City Unscripted Reviews 

The tour guide gives many explanation of the venue.

I had the most wonderful experience in Madrid, all thanks to Pedro!

From the very beginning, he was incredibly helpful with the pre-tour planning and went above and beyond to accommodate our requests and preferences. Pedro has a remarkable ability to bring Madrid's history to life, seamlessly blending fascinating historical insights with his extensive knowledge of architecture.

He was engaging, personable, funny, and an excellent communicator throughout the tour, making the experience both informative and enjoyable. His passion for the city was evident in every aspect of the walk.

To top it all off, Pedro surprised us at the end with some delicious local treats, which was such a thoughtful and memorable touch.

This was truly one of the highlights of our visit to Madrid, and we cannot recommend Pedro highly enough. If you're looking for an authentic, insightful, and enjoyable experience, look no further!

Lisa was such a great guide. She took us to lots of different places. She was so sweet. My son and liked her very much. If I could give her more than 5 stars I would. It was a great time spending with Lisa.

Our guide was very knowledgeable and adapted well to our needs. He mixed history of the city and at the same time discussed its current changes. Described life in Amsterdam with a unique flair.

Marianne was a great local guide, made a clear impact in how experienced Oslo
She designed an amazing costumed itinerary for our family, adults and children.
It included walking tours and local transport
Marianne is very kind, knowledgeable and flexible
I highly recommend Marianne

Frederico led my family of 8 adults on a great food tour of Barcelona. We had several tapas at 2 different places, then chocolate and churros at the third.

The communication from City Unscripted and our tour guide Robert was fantastic. I appreciated that we were asked for our preferences and interests, to put together an unforgettable day.

Our guide was very nice, it was a hot day and we had a child he was able to attend our needs and made us feel comfortable.
Very interseted tour.

Our tour guide was very good.
Very informative, tried to engage with everyone. We were a party of 8 persons.

Ages between 49 -15.

Great tour guide, very informative.

excellent; good orientation tour
guide had a great depth of knowledge
would recommend for a great start

I had a tour guide named Alessandra she was amazing. Very knowledgeable about all the places we saw, knew exactly what to go see. What places where good to eat, best places to go see if we didn’t have time. Answered all my questions. Awesome experience would go back.

A challenging day to see the sites of Seoul, the day of the big BTS comeback concert. Our tour guide made the best of it and we saw all of Seoul that was open and met our interests. Tours with private guides are the best! When I think back over my travels I most often think of our local guides and remeber fondly their friendliness, spirits and knowledge.

We had a lovely friendly guide. Stella was observant and adjusted the pace of our tour to accommodate my travel partner's struggles navigating the terrain. Her knowledge of Sienna was remarkable and we learned so much about this amazing town. I highly recommend having a guide.

Rain was an informative guide. He adapted the tour to suit our preferences and needs.

The guide was nice however compared to other tours, more history, and information was expected, specially for the price paid for private tour

Kyoko was pleasant and tailored our day to see exactly what we said we wanted to see. She also had valuable advice for what to do with our other days in the area.

Peter was an awesome guide!! He made my family feel like they were his personal guests.

Pros
Great opportunity to meet travelers from around the world.
Flexible work compared with many traditional jobs.
Good place to gain experience as a new tour guide.
Guests were generally wonderful, and I consistently received positive feedback and 5-star reviews.
You can learn a lot about guiding and the tourism industry.

Cons

I felt the company placed more emphasis on internal procedures than on the actual guest experience.
Going above and beyond for guests, such as voluntarily picking them up from their hotels, sometimes created additional administrative responsibilities rather than being appreciated.
I felt too much responsibility was placed on guides, while communication with guests could have been shared more effectively between guides and the office.

The evaluation process was not always clear. While guest reviews were important, other criteria such as professionalism, reliability, and communication seemed subjective, making it difficult to understand how performance was assessed.
The support provided to guides was more limited than I have experienced with other tour companies.
Commission rates for guides were lower than those offered by many other companies in the industry.

Advice to Management

Consider placing greater emphasis on the overall guest experience while simplifying internal procedures. Encourage open communication with guides, recognize voluntary efforts that improve the guest experience, and provide clearer, more objective performance standards.

If guides voluntarily go above and beyond—for example, by picking guests up from their hotels or changing the meeting point to make the tour more convenient—those efforts should not become grounds for disciplinary action simply because the office was not informed. If no guest experience was negatively affected, voluntary service should be encouraged rather than discouraged.

While the company stated that they did not intend to discourage voluntary actions and appreciated efforts such as adjusting meeting points to improve guest experience, I was also told that failing to inform the office about such changes could lead to dismissal. Because of this, I personally did not feel that voluntary service was consistently encouraged in practice.

I also felt that the communication around this issue focused mainly on what went wrong, without enough acknowledgment of the voluntary effort made to improve the guest experience. A more balanced approach, recognizing both the positive intent and the procedural issue, would have made it easier to understand and accept the feedback.

In my case, I acknowledge that informing the office could have helped. However, I do not believe the responsibility rested solely with the guide. The office could also have reminded the guests to confirm the meeting point with their guide before the tour. I would have appreciated a more collaborative approach from the beginning. If the issue had been approached as a shared responsibility rather than being presented as solely the guide's fault, I would have been more than willing to cooperate with any reasonable operational improvements.

Effective communication is a shared responsibility between guides and the office, and when issues arise, they should be evaluated from both perspectives.

While the company stated that performance decisions are based on multiple factors rather than a single issue, I was directly told by a manager that if a guide changes the meeting point without informing the office, they may be suspended. In my case, this situation ultimately led to serious consequences, which made it difficult for me to reconcile the policy with how it was applied in practice.

The guests involved still enjoyed the tour, left a 5-star review, and even contacted me afterward. This made it difficult for me to understand why the issue was treated as seriously as it was, despite the positive outcome for the guests.

The commission paid to guides was also much lower than I have seen elsewhere. In my experience, many tour companies I have worked with or am familiar with take around 25% of the tour price, whereas this company kept approximately 50–75%, depending on the tour. Future guides should carefully compare compensation structures before joining.

The company describes guides and the office as collaborators. In my experience, however, I did not feel the relationship was equal. I found it difficult to express my opinions or disagree with decisions without worrying about possible consequences. True collaboration requires both sides to listen to each other and share responsibility.Travelers may also benefit from comparing different tour platforms or researching independent guides through social media