We left the whole day open to see Auschwitz, and they cancelled the tour on us. They are just a bus operator and a bad one at that.
After talking to a guide that is employed by the Auschwitz Camp and has live in the area his whole life, is how it works with all tour companies to Auschwitz. They don't buy the tickets until the bus is full, and leave it as late as possiable to buy them. This is because to stop ticket reselling they put a name to each ticket and check it with goverment ID. So only the person who they book for can use that ticket. This means sometimes they don't have tickets for anyone and just risk waiting at the gate, hence why there are some many reviews of leaving at 4am to be the first there when it opens. All the good reviews must of been when it was super busy.
So my story. I booked through headout but got put with their local guide discover krakow. Always book direct with a company not a middle man like headout, they made it seam like they were the company not the middle man. The morning of I get to the metring place at 6.15am for my 6.30am tour. It's gets to 6.45am and a full bus come and picks up about 12 German speaking tourist, she tells us the English one will be here soon. It gets to 7am and another guy calls, they tell us that our trip was moved to 4am but hangout didn't inform us. This guy apperanlty also got a call at 3.40am that morning telling him to be there at 4am.
The only reason we came to Poland was to go to Auschwitz, so we decide to get a train there to see if we can get in. We get there at about 10am wait for tickets was about 1hr, we get a tour for 12.30pm, tour took 3.5 hrs. Get back to train station for a train at about 5.30pm.
HOW TO AVOID
Booked tickets here visit.auschwitz.org
it's the place that's does the tours. 10,000 people come through everyday and they have 300 guides, that speak 20 languages. It's a well oiled machine.
Catch the train
Its an hour train trip from Krakow main station to Oświęcim (polish spelling of auschwitz), and a flat walk of about 20min to the museum where tour startes or there is a bus. read more