Giverny Small-Group Minivan with Hotel Pickup or Meeting Point

Thank you for your feedback. We would like to clarify the situation because several points in your review are inaccurate. As clearly stated in our booking conditions, this tour requires a minimum of two participants to operate. On the day before your tour, there were only two people booked, and we explained the situation honestly when you called us. We did not cancel your tour without offering alternatives. Instead, we proposed another available departure, which you declined because it did not fit your schedule. You called our office several times asking whether an exception could be made. We explained each time that we could not operate the tour under those conditions. The decision to purchase two additional seats was entirely your own. At no time did we require, pressure or oblige you to do so. It was your personal choice in order to keep your preferred date. For future reference, we will likely follow a stricter policy. Instead of spending considerable time trying to find solutions and accommodating repeated requests, we may simply decline any modification that does not comply with our operating conditions. This situation demonstrates that making exceptional efforts can unfortunately lead to criticism rather than appreciation. Finally, Viator is not responsible for this matter. Viator is only the booking platform. We are the local tour operator that organizes and operates the excursion. Your comments regarding the tour itself confirm that the gardens were beautiful and that your guide provided an excellent experience. The only issue concerned your personal decision after being informed of our operating conditions. We always strive to be transparent with our guests. However, transparency should not be interpreted as poor service. Our reservation policy is clearly communicated before departure, and in this case it was fully respected.

Dear Mrs. Mallika, You have already posted similar comments on Viator, and you are free to express your opinion on any platform you choose. However, we cannot accept attempts to obtain a refund by making inaccurate statements or by repeatedly threatening our company with negative reviews. It is important to clarify the facts. You initially booked the tour for 24 July, then cancelled at the last minute. You then booked 25 July, cancelled again, and finally booked 26 July. Despite these repeated last-minute changes, we accepted your new reservation each time because we always try to accommodate our customers whenever possible. Unfortunately, by the time of your final booking, the morning departure was already fully booked. The only remaining availability was our 11:30 AM Giverny tour, which you selected. Our Giverny tours are clearly described before booking: Morning Tour: approximately 5.5 to 6 hours including transportation, with 2 to 2.5 hours in Giverny. 11:30 AM Tour: approximately 7 hours including transportation, with 3 to 3.5 hours in Giverny. This option is specifically designed for visitors who wish to spend more time in Giverny. 2:00 PM Tour: approximately 5.5 hours, including around 2 hours in Giverny. There is no full-day Giverny tour offered by our company. Therefore, your statement that you were placed on a "full-day tour" is simply incorrect. Your review also omits an important fact. 26 July was the day of the final stage of the Tour de France in Paris, creating exceptional traffic restrictions throughout the city. To minimise delays, we advanced your hotel pickup to around 11:00 AM instead of 11:30 AM. As a result of the exceptional traffic conditions, you remained approximately 30 minutes longer than usual in Giverny. This was an operational adjustment caused by a major international event, not a change of tour. For these reasons, there are absolutely no grounds for a refund. Despite your repeated cancellations and last-minute booking changes, we continued to accommodate your requests. In addition, after the tour, our driver had to spend approximately one extra hour cleaning our Mercedes vehicle because it had been significantly soiled by your children. We made no complaint to you regarding this inconvenience and absorbed the additional cost ourselves. Paris Webservices has been welcoming international visitors for more than 20 years, and situations such as this are extremely rare. We transport thousands of visitors every year, including many high-profile international clients, by maintaining accurate information and professional service. Should further inaccurate statements be published, we will retain copies of all correspondence, booking history, cancellation records and operational data. If necessary, these documents will be provided to our legal advisers to demonstrate the factual chronology of events. Paris Webservices

We are sorry that you were disappointed with your experience. However, we feel it is important to clarify the circumstances. Your first reservation was cancelled at the last minute. You then booked a second time with two different dates, which were also changed at the last moment. Despite these repeated cancellations and late booking requests, and although our tours were already almost fully booked, we made every effort to accommodate you and offered you a third departure date as a gesture of goodwill. Your tour took place on Sunday, July 26, during the Tour de France, one of the busiest traffic days of the year in Paris. Road closures and traffic restrictions change throughout the day, making schedules much more difficult to guarantee. Rather than cancelling your tour, we adapted our operations so that you could still visit Giverny. It is also important to note that you booked a shared small-group tour, not a private tour. Shared tours require us to coordinate several guests and adapt to traffic, road closures and operational constraints. Throughout your comments and requests, however, you expected the flexibility and personalized scheduling that are only possible with a private service. As outlined in our tour description, the afternoon departure is designed to allow for additional time to fully enjoy the experience. For this reason, our clients would greatly appreciate being able to reserve this time slot, as it best suits their expectations. Throughout the process, our priority was to ensure that you were able to enjoy your visit to France despite these exceptional circumstances. We would also like to mention that, after the tour, our driver had to spend more than one hour professionally cleaning our luxury Mercedes minivan because of the condition in which it was left after the journey with your children. We chose not to charge any cleaning fee, even though this resulted in additional costs and delayed our operations. We always do our best to help our guests, even when reservations are made or modified at the last minute, and we believe we acted with patience, flexibility and professionalism throughout your booking. Under these circumstances, we do not believe that your review accurately reflects the level of service and the considerable efforts made by our team.

Thank you for your feedback and for sharing your suggestion. We have been operating this tour for more than 10 years, and we completely understand why you suggested visiting the house first. In practice, however, the order of the visit is not the main challenge. Your guide begins with approximately 30 minutes in Monet's gardens, including the famous Japanese Bridge and the history of the estate. Guiding inside Monet's house is not permitted, as the rooms are small and the Fondation Claude Monet does not allow guided tours indoors. After the guided garden visit, you have approximately 2 hours of free time. Most guests spend around 20–30 minutes exploring the remaining gardens on their own, then join the queue for the house. Depending on the day's attendance, waiting times can vary considerably. On most days, there is enough time to visit the house, enjoy the gardens, browse the shops, and stroll through the village. Unfortunately, during exceptionally busy periods, the queue for the house can be much longer than usual, which is beyond our control. We appreciate your comments, as they help future travelers better understand that waiting times at Monet's House depend entirely on visitor numbers on the day of the tour.