San Francisco Vista Helicopter Tour

This experience was amazing I’d highly recommend doing it, I’d never done a helicopter tour before and truly was an once in a lifetime opportunity.

This is my second time flying with this company. Last year I went in January, this year in May. I prefer the autumn/winter months because the sun goes down earlier and as a photographer, I prefer golden hour. I will always use them because they are affordable and the experience is always amazing.

Although, the flight left the day after due to bad weather, it was very well worth it. The day was beautiful and our pilot was great he took us over and under both the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge. I highly recommend it to anyone.

The helicopter ride portion was great. Our pilot was entertaining, pleasant and checked on us throughout. The views were sublime and we took great photos. There are significant issues however on the administrative side of this tour and a failure to manage expectations with respect to timeframes, process and duration. The email and voucher in particular spelled out the timing of the pick up and well as the time the helicopter ride would begin. For starters, the van was 10 minutes late for the 12:30 pickup. The helicopter ride was supposed to start at 1pm. After a longer-than-expected ride with a number of strangers, we arrived at site the site at 1:14. Again, the ride was to begin at 1pm. When we pulled up, the driver said, we have to split you into two groups. Sit here while the other group goes and theyll be back in about 20 minutes. At that point we realized that we wouldnt be on the helicopter until more than 30 minutes later than promised and stated on the voucher. We waited the 20 minutes while the other group went up, then we had our turn. While understandable, its less than ideal experientially sitting on a bench in a field in the interim. The prior group had to wait the 20 minutes for us also for us to return, then we all rode back to the city together. We had plans in place late afternoon and evening, based on the communicated timeframes. We had to move 3 things around as a result of the companys failure to align with what was stated on the voucher. It is worth noting that we initially paid for a 3pm booking. A few days later we asked if we could add one additional person via an online inquiry form and were told no problem. We paid, received an email confirmation and updated voucher for 3 people at 3pm straight away. Then we received an email about a day later stating that we had to move to the 12:30pm slot. We had our SF day finalized and planned around the 3pm ride for which we received confirmation. We then had to rework the entire day to make the 12:30 work. We also then realized via the back and forth communication for the party size change that we would be riding along with other touristswe thought this was a possibility but nothing we saw confirmed that they always book the helicopter to capacity 6. Once the actual day came and the tour company was not only nearly 15 minutes late for pickup, more than 30 minutes late for the ride time and the duration of the experience overall was beyond expected, we were less than pleased as we lost out on some other activities we planned TWICE because they confirmed our booking then made us move time slots. Not cool. If booking this, dont believe the times in the voucher and leave about 3 hours of your day open for this event. Also, be prepared to sit around.

Excellent tour