An Architectural insight of Vienna on a Private Tour with a local

First off, this review is NOT a reflection on our guide. It was clear she was not informed through the tour company on the plan. She was very kind and showed us some of her favorite sites of the city, passing along some personal recommendations for restaurants, etc. It was a crowded day with lots of tourists and Christmas markets and we didn't cover nearly as much as we'd anticipated. It was more of an overview with a few buildings but not an emphasis on the architecture or history of how these came together. I got a sense this wasn't her area of expertise, and we made the best of the time we had together to get more of a sense of what we might want to go back to on our own. The listing clearly stated we'd get a 3 hour architectural tour of Vienna, to begin at 11 AM. As we were a group of 2, this came at a premium rate, which I willingly paid. We arrived in Vienna the evening before and had not heard anything with regards to a meeting point so I reached out to the tour operator through the Viator App. I got a What's App message the next morning directly from the guide to confirm a 2 hour tour starting at 12 PM. We were ok to push back by an hour but as we'd paid for the 3 hour tour it wasn't ok to cut it short. We then agreed through What's App with the guide to meet at 1 PM so she could arrange for a longer tour time. I only heard back from the Tour Operator AFTER the tour should have begun - around 12:15, with the following message "Hi Kelly, our guide __ might have already connected with you, and the tour will start at 12:00 and it will be total 2.5 hours tour as it's private tour for your group only." How did the terms of the transaction change after all had been paid and accepted? Sending a message this late in the day was highly unprofessional, putting our guide in a very awkward position to fulfill the best she could. A big part of our decision to come to Vienna was around the culture, architecture and history of the city. We thought this would be a terrific way to kick off and instead we missed out on other things we could have done on this first day.

The one on one interaction gave us the freedom to cater the tour to our interest. Our tour guide, Lydia was terrific.