Cool Destinations® Reviews 303

Dislike that I paid $20 more than if I had walked into their office and bought a ticket. :(

The jazz Trio was terrific. Our narrator and tour guide pointed out so many interesting things along the route. It was a beautiful day and such a peaceful experience sit back and watch the world go by.

The staff was friendly, helpful and so much fun!

We all had a great time.

Pros:
Our tour was great

Cons:
~30% markup for the convenience of looking at one website versus booking directly with a local company

My husband and I had a fabulous time,celebrating our anniversary ❤️

This company is a quick, overpriced chop-shop for low quality tours with zero customer service. Many other worthwhile options.

excellent tour guide

We enjoyed both the guided walking tour through Duluth's Canal Park and the guided driving tour along the North Shore to the Split-Rock Lighthouse. They were very informative and educational, and very well -timed.

I’m going to update this review again after seeing the response and to make it easier for people to understand.

I’ve listed my surf lessons on TripAdvisor for over 10 years. Part of the vendor agreement is being listed on their affiliate websites. I’ve never had to think about this as these sites have never been brought to my attention until yesterday when a customer took a screenshot of a listing for my business on cooldestinations.com with a large price increase and a 10% discount that still left the price significantly higher than what we charge. The customer accused me of intentionally raising the price on a third party site to make up for the commission split.

Never having heard of this site, it spooked me and I was worried it was a scam or thought someone was impersonating me on that site. I reached out on chat support and waited for a bit with no response. Then I clicked to call someone which just led me to the chat support again. So I wrote a review - all of this was stated as an opinion and was true to me and my experience.

Then I got a call from Peter who reminded me of my vendor agreement with TripAdvisor and he asked me to take the review down.

I was willing to take it down, but I had a couple more questions and asked why the price was marked up so high. There are some other reviews on here from customers talking about the mark ups, and their responses say “we strive to offer the lowest prices listed online blah blah blah.” But he replied “we can charge whatever we want”….

He continued on a rant about how my review was slander and he’s going to tell TripAdvisor to drop me. I matched my tone to his and interrupted his rant saying that I’m willing to take my review down, but I’m wondering if there’s a way to be removed from this website? I care about what my customers are paying for my services. He started playing the big dog and needing to assert his power over me, repeating “I’ll call TripAdvisor now and who do you think they’re going to pick, you or me?!” (As if getting me removed from TripAdvisor would ruin my business.) He was boisterous about how many listings he has and that it would mean nothing to just get me dropped from TripAdvisor, and continued to threaten legal action, then just hung up on me while I was trying to mediate the issue saying I’ll take the review down and was trying to get him to just hear me out.

This is what I mean about having no respect for small businesses, I felt completely disrespected yesterday by him. Even after acknowledging my mistake not realizing they are affiliated with TripAdvisor, and also agreeing to take the review down, he was incredibly condescending and disrespectful by acting like my business doesn’t even matter - one that makes them money no less. They are just a website that is partnered with TripAdvisor to copy their listings to make money off the businesses providing the services.

Hey Peter, as a business owner I’m pretty understanding of how frustrating negative reviews are especially if you feel they are unwarranted. Had you just given me the chance to respond, I would have understood my own my mistake and felt bad about the review, and this review would be gone. But if this is how the CEO treats the service providers, then people should see that. I hope this creates room for improvement when dealing with those you work with no matter what the situation is. Take care.

We had an absolutely wonderful time on our 5-hour wine tour! Our driver, Darren, was phenomenal. Not only did he get us everywhere safely and on time, but he also went above and beyond to make sure our experience at each winery was seamless and memorable. He anticipated our needs, offered great suggestions, and ensured everything ran smoothly so all we had to do was relax and enjoy. Highly recommend this tour—and especially Darren—for anyone looking for an exceptional wine country experience!

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon with our guide, Arianna, visiting locals and sampling delicious small bites along the way. We formed such a connection with Arianna as we chatted about the many cultural aspects of food and life in Lisbon.

The guide was exceptionally good and a pleasure to meet.

We had a half-day island tour and it was well worth it.
The tour would have only been half the fun had it not been for our great guide, Curtis. He was not only very knowledgeable but very humorous which made all the difference. We learned a lot about the history of Aruba and stopped at some great locations. We had a wonderful time.

Great show good food and excellent service

Great guide, awesome views

Our tour guide was very friendly and helpful. He knew of all the wildlife locations and also lots of history at various places. We had a wonderful time. I highly recommend to anyone.

Everything went smoothly with Cool Destinations (CD) from beginning to event time. CD was prompt with communication, highly efficient and provided details of the event. I will definitely refer others to CD and use their services in the future. Thank you for making this process easy and wonderful.