One of the best tours we have had - Our fabulous guide Tony went above and beyond to show us unscheduled places that we enjoyed! Friends international was the way to go and request Tony

Small Group Tour of the Cotswolds and Oxford from London - We had an outstanding day touring the Cotswolds and Oxford from London. Because the tour was a small group tour instead of a larger coach-type tour, we were able to visit a mix of popular and off-the-beaten path places including a very special village where we were graciuosly welcomed to view the inside their beautiful historic church (St. Kenelm’s completed in 1450) just after Sunday service. Lunch was in an elegant village pub (The Lamb Inn, Burford), the food and service could not have been better. A stop in Oxford to see and experience some of the town’s notable highlights completed the day. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable, kind, and ensured our comfort throughout the day with stops that included available restrooms and food/drink. This was truly one of the best days of our trip, and we would most definitely take this tour again.

Wonderful day - We were only 2 in the tour so we could stop everywhere we wanted. We had a wonderful time with Steve, our guide, and Vugar, our driver. They were very knowledgeable and they pampered us all day. We loved the tour of the Cotswolds, the lunch at the pub was delicious. The visit of Oxford was a little too superficial for our taste. It was just enough for us to realise that we could spend a whole day there some day.

Lovely day in the countryside - This was such a lovely day exploring the cotswolds and Oxford. Some how I lucked out on it being a solo tour. I was so appreciative of that the vendor didn’t cancel and also informed me of this. My guide, Tony was so knowledgeable and really catered the tour to my interests. The lunch was great and at a lovely little inn. Thank you so much for a great day!

Good tour guide - Our guide Catharine and our driver Iman did their best to make the most of a bad situation. It poured down rain in Oxford, yet Catharine managed to show us the key points of the University. The Pub lunch was very good, and we enjoyed our photo stops in Burford and Bilbury. Unfortunately, we were stuck behind a major road accident on our way back to London. Even though we were later arriving back into London, they made sure that we were able to get back to our hotels. Very knowledgeable and professional.

Endless driving & bad tour guide - Why did we travel to England? To experience the Cotswolds. This extremely poorly-run tour ruined our dream of experiencing the Cotswolds. The tour guide, Tony, was obviously seething with disgust for all people conservative, and let it be known loud and clear in his running political commentary which lasted the entire tour. This, coupled with the fact that the vast majority of time on this tour was taken up by an extreme amount of driving between far-apart Cotswolds villages - not scenic, just tiring hours of driving, ruined what we most looked forward to on our vacation. The tour took us to stow-on-wold for lunch. Didn't get to walk around village, took an hour for lunch including getting waited on, receiving food & eating. It wasn't one of the better villages to see anyway, so shouldn't have wasted our time even going to this village with all the time spent driving to and from Stow-on-Wold. Burton would have been a wonderful village to have allowed us to spend 2-3 hours strolling, wandering, imagining and having lunch. Visitors want leisure time to do these things to really soak in the beauty and ambience of a beautifully representative Cotswolds village like Burton - without rushing. Instead we drove past it even though it was NOT crowded. It would have been much more enjoyable spending our time leisurely breathing in the ambience and sights of just a couple quintessential Cotswolds villages, rather than spending the vast majority of time driving boring roads in between distant villages. Instead of commentary on the history or beauty of what we were seeing, the tour guide continually made political slurs. When the participants on the tour asked any question about how England accomplished something we were seeing, the tour guide turned it into a political hit piece against conservatives. We came a long distance, took time away from other things, and paid a lot of money for a vacation. In Oxford, we wanted to learn about the history and interesting facts about Oxford and it's people. Instead, we had to listen to the tour guide's political lambasting, and worse, when the tour guide turned us loose for a short period to explore, he failed to tell us what there was to see, what were the interesting things to look for, and where to find them. People were wandering around lost, trying to figure out which way to go and what to look at. It was a total waste of our time. In addition to the running political monologue, he made other inappropriate and offensive comments throughout the day such as referring to the poor gentleman who missed our tour bus as "a vegetable". (The gentleman and his wife had missed our tour bus, and later connected up with us). The tour guide repeatedly exclaimed, when talking in a derogatory manner about something, "Jesus Christ!" as an expletive. This is extremely offensive to Christians. No one wants to be subjected to a scathing, ongoing political lambasting while on a tour. That, coupled with the endless driving between distant Cotswolds villages, and failure to allow us to spend a good amount of leisurely time exploring a quintessential village or two, and turning us loose with no map and no explanation as to what to see in Oxford, ruined the most important part of our vacation.

