We were on the Historical Highlights tour on a Saturday morning with Adrienne...and it was…read moreAWESOME!!! She knew so much about the history of Ottawa and made the tour fun and engaging. History isn't always the most interesting, but Adrienne made sure to mention all the fun and interesting facts that sometimes get glossed over. At the end of our tour she also stuck around to calla cab for one group member and to make restaurant suggestions for the rest. I would definitely recommend this to anyone in the Ottawa area.

I took one of these walking tours in the summer of 2012. It was very enjoyable and informative…read more The distance was not challenging and we kept a good pace. Our tour guide was pleasant and fun. A lot of history and interesting political tidbits tucked in.

Read the fine print -- Utracks regularly resells tours to third party operators. In our case, the…read moreTour du Mont Blanc classic trek was turned over to a company called Cairn. It is in the fine print that they can do this. BUT: the actual pre-trip instructions obfuscate this. Many travelers arrive at the trailhead looking for Utracks only to find out they've been re-assigned to Cairn. And Cairn should be called "don't Care-n". Our Cairn guide barely acknowledged our arrival and when she did it was with a scowl and a scold. Our fellow travelers were given different arrival instructions. None of us knew we were with Cairn. Utracks and Cairn had failed to share other logistical info with the guide and it was the basis for much sourness on her part taken out on customers. The bonus is that a Cairn tour costs $100's less than Utracks. So if you want a cairn tour, book direct with them and save your hard earned money. This is a true shame. Utracks will insist that communication about this switch is clear. It is not. I read my pre-departure and trip arrival packets like a little kid studying a christmas catalog. They make the Cairn travel partner switcheroo info subtly imbedded in a "travel voucher" that may have been in a document portal, but never in the materials sent as the very detailed arrival and preparation instructions. And even those instructions were different for other members of our group. When a traveler has saved for years, gotten precious time off work, trained for a beautiful trek, it is just wrong to treat that traveler's time and money so cavalierly. After several rounds of thoughtfully given feedback with utracks, their position is that this is a perfectly legal and common practice in the industry and my expectations are the issue. They are likely to defensively and elegantly feign dismay at this review and insist that their guides are seasoned pros. On our trip the guide was clearly an established mountain pro but her lack of process, her absolute unpleasantness and disinterest went far beyond being "direct". Being in her group was like spending 7 days as a dog worrying about when I'd be verbally assaulted next. Our little band of travelers bonded over the needless persecution. And to think we could've endured that for $100's less by booking with Cairn!

Terrible experience on self-guided cycling trip Prague to Vienna. Bike not tuned up upon delivery…read moreand zero support from UTRacks to locate a bike shop in foreign country to have it tuned up. Accommodation very dirty and poorly located. Worst was they changed our itinerary with no explanation - shunting us off to a small out of the way town, booked into a Soviet-era hotel that is run down and filthy. We booked this trip 4 months in advance and there were plenty of suitable 3 star hotels with bike storage available but UTracks prefers to shunt the paying customers to the cheapest options. I am an experienced cyclists - self guided trips in 6 different countries. Avoid UTracks!

Yelping about Canada in a Basket for me is akin to a public service announcement for tourists. This…read moretiny store located in the Market Building of the Byward Market should be a definite stop for anyone looking to bring home Canadian goods, whether you are a foreigner or Canadian. Jammed into every shelf and corner and carousel display of this store are goodies native to Canada. You won't find cheap souvenir T shirts here but items like local honey from numerous provinces, Saskatchewan jams, bison pate, Ice wine flavored teas--a truly dazzling assortment of authentic Canadian goods, for every budget, and from the familiar to the different. If your loved ones have had enough of maple, impress them with Ice-wine syrup then. Unlike the Ottawa duty free shop, which only has the cheaper version, Canada in a Basket has the premium one also. It must be good since I bought it and sis hasn't shared any with me. If you have an OCD friend you need relief from for a few hours, bring them here and let your buddy pore through what seems like an endless array of items, food items, jewelry, clothing etc. While I I don't envy the proprietor at inventory time, I am grateful she took the time to amass such an array of uniquely wonderful items. Canada in a Basket will even customize a basket for you and ship it, hence the name. Seriously, there was so much here, I was actually getting dizzy just looking at a few shelves of jams, and I hadn't even ventured to the Byward Market bars prior. You don't need to agonize over the meager pickings at the airport duty free shop. Come to this fun place to shop for Canadian souvenirs.

