Reviews
Greece Private Tours collects reviews one way: the morning after a confirmed tour, on Santorini, in Athens or wherever we drove you, the lead traveller gets 1 private link and writes a rating and a few words with a first name and a country. The office reads each review before it appears on the tour page and here. Nothing is copied from Tripadvisor or Google.
How does the review request reach me?
By email, the morning after the day of a confirmed booking, to the address the booking was made with: one message, with a link that opens the review form for that booking alone. The link works once; after the review is sent it shows a thank-you page instead of the form. If a request was declined, a day did not happen or a tour was arranged by phone without a booking on this site, no email is sent and nothing is asked.
What does the form ask?
Five things: a rating from 1 to 5, a few words about the day (twenty characters at least, a few lines at most), the first name and the country to print with the review, and a tick that allows us to publish it. No account, no password, no app: the form takes about two minutes on a phone, and the first name is filled in from the booking so there is less to type.
Who reads a review before it appears?
The office, on its own screen in the site’s administration, where each review waits with its rating, its words and the booking it belongs to. The office may take out a surname, a phone number or a spelling slip; the rating is never changed, and the words are otherwise the guest’s own. A poor day is published like a good one. A review is declined only when it cannot be matched to a booking or when it is about a person who did not consent to be named, and the note printed under every list of reviews says the same.
Where do the reviews appear?
On the page of the tour the guest took, as the five most recent with the average and the count, and on this page, all of them, newest first. A review carries the first name, the country, the tour and the month of the day; it never carries the email address, the surname or the booking reference. The same count and average go into the page’s structured data for search engines, and nowhere else.
What about Tripadvisor and Google?
Where the company holds a page on a review platform, this page links to it by name, once the office has confirmed the address of the page it owns. The words there stay there: nothing is copied onto this site, no badge or widget is embedded, and no rating or count from a platform is typed by us. Until the office confirms a link, the platforms are named here and nothing more.
What are the letters from earlier guests?
Guests of earlier years wrote to the office by email, and the previous greeceprivatetours.com printed their words for many years. They appear below under their own heading, with the year where one is known and without a star rating, because they did not come through the review link: the office has confirmed they are real and that the guests agreed to be quoted, and a first name and a country print only where the guest gave them. They count in no average and go into no structured data.
What you can check without a review
The facts the site prints: every drive time routed on OpenStreetMap data with the date, every entrance fee and opening hour from the official page with the date it was read, the law on guiding cited by its number, the rate card confirmed by the office and printed on every tour, and the margin we keep before all-aboard stated as a number rather than a promise. The about page says who we are, the what-is-a-private-tour page what you are buying, and the contact page how to ask us anything before you book.
What guests wrote after their day
No review is published yet: the first request goes out the morning after the first tour booked through this site, and a review appears here once the office has read it.
Letters from earlier guests
There is a lot of talk on the board about not using a guide here and I agree that if you just want to see a little scenery and visit a few shops you probably don't need one. But if you are like me, and want to really see the island and its archaeological sites in detail, you will find them well worth the money. We used Nikos at greeceprivatetours.com (arranged for us by Nikos Sirigos) and they also arranged for an archaeological guide named Katherina. Akrotiri is becoming one of the most important archaeological excavations in the world but it is a complicated, hard to visualize site and you might as well not even go see it if you are not with a competent guide. It was a fabulous day and Nikos said at the end that we had seen more in that one day than most people do in a week. We went to Akrotiri, Oia, climbed the mountain to Ancient Thera, visited the main museum, a winery and some Byzantine sites and generally hiked and drove all over the Island. The archaeological guide was really great and even my seven year old son loved the day. Nikos also brings his camera and takes pictures of your family all day and hands you a CD at the end with really great pictures on it. This is probably controversial but we really enjoyed our guided tour of Santorini and I think they are well worth the money if you want to really see the sites in a day.