Extremely poorly-run tour - TOUR What was the primary reason we visited England? To experience the Cotswolds. This extremely poorly-run tour ruined our dream of experiencing the Cotswolds. The tour guide, Tony, was obviously seething with disgust for all people conservative, and let it be known loud and clear in his running leftist political commentary which lasted the entire tour. This, coupled with the fact that the vast majority of time on this tour was taken up by an extreme amount of driving between far-apart Cotswolds villages - not scenic, just tiring hours of driving, ruined what we most looked forward to on our vacation. The tour took us to stow-on-wold for lunch. Didn't get to walk around village, took an hour for lunch including getting waited on, receiving food & eating. Wasn't one of the better villages to see anyway, so shouldn't have wasted our time even going to this village with all the time spent driving to and from Stow-on-Wold. Burton would have been a wonderful village to have allowed us to spend 2-3 hours strolling, wandering, imagining and having lunch. Visitors want leisure time to do these things to really soak in the beauty and ambience of a beautifully representative Cotswolds village like Burton - without rushing. Instead we drove past it even though it was NOT crowded. It would have been much more enjoyable spending our time leisurely breathing in the ambience and sights of just a couple quintessential Cotswolds villages, rather than spending the vast majority of time driving boring roads in between distant villages. Instead of commentary on the history or beauty of what we were seeing, the tour guide continually made leftist political slurs. When the participants on the tour asked any question about how England accomplished something we were seeing, the tour guide turned it into a political commentary against conservatives. The tour guide said the current prime Minister who's conservative is bad & going to lose the upcoming election. He said England needs immigrants, needs workers, Brits won't do mundane work. That Britain should implement a much greater increase in immigration. He said that Angela Merkel got it. (The adults in the room are keenly aware of the horrors of crime that infiltrated Germany with Merkel's open borders policy). When looking at windmills, the tour guide said that windmills are great and it takes thinking & planning to implement them. The tour guide needs to educate himself about the disaster that windmills are, starting with slave labor to extract the materials from the earth, depleting precious natural resources to build them, disastrous carbon footprint transporting them, destruction of wildlife, and the negative offset in the net generation of energy vs no windmills, to name a few. The tour guide brought up a couple times during the tour that the current conservative prime minister changed the upcoming election dates in order to prevent voters who vote for the opposition party from voting. One of the times the tour guide talked about this was while touring Oxford when the tour guide stated the current conservative prime minister is intentionally preventing college students from voting bc they would vote for the opposition party. The guide said the way the prime minister is doing it is that the students are registered to vote at this Oxford college location. And knowing the students leave in summer to go home - that's when the prime minister changed voting to, so the students will be out of their voting district and won't be able to vote. We came a long distance, took time away from other things, and paid a lot of money for a vacation. In Oxford, we wanted to learn about the history and interesting facts about Oxford and it's people. We got very little of that, and worse, when the tour guide turned us loose for a short period to explore, he failed to tell us what there was to see, what were the interesting things to look for, and where to find them. People were wandering around lost, trying to figure out which way to go and what to look at. It was a total waste of our time. The tour guide said he can't narrate in front of one of the specific Oxford colleges - bc his narration included the fact Boris Johnson had been a student at that college. He said the college told him they don't want to damage their reputation of excellence. Which party was Boris Johnson? Conservative. When asked a simple question as to whether Oxford University offers courses in art, he answered yes, but the prime minister (who is conservative) is trying to stop that because he views it as worthless & he only wants science and math and courses like that. Nearly every question the tour participants asked, the tour guide turned into an opportunity to take a punch at conservatives, instead of giving us information about the history and beauty of what we were seeing. In his ongoing, leftist political commentary, the tour guide criticized the current conservatives in government bc he said they're requiring voter i.d. for the purpose of trying to prevent people who would vote for the opposition from voting. The tour guide said there's only ever been 4 voter fraud cases in the entire country and therefore no voter ID for anyone should be required. He sarcastically lambasted the conservatives for requiring voter ID. (Wow. ID is required to get discounts for some items, for entry into or membership in some businesses, to buy alcohol, etc, but shouldn't be required for the most fundamental and important role a CITIZEN has to play, voting for the leader of their country who determines the national defense, the economy, the well-being of the people, and the nation's position in the world). The tour guide said the woman in government who's currently in charge of immigration "hates immigrants", even tho she's one, so she's forced deportation of "asylum seekers" & immigrants. I'd be willing to bet she's conservative. The tour guide talked about what he said was a terrible policy that Margaret Thatcher had put in place, and called Thatcher "an evil witch". What political party was Margaret Thatcher? Conservative. The tour guide made exactly zero critical comments about liberal government officials, liberal policies and liberal voters. The tour guide, after making a torching accusation against conservative leaders, exclaimed "don't get me wrong I'm not on the far left or anything". Thou doth protest too much. Too late, he'd loudly revealed that he actually is, with his far left monologue for the entire trip. Driving thru Cotswolds he said "I could never live here, too conservative. This is your conservative voting district". Whether left or right, no one wants to hear a torching political commentary when they're on a tour trying to enjoy a day out. In addition to the running political monologue, he made other inappropriate and offensive comments throughout the day. The tour guide repeatedly exclaimed, when talking in a derogatory manner about something, "Jesus Christ!" as an expletive. This is extremely offensive to Christians. He also made several other extremely inappropriate and offensive comments during the tour, such as referring to the poor gentleman who missed our tour bus as "a vegetable". (The gentleman and his wife had missed our tour bus, and later connected up with us). We were on vacation, wanting to enjoy a lovely day out in one of the most beautiful areas in England. The number one reason we visited England. The last thing we wanted was to be subjected to a scathing, ongoing political lambasting. That, coupled with the endless driving between distant Cotswolds villages, and failure to allow us to spend a good amount of leisurely time exploring a quintessential village or two, and turning us loose with no map and no explanation as to what to see in Oxford, ruined the most important part of our vacation. I'll close with a comment to make it clear, the driver was excellent. He was silent during the entire trip and took all directions as to where to go, from the tour guide. The driver did a very good job driving. He had nothing to do with our poor experience.