Palace of Versailles - We had a wonderful tour of the Palace of Versailles. Our guide, Diana, was professional, pleasant, personable, and extremely knowledgeable. The drive was smooth and well organized, everything flowed seamlessly, and we truly felt taken care of from start to finish. Truly the best tour ever. Many thanks to Diana and the entire team for such a memorable experience. We couldn’t recommend this tour more highly!

Versailles Adventure! - Natalie was amazing showed us everything and more! We had a lovely authentic lunch and she was very knowledgeable she knew so much!

My guide adjusted the pace to what I wanted - I loved the half-day format. Pick-up at 8, quiet morning in the gardens, and lots of space to ask questions. My guide adjusted the pace to what I wanted (more outdoors, less crowded rooms). Smooth ride back and I still had my afternoon free.

Excellent Tour and great guide Valentin - The tour was excellent and well organised. Valentin was a very good guide and explained everything patiently in Versailles. The only thing important to note is that if you book this tour, you will not have time to see the Versailles gardens so please keep that in mind as although it is advertised as part of the tour - you will literally have 10 to 15 minutes to take a quick look. We didn’t mind this but others may and hence the warning. This is no fault of the guide at all - the fact that it is a half day tour just doesn’t leave one with the time for the gardens. Another tip - if you do want to see the gardens then book a buggy in advance. It’s the best way to see the gardens. There is also a small toy like train that takes you from the Versailles Palace to Grand and Petit Trianon. With this tour you are taken by car which takes 15 mins instead of the train that takes about an hour. Sending tips as these might help travellers who are trying to navigate doing everything in Versailles in a day. In summary, I would highly recommend this company and Valentin.

Stunning ! - I loved the Palace and the secret life stories of Louis XIV and his mistresses))) The gardens are beautiful and the Trianon ( big one and little one ) is a must !

Being a king for a day - done ☑️ - This place is definitely a must to visit when in Paris. I always wanted to feel how it is to be a king. But I never realised it would be so difficult to manage with suuuuch a huge castle. Thanks to the explanation of our guide I understood it. Tour up in Europe made me feel like a king for a day.

This tour is necessary when in Versailles - This is Versailles. And you would be lost here without a guide, or lose the most of interesting parts. Thanks to our guide Catherine we reached the most clandestine parts and had the best time listening to all the exciting facts that surround this place. The drive there on a Mercedes minivan was very helpful. We could relax and just enjoy our time. Recommend 100%

Somewhat disappointed - As somebody who always try to book a private experience wherever we go, I am a little disappointed with this tour. Our guide was very nice but lack in experience and knowledge of the facts we are hoping to gain on this tour. With the amount of money one would pay for a private experience, I feel this is not top to par. Even the communication prior to the tour, I need to initiate to find out the details of the pick up, tour guide and driver. For someone who always book a private tour, this one is my bottom of the list. For a Private tour, we felt it not being a private tour. Would I recommend this tour, YES but I hope that this comment would make some improvements on the tour.

An expensive car ride - Experience is advertised as a live guided tour of Versailles, the Trianons and the Queen's Hamlet with an expert guide who gives all the good information on the ride there and during the tour. This is NOT a live guided tour. It is a student who gets you a recorded audio guide to use while they tag along because tour guides that do not work on staff at the palace are not allowed. This was not clear when I booked and paid almost $700 for two people for this approximately 5 hour experience. Pros: -We had pick up and drop off from our hotel in central Paris -We didn't have to wait in a long line to get in to the palace Cons: -Tour was booked for 8AM and the afternoon before we were told it wouldn't be until 9AM. Fine. -The guide we were assigned knew very little about the palace and the occupants aside from a few anecdotes about Marie Antoinette. After the first couple of questions I asked her that she could not answer, it was clear she didn't qualify as an 'expert' on the location or the kings and queens who Iived there so I simply stopped asking. There were even instances where my husband or I were teaching her things about art work located in the palace. -We were unable to get the photos we wanted. Upon arrival I had wanted to take photos of the palace exterior and the guide said there would be plenty of opportunities for photos on the tour, so I didn't get any exterior photos since the chance never came again during the day. Then, during the short time inside, there were limited opportunities for photos due to the crowds that had grown being everywhere, making any good shots practically impossible. -The listing says the tour company can book lunch reservations for you as an additional accomodation as part of the experience. I requested for lunch at Angelina, inside the palace, and was told that was not a problem. Then, an hour after we got there, the guide said my husband and I could break for lunch (no reservation was made) and she allotted approximately 35 minutes for us to be done and meet her downstairs. The problem was there was a lengthy line just to be seated. We waited on line for 20 minutes before giving up and grabbing a bottle of water and a taking a restroom break before having to meet our guide downstairs so we could make our way to the Trianons. We had been expecting to have a lunch reservation with an opportunity to actually eat and that did not happen, even after I mentioned it more than a few times to the tour company ahead of time. -The guide was initially telling us we needed to walk from the palace to the Trianons. However, the experience is advertised as having the driver take you from one location to the other. That is one of the main benefits you are paying such a large premium for. During our abbreviated lunch stop, the guide must have realized the incorrect information she told us, as when our short break was over she said the driver would be taking us over, which he did. But she made it seem like it was an additional request they would accommodate versus what was sold as part of the package. -Same deal with the audio guide recording at the Trianons. No live guides are allowed, so the live guide provided little value to the visit. She also seemed confused on the location as we could understand part of the conversation she was having with the driver in French and he seemed to know more about the grounds and access than the guide did. Overall, the guide seemed like a nice girl. But I paid almost $700 USD expecting to have a premium experience and learn about the locations with a live guided tour with someone who knows the details of the ins and outs of the destination. Along with the expectation of having a sufficient time reserved for lunch, as they offer to do. We basically paid for private car ride there and back and someone to get our tickets and pick up the audio guides from the check in desk. If you are considering this tour, save yourself several hundred dollars and don't book it unless the only thing that is important to you is a private pick up and drop off to and from Paris. As crazy as it sounds, this was supposed to be the highlight of our Paris trip, and it ended up being the most disappointing experience of our vacation. Such a waste of money on what should have been a once in a lifetime experience.

Avoid at all costs. - I reserved the private half-day tour for pick up at our hotel in Paris on Saturday 10/5/24, with pickup at 8am. The tour company reached out a week ahead to firm up our plans, and charged us in full two days in advance. On Friday night before the tour, I received a text around 8:30 PM seeing if anyone had reached out to us about the tour, saying that they might need to change our time. By the time I saw the text, it was midnight, and I responded that no one had called me, and that we had planned the remainder of our weekend around Versailles tour being in the morning, so we were unable to do a different time. Natalie from the company continued texting with me until 4 AM, ultimately concluding that no one was available to give us a private tour because people had called in sick. We were now only a few hours away from the proposed start of our tour, so I had to scramble and go online to book a different guided tour through Viator, because all of the morning tickets I could purchase directly from Versailles were sold out. I asked Natalie for a full refund, and she told me I needed to use the app to proceed. I asked her to make a note in my account with the details of everything that happened so that I would have an easy time receiving my refund. Here we are, a week later, and Vitor has given us back half of our money, claiming that we booked a Monday tour (Versailles isn’t even open on Monday) and we were the ones who changed the plans. I have been reaching out to Viator customer service, but I can’t tell if my emails are just going into the abyss. Fortunately, I had taken screenshots of my WhatsApp conversation with Natalie from SIA, although since I took the screenshots once Arriving home in the US, it looks like they took place during a normal time of day, not the dead of night four hours before the tour.