Hello Nikos!!! Thank you so much for showing my mom and friends great Greek hospitality and service! It was a true pleasure for all of us to meet such a nice (and handsome) Greek gentleman! We will be sure to contact you if when we have the blessing to return to your BEAUTIFUL island! I'm so happy we got to visit but I am so sad I had to leave! I LOVE Santorini!!! The photos you took of my mom and I - and of me (ha!) - are so great!!! And of course you look so handsome in the picture I took of you!
Dear Nikos, Just wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed our tour of Santorini. Our driver was amazing. She is a lovely woman and very kind. The photo cd is truly amazing. We will be sure to recommend your services to our friends. p.s. The fresh fish was our favorite! Great restaurant!!!!!
Dear Anna and Nikos, I am writing a little late to thank you for a wonderful day in Santorini with KiKi. She was the best guide we have ever had and she made our day on the island a wonderful experience. She is darling and was so patient with our questions, taking photos, etc. We had a great time and feel lucky to have had such a charming guide. Please tell her thanks.
Thanks for a fine tour of your beautiful island; Kiki was a great guide and she did a wonderful job showing us all the sites and a fine place for lunch.
Nikos, Tonight our group of friends who went on the cruise got together to discuss our trip. A highlight of our meeting was watching the CD of pictures that KiKi took in Santorini. Almost everyone said they would use them for their Christmas cards this year because they were such great photos! Everyone agreed that the arrangements you made for us could not have been better. Each of the tour guides had a special expertise or knowledge that was particular to the area we were touring. They were all very professional and very informative. The drivers were friendly, nice and obviously careful drivers even on the small roads in places like Rhodes and Corfu. I feel so fortunate that I made contact with you and that you were able to make all the arrangements for us. Thank you!
Esra, I have cc'd this message to Nikos Sirigos who arranged all the tours for our group in the Greek Islands and in Athens. His guides were very professional and experienced and the drivers were prompt and competent. I would have no hesitancy for you to recommend him to anyone looking for a guide after they left Istanbul. Thank you for showing us such a good time in Istanbul. We certainly hope to return sometime since there is still so much for us to see. Thanks!
Hi Nikos. How are you? I hope all is well. Once again, I want to thank you for organizing excellent guiding services and all your help in making our tour so successful. We had many positive comments from our group and we hope to work with you again soon. We also hope to refer clients to you whenever possible or act as a reference for any of your potential clients. I also got the refund via the restaurant - thanks! I also would be happy to provide feedback or put comments onto any websites that you use. Just let me know how I can help you and please provide me with the website addresses you use. Thanks again and it was a privilege working with you!
Dear Nikos, just a note to say thank you for your wonderful guides while we visited Santorini and Corfu. We appreciated their knowledge and also the beauty of each place. You were honest and reliable and I would be happy to recommend your services to my friends.
Dear Nikos, Just wanted you to know how much we thoroughly enjoyed our two tours with your company. Both Santorini and Athens were two of our best stops on our cruise. Both of your tour guides were professional, friendly and informative and made us feel welcome. We were able to see all of the sites we wanted plus more. Thank you and thank them for the wonderful time we had. We fully recommend your services and hope some day to be able to use your services again.
Nikos, Mary and I had a delightful time with you exploring Santorini. You were the perfect guide, particularly because of our shared interest in photography (obviously, you are the real professional). We hope to visit your lovely island for a prolonged stay in the future. In our haste, there is one thing that I failed to do. That is take a good photo of you!! SO, if you have a good personal photo please e-mail it to me. Thanks again for a great time... really the highlight of our trip.
Dear Nikos we have just returned home from our European and Mediterranean holiday. I am just writing to say what a wonderful day we all had with your Aussie-Greek tour guide, Julie. She was fantastic. On time, very helpful, great suggestions, wonderful stopping places and back to the cable car on time. we could not have found a better guide. We can thoroughly recommend her, and will do so to our travel agent. We took some of your business cards to give her. again, thanks for your great organisation and we were so pleased to have had the day with Julie. Please give her our best wishes.