Full-Day Trip to Zakopane from Krakow

Great tour and worth doing if you have a day spare in Krakow. Marta was a thoughtful, considerate guide with heaps of information. The day was over-caste and windy but we still managed some outstanding views and found Zakopane an interesting town to spend some relaxing time. The tour company provided all it promised. We were probably lucky that it was the end of the tourist season so it was only two of us which made it more like a private tour.

My husband and I always book different excursions and tours to view and experience different parts of the country or city that we are visiting. This by far was the worst! First of all, no one confirmed the pick up time the day before and I had to reach out to viator who kindly confirmed the information with the tour company. We were supposed to be picked up at 8:30, but we weren't picked up until 9 am. No one bothered to call and Inform us of the delay. The hotel had to reach out to them. Also, We booked an English tour, however when we were picked up we found out that it was an English/Spanish tour. This meant that every time the English speaking tour guide spoke, the Spanish speaking guide would repeat the information in Spanish. This may not seem like a big deal, but when there are 40 Spanish speaking visitors and only 9 English speaking it is as the other visitors would converse during the part that was not in their language. It is a long ride, about two hours, and about half way through we stopped at a gas station for a break. A gas station with 2 bathrooms. 2 bathrooms for about 50 people. Here we wasted over 20 minutes. Once we got back on the bus we sat in traffic at a complete stand still for 30 minutes. Traffic is obviously not their fault, however they mentioned that they know there was construction, so why make a stop at a gas station and waste time when you knew we'd be delayed. Also I overheard the guide telling someone in town that the driver didn't want to go a different way even though he knew of the construction. Our first stop was Chocholow, which was beautiful but we were rushed through it. We walked down a street, looked at some houses, walked into an artist's shop, looked around, bought a souvenir, and walked back on the bus. If you do decide to go on this your against my recommendation, purchase any wood items you want there as they are beautiful and unique. After that we got into Zakopane. We were given an hour and a half for lunch and shopping. This is not nearly enough time. We later went to the top where we saw a beautiful view but we were rushed as we were only given 15 minutes. Finally we took a ski lift down and walked to the bus. The bus was hot when we got on and since it was a very hot day I didn't understand why the driver wouldn't cool the bus down a bit since he knew a lot of people were about to get on. Lastly, we had to wait quite a while for 3 women who went off somewhere. All in all, Zakopane is beautiful and I'm glad I got to see it, however I wish I saw it with a different tour and guide. There are too many people on this tour and like I mentioned earlier there were two different groups on board. There was a lot of wasted time and we spend more time on the bus than in Zakopane.