American Riviera Tours

01/15/12

LA Tour - loved it

by Aidan McCaw at Citysearch

The family visited the US for a family reunion Christmas 2011 and finished off our holiday with a few days in LA staying in Hollywood. I must admit our first impression of LA was not good. Fortunately we had booked a tour with American Riviera Tours. Our wonderful guide picked us up on time from the hotel and showed us areas of LA that were of interest to us, not just the routine tourist spots. He was very informative and we thoroughly enjoyed the tour and left with a much better impression of LA and surrounding areas. Thanks very much.

03/14/11

American Riviera Tours - Personal Touch, Great Value

by ODN67 at Citysearch

My family and I were in the US late September/early October 2010. On our first full day in Los Angeles, we went on a tour organised with American Riviera Tours - www.latraveltours . com.

We had previously negotiated a 5 hour private tour with Galina, comprising of places we wanted to see in L.A and other highlights the guide would show us. The price was $60 p/h. The vehicles are large and comfortable so if you have 4-5 people you are getting decent value for money.

I recommend taking a private tour as you control the pace of the tour and only go where you want to go, unlike organised bus tours or hop on hop off tours, where you spend time waiting at stops for buses to show up instead of making the most of your time.

Our tour guide was Uri. Uri was warm and friendly and genuinely likes to get to know the people he shows around. I particularly liked hearing Uri's take on celebritydom in Hollywood and the various politics and development of different areas unfold. I really felt like a learned something about the city.

We started the tour with Uri taking us up Mullholland Drive and looking over LA and San Fernando Valley (spectacular, insist on doing this). Over the course of the day, we saw celebrity homes in Beverly Hills, visited Brentwood, Westwood Memorial Park, lunched at Santa Monica, saw the cliffs at Malibu, got the iconic Hollywood sign photos, and were dropped at our request in Downtown LA so we could finish our day with shopping.

I can tell you that LA gets a bad rap sometimes. I urge you not to prejudge it, you simply have to find out for yourself. The place is busy, sometimes dusty (it is near desert after all), and more real than you see in the movies, but what intrigues me is its diversity, and this massive sprawling city full of iconic places. I just have to find out more.

We could not have asked to see more in 5 hours (plus a little extra at Uri's discretion). By the end of the day, we felt like we had made a friend, and nearly 6 months later, we still miss him. We plan on going back to L.A again in the next couple of years and we will be sure to look up Uri once more. We have already recommended the tour to our friends.

Thank you Uri and American Riviera Tours. We could not have wished for a better first day of our United States 'trip of a lifetime'.

02/26/10

Great LA personal experience

by crickflv at Citysearch

We researched online and found this company. What an awesome private tour. We paid our money and didn't need to worry about a thing. Our guide Galena was entertaining and did everything possible to make our tour enjoyable. We had some lunch and little shopping at The Grove and bought couple of presents for our kids.

• Pros: smooth ordering and ontime arrival
• Cons: none