Reviews of Gray Line Chicago (Travel Agency)

Sean Lee

Expedia and grayline is a bad combo. Not to mention a refund, a change of date or time is difficult enough already. They have false advertisements on their website about cancelling. I don't know how people can sleep at night scamming people for a living.

Paul Johnson

4 hour of Chicago covers many places of interestand gives history of the city. We saw where the Obama's are living and the Lincoln Park Consertory. I could not recommend as the sound system on the bus is poor and backgound noise so great you cannot understand much of what the driver is saying. Shame!!!

Veronica Brooks-Uy

If I could negative stars, I would. Don't book with this place. I booked the South Side tour via Viator. The tour was at 3:30 and I arrived at the drop-off location at 3:20pm. I waited for 5 min. No one was there. I called the number on my invoice andit says they are closed. So then I asked the bellhop desk if I was at the right location and he said yes. So I waited another 5min. No one. So then I ask the front desk and they say check inside the gift shop. Get there and no one is at the GrayLine desk. I ask the shopkeeper where the person is and she says check up front. No one there. I go back to the gift shop and there's the GrayLine woman. I ask her what happened and she says she already sent the group off and was SUPER rude and condescending about how I should have gotten there on time. Even though I did. Anyway, I asked her for a refund and she said I had to go through Viator which I have since tried but they don't answer their phones. What a mess. Terrible customer service. Never again.

Pe Lin

They have a shop in Palmer house gift shop. I think the girls name there is Nicki, but rudest people! You think they are army officers! Stay Away!!! There are much better tours to see Chicago. They should change these girls in the shop!

Brandi Brewer

Very professional. A great way to learn more about the city for locals or tourists.

Kyle Martinez

* This review is based on my experiences during July of 2014. * Gray Line Tours doesn't support a fleet of buses quite as large as it's rival companies, which is apparent by the extensive delays between pickups / drop-offs. The company's guides were okay, with only two providing a truly informative experience. However, if you feel compelled to call headquarters, don't expect someone to answer--the phone number listed on the brochure doesn't appear to be in service. In short, if you've purchased a Go card, you might as well give Gray Line Tours a shot; otherwise, I suggest you look into alternative tour companies.

Nate Harr

Terrible. Avoid Greyline. I wanted a nice tour with some simple facts about the city, but instead we got some unfriendly girl (probably a high school dropout, judging by her vocabulary and mispronunciation of common words) who appeared to read and misread facts from her smartphone. As we would approach the stops on the list, the "guide" would google the facts about the building or landmark and just read them to the group. In between stops, she was silent. It was awkward. I had a ton of questions, but I was too embarrassed for her to ask her because I knew she wouldn't know the answers. It was embarrassing to watch the tour guide and torturous to listen to her, and it was insulting to the guests who paid money who expected to learn something. In addition to the poor tour guide, the ticket sellers are sketchy. When we paid in cash for one of our tickets, we gave the guy a $10 bill and $20 bill to pay for the $25 ticket. He gave us our ticket and informed us to have a nice trip. When we reminded him about the $5 change he owed us, he replied, "I thought you were giving me a tip." Really???!!!! A tip for selling a ticket? At a later stop we attempted to find the tour representative at the booth to ask about the next bus, but she was far away from the ticket booth. It appeared that she was hiding around the corner sitting on a bench, looking as if she wanted nothing to do with her job. She was also unfriendly and answered our questions as if we were bothering her. I suggest anyone pay the extra money for one of the more professional tours. Avoid the Greyline, or if you do decide to go, try to have a sense of humor as the ignoramus tour guide tells you that the John Hancock Center cost $1 million to build, when your own smartphone search reveals that it actually cost $100 million to build. Also, try not to smirk as she pronounces the last "r" in "Cartier".

Margaret Bishop

Internet ad talked about several stops. Driver said, "We don't stop. I just roll". Driver said, look to the right through the trees you might catch a glimpse of...the bean...the stadium...etc. If the traffic did not suit him, he turned on alternate streets and we saw nothing. We paid for the hotel pick up and drop off. We were picked up and then made to wait in the hot sun on a sidewalk for an hour late bus. We were left at the John Hancock Bldg. and told, " I don't know how you're getting back. I'm getting off work now". He talked about 20% off the time. Most were opinionated mean statements. The five and a half hour tour was three hours. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY.

