Jerusalem is very interesting, and the guide explained it well...

This tour was ok. We were able to see a lot in a short time. But the tour was chaotic and I couldn't hear the guide on the bus telling us what we were seeing.

The tour guide was in a rush and didn't knew all the facts.

The content was good but the tour company and tour guides spoiled it for me. The tour company kept passing us around like hot potatoes, from one bus to another to their convenience and not ours. "Ossie" the Israeli tour guide was very unpleasant when we complained about being left stranded in and passed around from one happless guide to another in Bethlehem (West Bank).

It was an interesting tour in itself, although there may be better operators than Ben Heim (sp?). 3 souvenir shops in 1 day was a bit much. The first one was supposedly for a toilet/coffee stop (yeah right) but the facilities were stinky, foul and unclean. The carpark was full of rubbish too. The first guide was a little full of himself - quite interesting but it was "my darling" this and that constantly. Then towards the end of the Jerusalem portion, 4 of us were suddenly told to go with the bus driver as the tour was splitting. We were deposited at the border with Bethlehem to wait for a guide. We waited and waited but no one showed. So finally we nervously ventured through the border only to find a driver waiting for us on the other side. So much for the instructions! He delivered us to our next guide who actually was very good although again, we had the inevitable and lengthy souvenir shop visit. After seeing Bethlehem, we went back through the border, waited for a while and finally a vehicle arrived but we apparently had to wait for 5 minutes for another person to join us from another tour. It ended up being an hour of sitting, waiting in the gathering dusk with no explanations. So it was a big 12 hour day. Conclusion? I'd recommend trying another operator.

We appreciated the guided tours of old town Jerusalem and part of Bethlehem, but did not appreciate being steered into particular souvenir shops and food vendors. Our guides were friendly, but didn't spend much time actually explaining history or context of what we were seeing. For the amount of money we spent, I would have appreciated more "tour" and less shopping.

This is a great tour to get a taste of Jerusalem and Bethlehem but don't plan to spend time at each stop other than the souvenir shop. Our tour guide was good at telling the facts but horrible at organization. He got mad at us when he did not inform those splitting off to go to Bethlehem to take our belongings with us from the bus and he had to rearrange things. It worked out ok but he was not professional. Also, these tours spend a lot of your time shuttling between buses depending on where you will be dropped off and therefore shutting into the time at the actual sites. Not enough time to really appreciate and take in where you are.

We went on this tour on 15th February. We have been on a lot of similar tours in other cities and countries, and I am sorry to say this was one of the worst tours we have ever been on. We were very disappointed with the organisation, the quality of the guides, and the time we were 'forced' to spend in shops.

The tour of Jerusalem was OK, but quite uneven - a lot of time spent 'admiring' the streets and derelict buildings and not enough time at the religious sites, which is what we really wanted to see.

Bethlehem was a bit of an organisational disaster. Our guide left us in the queue for the Nativity church and only showed up again much later when we'd already walked past a couple of attractions. He didn't apologise or cover the bits he'd missed off.

We then finished the tour of the Nativity church and had to wait almost 20 minutes in the cold for the bus to pick us up, which everyone thought was unacceptable.

To our shock we were then taken to yet another shop and forced to spend half an hour there, even if no one from our group bought anything. We told the guide we wanted to leave but he told us quite rudely to wait.

When we couldn't find 5 people, we were told by the guide that we (not he) should look for them. In the end we found them waiting in the bus - I wish I had done the same, as that was half an hour of my time I will never get back.

Such a shame as both Jerusalem and Bethlehem are great places. This tour needs improving. Please take this feedback on board and make some drastic changes.

The tour guide rushed the group, got frustrated if we tried to take pictures, didn't allow time for pictures, and just wasn't the most pleasant person. For a tour about Jesus, one would expect a pleasant person, but that was absolutely not the case.

I was only staying for a week in Israel so I booked a few trips via Viator. What a big mistake and a waste of money. All the guides I had were not very efficacious and always in a hurry.