Published on Dec, 2023
We were on a cruise with a stop in Mumbai, and decided to take a tour of the city, which was much cheaper on both Trip Advisor and Viator (both are the same company) than booking it on the ship. There were so many options to choose from, all with different prices, so it was hard to decide. Some were advertised as $29 per person, but then when it got down to the fact that we wanted to be picked up at the pier, the price jumped to over $200. We knew we wanted a private tour, which no matter how it turns out, is always better than a bus tour.
We kept looking and finally found one that would pick us up at the pier and would last 10 hours. The description of the tour was minimal. The only thing listed was the Gateway of India with mention that one might also see the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Marina Drive, and Crawford Market. By searching through the various tours listed, however, we had come up with a list of places we would like to see. The cost for 2 of us was USD $74.00, a very good price. There were no extra charges for anything except for the well-deserved tip and very cheap entrance fees. I can’t find a number related to our tour, but it was named Private Full Day Sightseeing Tour of Mumbai, as were several others. If you want to find it on the Viator website, know that our tour was provided by Triptivo Technologies. The picture on Viator shows 3 people standing in front of a building. The guy on the left is wearing a darkngreen shirt with white pants, the guy in the middle is wearing a NY baseball cap and gold pants, the woman on the right is wearing a light blue top.
So about our dealings with Viator, The booking went smoothly. Since I had seen a recommendation for a specific guide, by name, I sent a message asking if it would be possible to get that guide. Either Viator or Triptivo wrote back, didn’t answer my question, but asked for our whatsapp number. I wrote back and told them we don’t have whatsapp. Further our phone only worked when we were on board the ship, as did email. I gave them our email address, hoping they might contact us before we left the ship, but never heard back from them.
Here's what happened (and it turned out well because we had a good guide.) We were scheduled to meet our guide at 9 AM. Our cabin was not supposed to get off the ship for this independent tour until 9 AM, and we knew we would have to go through Indian customs, etc. In retrospect, if we were to do it again, we would have gotten off the ship as early as possible, say 7 AM, gone through the customs procedures, and then returned to the ship until 8:45, and then gotten off to meet our guide. But we didn’t do that. Rather we stood in line for an hour to go through customs, and finally cleared that a bit after 10.
We hoped, but didn’t expect, that our guide would still be there waiting for us, but he was. He had twice tried to reach us by phone, but he had never heard from his contacts that he would not be able to reach us once we left the ship. Our guide, Kadir Sherif, was a fine person, and we thoroughly enjoyed both the tour and his company. We told him what we wanted to see, and he made most of it happen. In addition to the advantage of choosing what to see and where to go, we also learned about his life, and that’s what we wanted. We finished after about 4 hours of touring, but we had seen enough and were thoroughly satisfied.
One caveat: Remember you will not be in the USA, Canada, or Europe. Driving in India is quite different. Traffic in Mumbai is horrendous and very slow. At times, for short distances, walking might be faster. Some stop lights hold for 2 minutes, and there are a lot of them. Pedestrians are walking in the street. Motorcycles and cars are zipping in and out of lanes, or making lanes where there were none. That being said, it works for them. It is not our system, but they probably don’t have any more accidents or fatalities than we do in the Western world. We would present a hazard driving there just as they would present a danger driving in our countries.
The bottom line: This turned out to be a good tour and good experience. I recommend it completely, either by booking through Viator or by contacting Kadir directly at +919 867 867 769.
