If I could give negative stars, I would give that to OK Tour. OK Tour is the WORST TRAVEL AGENCY I've ever dealt with anywhere in the world - and especially to anyone of Korean descent, whether you're visiting from Korea, or you're Korean-American or Korean-Canadian. They are the absolute opposite of their namesake - they are completely "NOT OK TOUR"!!!!
If you read this review, I recommend in the STRONGEST possible terms - do NOT do any business with OK Tour. You will not only regret the money you will end up wasting with them, but worst of all, you will come away with the utter and amazing disgust, disbelief, disappointment, distaste, disillusionment, and ultimately sadness in experiencing first-hand how corrupt, unethical, unprofessional and un-Korean some Koreans abroad can be to other Koreans. Its just stunning to me that OK Tour can get away with their deceptive, shameless, corrupt and possibly illegal mistreatment of visiting non-Canadian Koreans.
I'm in my 40s, have lived in the SF Bay Area for the past 25 years, and have had the good fortune of traveling to some of the best tourist destinations in Europe, Asia, and US. In April 2018, I took my 80-year-old mother who was visiting from Seoul on a package bus tour of the Canadian Rockies, Vancouver and Victoria. I paid for the tour via a Korean tour broker agency based in Lynnwood, WA called Top Travel. I usually don't use Korean travel agencies for my vacations, but in this case, because my mother can't speak English, I decided to make an exception and chose to work through this local agency. Top Travel didn't notify me ahead of time, and so I had no idea that they were a broker, and that my mom and I would be handed off to a Canadian-based Korean travel agency. I had no idea, whatsoever, who or what OK Tour was. But given that they were Korean, as was everyone on this tour, I decided to give them benefit of the doubt, and the natural instinct of most Koreans is to trust other Koreans.
So it was with utter shock and disbelief at the way OK Tour started to take advantage of our whole tour group (and based on the other reviews on Yelp, we weren't the only ones treated this way). They are shameless, greedy, selfish, unethical, unprofessional - I strongly urge any Korean (whether you're visiting from Korea, or are Korean-Americans for Korean-Canadians) to NOT use them. They prey on the goodwill and benefit-of-the-doubt that comes instinctively from native Koreans to anyone else of Korean descent. And they proceed to shamelessly nickel-and-dime everyone on the tour for completely unjustified tips, appealing to the sense of Koreans who want to help out other Koreans.
At every possible tour visit, the tour guide pressured us into giving "tips" - a nickel-and-diming tactic they forced upon us for the entire trip. And it wasn't like $5 here and there, it was more like $20. They preyed on our sense of Korean group politeness and etiquette. They used false pretenses like a helicopter tour to get us to sit and listen to and hour of useless and worthless commercials about some type of berries.
Then on the final day of the tour, our bus ride back from the Canadian Rockies to Seattle was interrupted in Vancouver for SIX HOURS, just so that they could make me and my utterly tired 80-year-old mom wait for another tour group who had not yet arrived in Vancouver. This was ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE for us. And they offered no apologies, no services, and no compensation for us. By the time we got home to Seattle, it was 11pm. This was the WORST ending to our nightmare of a tour with OK Tour - and I hope no other Korean will ever have to deal this with type of disrespectful, shameful, and unethical behavior while visiting the US or Canada. read more