Shadi Qasem

OK, but there has to better tours in Chicago. The bus is clean and the starr location is convenient. The information and route are not thrilling. Also, why do a single stop at the zoo when it us freezing outside.

Victoria Obermeier

My family and I had a great experience with Gray Line! We took the grand tour and saw several sights on both the north and south side, including Wrigley Field, Chinatown, Millennium Park, Lake Shore Drive, and more! The bus tour was the easiest way for us to see the city on such a busy and warm day. Our tour guide, Mitch, was hilarious and we all learned a lot!

Mark Pobar

Tour operator did not turn up, Gray Line replied to our query well after we left the pick up location, then wanted us to return 2 hours later. We were definately at the right location, they did not turn up. Do not use them or GetYourGuide as tour operators. We had limted time in Chicago, I have spent it chasing a refund which still has not arrived and no more contact or response to my queries. I think they may be a con job. We have booked Gray Line all over the world, never an issue, but by other reviews I see this group are hopeless. Avoid at all.costs.

Andrew Gillen

We were a bit nervous going on this tour, as the reviews online didn't see very promising. However, it was a part of our Go Chicago pass, so we decided to take a shot. I'm not sure if the company has put in the effort to improve recently, but most of the reviews we read did not apply to our experience. We only did the South tour, but it was a wonderful two hours. Our host, Anton, was funny, insightful, and courteous to each of the passengers. Seeing landmarks like the Obama home and learning neat facts about the city has set the bar for the rest of our stay in Chicago.

jessica_693

Worst tour ever. They didn’t go from the told drop-off point and I had to call 4 times to find them and it was a total different street! In addition, the lady only gave us one ticket instead of two (even though we paid for two) which lead problems later ... I don’t recommend this operator!

Shri Krupa

May 2017-Take my rating as zero.Absolutely waste of time and money.The driver was very rude.The itinerary of the tour is to drive the bus to all the streets of Chicago, show some houses & tell in which year it was built!!! nothing else.For the money we had spent, we were expecting at least a visit to Willis tower & aquarium.Really disappointing.I will never recommend this to anyone.

Natalia Y

Tour guide was very hard to hear clearly, windows were dirty and the tour guide left us when we made a stop to take pictures near the Adler Planetarium. Also when we went back to the Grayline kiosk no one was there and gave us a hard time when we asked for a refund. Horrible customer service. Do not book with them.

David Singletary

Warning extremely poor tour! Don't waste your time or money. Find a better tour company then Grey line Chicago. This company should be out of business soon. Was suppose to be 5.5 hour tour was closer to 3 hours. I feel like many sites were missed and not worth the money. Bus has broken seats and foggy windows that are hard to see out of. The driver was about an hour late and ready to be done as soon as he could. Called and emailed the main office 20+ times afterwards to complain and was always given an excuse. Never received any customer service just angry employees. A rip off and worse tour I have ever taken. My suggestion is to go somewhere else unless you like to waste your time and money.

Shome Brata

Tour was horrible and Driver was very rude. Bus Driver left us by the bank of Lake Michigan while I and my wife were taking some pictures. Driver stopped over for a few minutes to gave us an opportunity to take some pictures, but left us there. It's ridicules and I am asking Authority to take proper action on this Driver to make sure that doesn't happen again in future.

Jade Yang

Tour left 45 minutes later than scheduled. There was no explanation or apology. Guide spoke with slurred monotone, memorized script that was difficult to understand. When I do manage to understand the guide, he would say things like "to the right is the Chicago Firehouse, I guess everything there is well cooked" or "up ahead is a chinese restaurant, they do a lot of roasting there." Wish I did not spend one of my explorer choices on this tour.

Jean Golden

WALK INSTEAD or find another bus line. the actual night tour was a lot of fun and our guide Ralph was wonderful. We also purchased the 48 hour hop on/off tour and the cashier totally messed up our start date and time, tried to re-run the transaction and we ended up with two 320 charges to our credit card. Even though we have a credit slip this has not been put through to our bank and numerous attempts to get this straightened out has acheived absolutely nothing except empty promises. Find another bus company. Even after the whole mess of correcting the start date it was still wrong so we actually lost time that we paid for.

Anabel Pachano-Arismendi

South and North tours were great. You can actually experience the city, the bus driver is always telling stories about different places and you can take pictures, ask questions and enjoy the beautiful view