We took the VC from Seattle to Victoria for a day trip. When offered an opportunity to buy a Butchart Gardens High tea package, we were told we would get "right on" a bus from the boat to go to the gardens and that we'd have plenty of time for a half-hour high tea (for which reservations were "almost always necessary") and plenty of time -- about 90 minutes -- to tour the gardens. We told the tour sales person that we were only there for the day and discussed the other sites we wanted to see in addition to Butchart Gardens. She gave us advice on accessing a few of the sites after our tour. What we weren't told was that after we got "right on" the bus, we'd sit in the parking lot for AN HOUR. We arrived at the gardens a full half-hour AFTER our high tea reservation. Because the restaurant had to work us in, it took much longer to get served and we ended up with maybe 40 minutes to tour the gardens, much less time than the hour and a half we had been led to believe we'd have. When we complained, the bus driver had the audacity to tell us it was a "test of character!!!" Once the tour returned, we really had hardly any time to enjoy the rest of Victoria before we we had to back for the evening ferry. Victoria Clipper's response was that the tour departure time was on the ticket so they have no responsibility. However, we didn't know the bus departure time until after we had purchased the tickets because we were naive enough to believe the "right away" statement from the salesperson. Even then, we wouldn't have known that it meant we'd be sitting for an hour wasting time as we didn't know how much time was involved in going through customs. We weren't aware that we would be waiting for another ferry's group to board the bus. We also were not aware that it would take the driver OVER AN HOUR to get us there. And while the time was on the ticket, THEY are the ones who got us to the gardens a a HALF-HOUR AFTER our tea reservation. But they accept no responsibility for that. The company's approach seems to be to let the commissioned salespeople give customers the "sell" information up front and leave out details that may kill the sell in hopes that the customers are too unfamiliar with Victoria to realize how much time they'd be losing will buy the tour -- which is what we did. In all, our day trip (for 2) to Victoria ended up costing nearly $400 and for that we got the clipper ride, tea, a hurried, incomplete tour of the gardens, a rude bus driver, less than an hour to see anything else in the city, and a deluxe ONE-HOUR TOUR OF THE INSIDE OF THE PARKED TOUR BUS!!!! And this is all after we told the salesperson we were only there for the day and had other things we wanted to see. It was more than a "test of character" -- it was a display of very poor customer service. Having said that, the clipper service to and from Seattle to Victoria was nice. Just don't trust them on dry land!
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