Our family rented 11 bikes. We called ahead and let them know we were coming. They had all the…read morebikes ready and it took about 15 minutes to get us all ready to go. The group was friendly. We asked for two hours but we returned them in 1.5 hrs. They only charged us for the 1.5 hours we used the bikes, not the two hours we indicated we would use the bikes. The scenery is beautiful and I would recommend riding bikes around the waters edge. It was fun and safe. It was one of my favorite activities.

Did one of their tours recently and had a blast! The guide was great, the trail was amazing, and I…read morethoroughly enjoyed myself! Some things to note to make it a 5-star experience: I would recommend walking through some basic safety rules at the start. Things to cover include how and where you should park yourself if you have to briefly stop on the trail, how to deal with someone who is stopped in front of you on the trail, or how to pass pedestrians safely, where should you do when you stop as a group if you have multiple people, etc. Given that Ottawa can be busy, a little overview of these rules/guidelines would go a very long way. I also felt that we ended up stopping a little more frequently than I would have liked on the latter half of the tour - mostly buildings I don't really even remember! Nevertheless, had a blast and would recommend it anyway!

I had a great experience at this gallery. It was our first time with my family and we were able to…read morelearn about different art installations, it was cool. It wasn't too busy and it was clean and well-maintained. They also had multiple security stationed inside. Fairly priced and would definitely recommend checking it out at least once.

We spent about two hours here as the last activity of a busy day touring around Ottawa. The museum…read moreis amazing with a wonderful collection of works by contemporary Canadian artists including indigenous artists. They also have galleries that include works by Picasso, Dali, Van Gogh and many others. Parking is easy and very affordable in the underground parking garage. This is definitely a good option if visiting the city! It is walking distance to parliament hill so easy to combine visits to multiple attractions.

We tried a new tour called Hidden Ottawa. It's Not a haunted tour. It's a history based tour that…read morehighlights things even most locals don't know or have never noticed about the town. Our group were all locals and we all enjoyed the tour and didn't know the majority of what was talked about. Get ready to learn some real colourful stories of Ottawa! I also appreciated the path the tour takes. It's very scenic and uses areas none of us had been before which was also super cool to learn about and made for some amazing photo locations too!

Walking through downtown Ottawa and came across the sign for a ghost tour. They tend to be fun. So…read morewe inquired and wound up taking the 8pm haunted prison tour. Cost me for 2 adults, 2 kids just under 100 cad. Our guide was Hanna and she was excellent. Overall she seemed extremely knowledgeable about the area and added a little theatrical approach to her story telling. It's a short walk to the prison but once inside it's a throw back to 100+ years in the past. Spooky and fun. Not overly scary for my 10 and 7 yo. If I'm ever back in the area I'll definitely be checking out one of their other tours. My kids loved it.

It's difficult planning out the day. You research, make reservations, buy tickets, and do…read moreeverything you can. Then the traffic takes longer than anticipated, you got lost on the way, the card was declined because you forgot to call your credit card company. For some people, these little disasters ruin trips. Me? Just roll with it. For our schedule we wanted to do a canal tour, but it wasn't going to work for itinerary, so we opted for the river cruise instead. I am very glad we had done so. Rolling down the Ottawa river was a welcome break from all the walking, and you get to see these beautiful views of the city from the water that you otherwise would be completely unknown to you, like who really shot JFK. Our guide was a sweet and cheery girl, she enjoyed talking with guests and answering questions. The other staff were quite friendly, the boat was clean, and even had a bar (thank you sweet baby Jesus!) which allowed for my wife and I to enjoy a glass of wine on the river. Definitely recommend.

If you are in Ottawa and don't have much time this is the way to see the city, the boat is not the…read moremost beautiful but is big and they have food and drink on board, I really enjoy the tour on this boat, they guy explaining everything was awesome he was funny and he new a lot of stuff so I learn a lot about Ottawa and we know that a lot of Canadian history is in Ottawa, take the tour of u wanna see the city from another perspective, this was my favourite boat ride tour ever!!!!