Day Trip to Colonia from Buenos Aires

The tour was a waste of money. The tour guide guided us for about 45 min then we got into some van that drove us out of town for lunch for 2 hours. The food was awful. Then we only had an hour to explore colonia after lunch before heading back to the ferry port. Total waste of money.

We chose to meet the tour at the ferry terminal, which was an east thing to do. It saved a lot of money to take our own taxi transportation. All the details went exactly as described, and we hAd no complaints with the tour operator. The problem is: Colonia is deadly dull and really not worth a day

We decided ahead of time to book this trip and it was worth it. Colonia is beautiful. The ferry is not a complicated process and tickets can be purchased at the Colonia Express terminal. We were on the 9a.m. ferry but were picked up at our hotel at 6am, which was too early. We sat at the terminal for 1 hour before others passengers arrived. A 7 am pick up would allow ample time to check in. Colonia is charming and a perfect day trip from Buenos Aires.

The trip was well organized. A driver picked us up at our Airbnb and dropped us off at the end of the day. The walking tour of Colonia upon arrival was very good. Maria was very knowledgeable. We had the rest of the day on our own to explore the city. The weather was lovely and we had a great time walking the streets of Colonia.

It was perfect. Nice difference between BA and Colonia. I wish I could have stayed a few days there to really slow down. Everything was good and I encourage anybody to go.

We feel this tour was a rip off, extremely expensive for what we got. The guided walking tour was about 15 minutes. Colonia is just not that interesting. It is worth about an hour visit to see a few old buildings and some ruins. The rest of the town is souvenir shops and restaurants. It ended up being a 12 hour day, very tiring waiting for the ferry, a crowded boring ride, and a minimal tour. Don't waste your time or money.

This tour was horrible. Actually it wasn't even a tour, in fact I would give it a 0 if I could. Somebody picked us up at our hotel, took us to the Port. When we got to the port we just learned that the tour will meet us in Uruguay. We could travel with ourselvs on a ship, but it was verry disappointing that the Viator didn't say anything. After 3 hours boat ride we got to Colonia. There was another ship. We asked the personal at the port and they told us that we came on the slow car ship. Again we were speachless, why Viator placed us on the car ship when we could go with a fast one that only took about 1 hour instead of 3. We waited on a long line for our tour in Colonia. Then The Day Tour person did not even speak a word of english, she started screaming at us and other people why we didn't speek spanish. She threw all our papers at her collegue who knew english. The second one left us at a Hop-On Hop-Off Station in the middle of nowhere. She told us that we paid about 600 dollars for a Hop-On Hop-Of. On the website said we were paing for a tour, not for a Hop-On Hop-Off in a village that is so small you don't even need a bus. You need a tour guide to explain the history. We could buy our ship ticket much cheaper than 600 and go to Uruguay by ourselvs. So, we just walk around the Colonia by ourselvs. Don't get me wrong Colonia was amazing. Even though we went there in Christmas resturants were open and a couple of the souvinier shops. Colonia is also very pretty evert cobelstone street leads to another one and the prettyness never stops. Viator told us that there would be someone wating for us at the Port of Buenos Aires to take us to our hotel. But nobody was there. We had to take a Taxi there were not many at 10:30 pm. So this 'tour' was the worst 'tour' we ever had. But if you are in Buenos Aires you should go to Colonia.

the food was poor , all the rest was very good

This is the worst tour I have ever been on, if you can even call it a tour, which is such a shame as Colonia seemed lovely! We got off the ferry and it was very disorganised. Eventually we were put on a bus which is pointless as it is no more than a 5 mins drive but we had to sit on it for almost 30mins. There was a lot of confusion with how the tour would work and whether it was a walking tour or a bus tour. The walking tour offered no interesting information on the place or history of Colonia and we didn't even go into the main attractions such as the church! We then got on a bus to see a bit more of Colonia and again the explanations offered were not very interesting. I was comparing my experience to my friend who had been on another tour the week earlier and told me how great it was. Our ferry back was not scheduled until 9pm, which we managed to change but then no one understood that we needed to change our pick up from the ferry terminal to our hotel to arrive earlier so we gave up explaining and just got a taxi back. Below is an equivalent explanation in Spanish if you wish to forward it to the provider.

A quien corresponda,

Buenas tardes, mi nombre es Zahra y escribo para expresar mi profunda disconformidad con el servicio que me ha prestado la empresa en términos de organización.
Desde un primer momento tuvimos problemas con el bus, tuvimos que esperar mas de 20 minutos a que el mismo comenzara lo cual no fue un buen comienzo. También tuvimos problemas para regresar a nuestro hotel una vez finalizado el tour. Siendo que el transporte de regreso estaba incluido, tuvimos que toma un taxi por nuestra cuenta.
Pero lo mas decepcionante es que el tour en si mismo no nos proporcionó ninguna informaciónon sobre el valor histórico del lugar que era lo que a fin de cuentas mas nos interesaba.
Espero que esta información sirva para que puedan mejorar el servicio.

Colonia was lovely, it is a sleepy little town that you can wander and shop and see a bit of history or go down to the water with a coffee and relax. Not a ton to do there, but a nice change from busy Buenos Aires. We chose the pickup service from the hotel, which drops you off at the ferry and leaves you to figure out how to get on it yourself. It feels daunting at first since there are very little English cues but it actually is easier than it first looks. First, you line up at check-in. Show your reservation voucher on a phone works get your tickets and then head for immigration. Immigration has both Argentina and Uruguay side by side so once you are through you are done. You meet the bus tour at Colonia after a ferry ride - it is on a Buquebus the same company as the ferry. If you tried to book it yourself you would find the website a nightmare so through Viator worked so much better for us. Some people told me the bus tour was not necessary. But we enjoyed it and it follows the hop on hop off route so can decide later if you want to do it again and get off at places. We stayed until the 7:45 ferry but if you are in a time crunch, the 4pm ferry would give you enough time as well. The one thing I would change was the driver that picked us up after the day and took us home was truly terrifying. Reaching speeds of 100km/h in downtown Buenos Aires. have travelled the world and been in taxis in many countries, including India, and they don't hold a candle to how scary this guy's driving was. He started going the wrong way so we made him stop and walked the last few minutes home.