Unfortunately I had a bad experience with them. I booked a private tour from the port of Rome but nobody was there waiting for us. Not only I've lost my down payment, I sent an email asking for a refund, still waiting for a reply. It seems like this lady is prompt answering some kind of emails, not some others.

 

Very interesting! We also had a bad experience in Rome with them in May. No one was there waiting for us at the pier or the port gate either. Another tour company ended up assisting us. Beware, she will try to lie and make up excuses as to why no one was there to pick you up. I hope you get your refund. :(

Edited July 15, 2013 by TravelingDiva1

[tzbeach]

I know it is all about the driver as we were very happy with both Pisa / Florence and the Pompeii / Amalfi Coast tours but Rome was another story.

 

The Pisa / Florence driver /guide was wonderful and friendly and even had free WiFi in her van which was a great touch since it cost .65 a minute on the cruise ship! She got us quickly to Pisa, we beat the crows and were able to get tickets to climb the tower.

 

 

The driver / guide for Pompeii was very nice even changing out the van while we were in Pompeii due to issues with the air conditioning. Although he did not give much back ground on the sights we was so friendly and fun to spend the day with. He took us to a wonderful restaurant along the Almalfi Coast that we all enjoyed very much. We were glad he suggested it over eating in one of the cities.

 

 

There were a number of things we were not happy with for our Rome excursion. We had the Shared Private tour and our driver was Gianluca Pietrangeli

 

To start he put 9 people in a van built for 8 passengers. It became quickly clear that the other 7 people were not on excursions but were simply using this as taxi" rides to their hotels. We were somewhat excited by this because that meant we were essentially getting a private tour. We soon found out that the first 2 passengers were not going to Rome but to a beach hotel in a town along the way.

 

When we exited to that town Gianluca did not know where the hotel was and stopped twice to ask for directions. This detour to the town added 45 minutes to the trip to Rome.

 

 

Once in Rome we took the other family to their hotel after driving around

for a bit to find it. That probably added only 10 minutes but I expect changed our route a bit. Once all the taxi riders were dropped off we were behind but he did start taking us to the various sights. At each site he would just drop us off and say something like "the Spanish Steps are that way meet me in 30 minutes here". No informaiton on the sight was given at all and while I realize he is not a guide I expected a bit of information on the sights. Eventually he started saying well what do you want to see - well we have never been to Rome so we want to see what is in the tour so this was a bit frustrating.

 

 

At lunch time he took us to 'his friends restaurant' where the service was awful after we did not buy the 25 Euro pasta dish they were pushing. After eatting he pointed us to the Piazza Navona which had many restaurants with more reasonable food and interesting things to look at while eatting that we would have preferred to this restaurant that was essentially in a roadway with only a view of apartments.

 

 

At the end of the day he took us to a park overlooking the city which was nice and he once again just pointed us to the overlook without telling us where anything was located. While at the park we started to ask him a question but he was urinating outside behind the snack stand.

 

 

During the drive back he drove in the left lane but halfway into the right lane and honked at the drivers in the right lane who were doing nothing wrong. They often had to drive on the shoulder to avoid being hit by his van. Additionally he was moving around in his seat to the point that both my husband and I thought he might be drunk or on drugs because he had not driven like that on the way to Rome.

 

 

So although we saw the sights this tour experience was not a positive one.

[surus]

i booked Smart Cruise Tours out of Naples. We told them we wanted a half day tour to the Amalfi Coast. There were 6 of us ( 4 of whom were from Cruise Critic site). We just wanted to ride down the coast, have lunch, and ride back. We booked for 9 am. We paid a €40 deposit and were told we would be met next to the ship. We waited and waited as other cruisers were met by their drivers and began their tours. After about 20 minutes a driver from another company asked to see our voucher. He called Smart Cruise Tours on his cell phone and a few minutes later a man approached and asked us to go to an office on the dock. Once inside he showed our voucher to a man behind a desk who began yelling in Italian and pounding the desk. He then went in the back. The 6 of us, four women and two men, began to feel uneasy. Another ten minutes went by until a man appeared and said he was our driver and had been delayed by events in Naples. He led us to a van in another parking area, which was barely big enough to hold us. I had to sit in the middle of the front seat between the driver and my husband.

He asked us about visiting Pompeii and Vesuvius. We told him we had arranged to drive to the Amalfi Coast. At this point the van was exiting the parking lot next to the port. The driver told us he had never driven to Amalfi. Huh? He kept driving and we kept asking him to pull over until we settled on our destination. After much back and forth he returned to the parking lot. He then told us there was not enough time to drive to the Amalfi Coast. We told him we were going to get out of the van at which point he said "oh, I can take you but you will only have about an hour there." Several in our party were very upset at this point and we all left the van.

The best part is when I contacted Smart Cruise Tours to get my deposit back Julia told me we had one of their best drivers who had been to Amalfi many times so was basically calling me a liar. She then said they were not only NOT going to return my deposit but we're going to charge my credit card for the entire tour. Luckily I had used AMEX and sent them all my saved emails, etc. Julia never responded to AMEX so I did in fact get my deposit refunded. Never again will I pay anything ahead of time. Lesson learned.