Complaints reveal awful bus tours provide awful, authentic NYC experiences

What’s the best way to see an unfamiliar city? Having a friend take you around? Just hitting the street with a guidebook and talking to locals? Or how about speeding by on a bus where someone is screaming at you about how the area where you are is known as Times Square and it’s the place all New Yorkers love? Apparently some people pick the third one, and according to the New York Post, these people are unsatisfied with one of the companies for being rude, profane and uninterested in their clients’ good time. But that’s an authentic New York experience!

The Post says that GO New York tours is under investigation from the Consumer Affairs Department for providing crappy and misleading services to the people who decide the best way to see New York is from a bus. Ripped off tourists allegedly faced guides who had curse-ridden cell phone conversations in front of kids, audio that described Green-wood Cemetery when the bus was in Times Square and casual racism from the guides while in Harlem and Chinatown.

Others said guides gave misinformation or pointed out small-time attractions while ignoring big-tickets attractions, and one Girl Scout troop leader said her troop waited 90 minutes in the July heat for a bus that skipped stops at random. And while we’re usually the first in line to make fun of those busses, we don’t see how anyone wanting an authentic New York experience could complain about waiting too long for a bus that doesn’t follow any logical patterns once it gets going. To us, it sounds like GO New York should get a medal for being so brave and honest.

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