What To Expect

What‘s Included

Reviews

• Very nice tour guide but not a great tour.

  Ray C,,Sep 26, 2025

  - Review from Viator

  3.00

  Picked up at Union Square San Francisco & driven in small car to San Josè. Met tour guide in a hotel lobby and swapped to tour bus. Only 6 of us. Lovely tour guide. Went to Capitola beach for 1 hour but too early as most things closed. Then went to Santa Cruz boardwalk for 1 hour. Too far to walk to town so just tourist gift shops and cafes on boardwalk. Went to Roaring Camp for the steam train through the redwoods but after a 4 hour delay Roaring Camp cancelled the whole train and kicked us all out. Not our tour guide’s fault and he made sure we all got a cash refund for that part of the trip. To make up for the disappointment he took us to Mystery Spot but it was fully booked. Whole day a big disappointment to be honest. Certainly not a trip I would take again or recommend.

• Highly recommended! Ask for Charlie!

  Marie V,,Oct 16, 2024

  - Review from Viator

  5.00

  It was an interesting tour. I would recommend the tour and the Guide. Charlie spoke mandarin to the other guests but always made sure I also got the information in english. Charlie was very knowledgable about every stop on the tour and a very safe driver. Capitola was a lovely little spot for a great margarita. Abolone farm was closed but there was a lovely senic beach we were able to enjoy instead. Santa Clara wa sgreat. We had almost two hours there and walked every bit of the pier and board walk which had an awesome VW car show that day. From there we went to the Steam train and it was a blast! Only drawback to the tour?There was some confusion about the pick up stop and we ended up going from San Jose to Oakland to meet our tour...which then drove us back through san jose, so it would have been nice if we could have avoided the first two hours of backtracking and transferring to another van. Highly recommended! Ask for Charlie!

• I love trains and giant trees

  Darlene C,,Aug 25, 2024

  - Review from Viator

  5.00

  Trees! Big ones! Train ride thru the Redwood Forest. Santa Cruz was ok. Capitola Beach beautiful. Sunny. Would have like longer time at Santa Cruz for lunch and shopping

• Nice day trip. Fun. ...

  Marianne C,,May 13, 2024

  - Review from Viator

  4.00

  Nice day trip. Fun. Loved the redwood train. Food at the redwoods was good. Van driver safe and very friendly.

• AWFUL…. Miss information on TripAdvisor, Huge disappointment, Big waste of money, No national park

  Doug M,,Sep 8, 2023

  - Review from Tripadvisor

  1.00

  Our tour guide was awful. His English was so bad we couldn’t understand most of what was said. And his microphone didn’t work . There were two other couples on the tour. Both of them were of Asian descent as where are tour guides I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing but when our tour guide gave us a time to be back, my daughter and I were proximately 10 minutes early both couples were already on the bus, and our guy was fussing at us and telling us to “hurry up get on the van” like we were late, finally at the third stop when he was driving, partway down the road WITHOUT US I was frustrated enough I fussed back at him and say “you told us 2 o’clock” and he looked at me and he looked at his watch and he said “yes it is 1:52. We have to go now” absolutely ridiculous. The description of the tour is NOT accurate on TripAdvisor. You don’t go to redwood national park apparently that’s in the northern part of California several hours away from San Francisco. I did not notice because I’ve never been in California before I just picked what I thought was a really cool trip apparently NOT. The final icing on the cake was our tour guide told us because we booked through Tripadvisor. He was owed a 12% tip. Yes he actually told us that I gave a tip because he was training someone, and I’m not a jerk, good Lord I hope that person listens better Oh and as it turns out, he never gave the guy any of it. I was furious , the train ride was cool but I put in hours of blood, sweat and tears to get to the train ride. I would give this a zero if I could. Debbe North Carolina

• Great half day tour

  mubeenam2020,,Aug 10, 2023

  - Review from Tripadvisor

  5.00

  This is a great tour to go with a family since we have younger kids and didn't have the energy or time to do extensive hiking and sightseeing. Our tour guide, Wu, gave us some historical information on the areas we visited as well as the best spots on the beach. We loved seeing the sea lions at Santa Cruz. Capitola beach was amazing. We got to see surfers, enjoyed a bite to eat and enjoyed the beach scene. At the Redwood Forest (The main reason we took this tour), we got to ride on a steam train! The sounds and sights were amazing. I don't think I'll ever get an experience like this steam train. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip up the mountains and we got to see some of the oldest trees in the world. Talk to the blacksmith, he was very friendly! We stopped at a strip mall to get some lunch and then we went to Abalone Farms. I think it was a decent spot to look around for a few minutes but it can be cut out of the tour so we could have spent more time at either of the beaches or Redwood forest. With this tour, we hit many of the sweet spots we wanted to visit on our trip to San Francisco. The drive to and from is also very scenic and you have plenty of time to get a quick nap in between locations.

• Good Trip But Transfer Horrendous.

  Julia F,,Dec 11, 2022

  - Review from Viator

  3.00

  We were so looking forward to this trip and can't overstate how stressful the start to the trip was. We were at our pick up point just before 7.15 am, for a 7.30 am pick up. Driver was fifteen minutes late and no one told us that we would be joining a shuttle pick up for people going to Las Vegas before being dropped of nearly three hrs later in a car park in Santa Cruz. The drive was horrendous with the driver constantly on his mobile phone, checking paper work, for the first time ever I felt so unsafe in a vehicle. Stopped twice on a motorway narrow hard shoulder to check google maps making us late for what we know now was the meeting point as he went house to house to pick up passengers. No explanation given to us, we kept asking what time our trip would start and he kept given us false updates. Fruit was our driver in the car park and he was so different to the driver who dropped us of. A careful driver and was so relieved to know that he would be taken us back to our hotel. We would of enjoyed this trip so much more if we hadn't gone through what we did before boarding the Redwood train and then Santa Cruz. I do believe that Viator should look into this trip as transfer to the main trip was horrendous.

• Yy

  484suyang,,Oct 27, 2022

  - Review from Tripadvisor

  5.00

  My God, this is a perfect journey. The tour guide from downtown San Francisco is Ryan, and the tourist train arrives at Red Shirt Park in an hour. After an hour of train travel, I saw that the redwood trees all over the mountains are more than a thousand years old. This tour guide told me that the next two beaches were perfect. We had lunch at the first beach. There was an abalone factory in the middle. We didn't know what it was. The tour guide said it was to experience the life of fishermen. , the tour guide said that it is a place with a history of 140 years. I saw a colorful hotel here with a few friends. It is really great. It is recommended that you take a look! The tour guide is very good and caring. I also asked him about other itineraries of their company. I will definitely participate. It's a perfect journey. Thank you Ryan

• Was NOT as was described AND NEVER told us of the change

  Mary W,,Oct 23, 2022

  - Review from Viator

  2.00

  You booked us on a Chinese tour without prior warning . It was not a Viator . The driver spoke primarily Chinese and there was no discourse on history or background of any of the places we went to visit . The o Pt reason it did not get a 1 star was because the train ride was only awesome experience . I will follow up with a phone call to Viator . The guide was mearly a driver not a GUIDE . Not worth the money like previous tours through this company . I was Never Warned that we were placed with a Chinese tour company . We are English speaking and could not enjoy the experience

• Great trip!

  Roderick M,,Jul 21, 2022

  - Review from Viator

  5.00

  Anthony was an awesome guide and driver! We learned a lot and he took care of us. Also the steam train was a lot of fun for the whole family and the Redwoods are magnificent! We highly recommend it.

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