Samho Tour & Travel

Wow, now I believe all the negative reviews. If you want a travel company to ruin your long planned vacation entirely, go to Samho Tour & Travel. Extremely disorganized operation and expert in bait and switch. We would never used them again.

We went on a 4 day/​3 night trip to Yosemite & San Francisco on Labor Day weekend, my family had a great time!!! –nice hotel rooms, healthy meals & pretty super tour guides (2)…Very fair price, no complaints here & really enjoyed the convenience of this tour company… Kinda shocked reading some of the reviews here, really???

OH MY. I wish I read these reviews before I went on this trip. I came back from the 4 night 5 day trip that started in LA that went to Vegas and the 3 canyons (Bryce, Zion and Grand) couple weeks ago.
Mind you, my cousin (her first time in the states) and I traveled from Seattle to attend this tour. As soon as I got to LAX, we had to search for our pickup person who was a lil late. He didnt even bother to help us with our luggages?! He just sped walked in front of us. Immediately I had a bad vide from the start. Then he drove us to the Samho office to pick up disneyland tickets cause thats the place we chose to go out of Universal Studios or the LA tour. He asked for $ 340 from my cousin and I. I was like wait what? Disneyland tickets for 1 day is only $ 99! I asked him WHY I needed to pay him an extra $ 142. He said $ 60 EACH for driving us to disneyland then another $ 10 from both for tip. what??? so we paid him$ 142 to drive us to Disneyland… What a joke. And he said he would pick us up at disneyland at 7PM… that would only give us 6 hours at the park?!? before we could even see the parades or the fireworks. We asked if he can pick us up later at 10PM since the park CLOSES AT MIDNIGHT. HE ASKED FOR ANOTHER $ 60 FROM US FOR DRIVING PAST 7PM. are you serious???
This company needs to do a better job of informing their customers of extra fees. My cousin and I paid $ 200 EXTRA on our first day in CASH just to go to disneyland. Ridiculous. So after the first day, we were out of cash. I know English and could research how much disneyland tickets are so I confronted the guy that was driving us. But if you were new to the states and were traveling from Korea to go to disneyland, you would not even know you were paying WAY MORE than you should be. This company takes money from innocent people trying to have a good time traveling.
Another example is when we were to Vegas, there were options to watch shows for $ 150-​$ 200. THESE SHOWS ARE NOT THIS EXPENSIVE. My cousin wanted to see the Ka show in vegas but our tour guide asked for $ 150 each, so I wanted to see how much it really was online. The starting prices are $ 75! They are giving people bad seats to these shows and telling them prices that are way over than they really are so they can take a BIG portion of the price you pay. Please do not buy the options that are with these tours. Buy them online and do your research. They are telling people they are giving them discounts. NO WAY.
Another example is when we finally arrived to Grand Canyon, there was an option to see the imax. It was only $ 12.50 for an adult ticket, the tour guide was asking everyone including children under 10 years– $ 15 each for tickets!!!
This is only the beginning to other complaints.
You literally eat at the worse restaurants ever. They take people on these tours to Korean restaurants. People from Korea did not come all this way to eat at 1 star korean restaurants in Vegas. Please do a better job at choosing higher end restaurants that is not korean. One time at the Grand Canyon, out tour guide made us wait 30 mins at a restaurant then maade us go back on the bus to another hotel that was so ghetto and made us eat there cause there was complications with the reservations. I couldn’t even finish the food. it was not edible.
Hotels: they book 1 star hotels for their customers and ask for 4 star hotel prices.
I paid extra $ 100 to stay at Aria hotel in vegas and this hotel was the best hotel out of the other hotels we stayed out during our tour but we had to pay extra!!!
You are mostly on the bus during this tour, literally HOURS AND HOURS and they make you take several bathroom breaks when it is not needed so with 50+ people taking bathroom breaks, you waste A LOT of time. Plus they also make you wake up at 4AM to go to the grand canyon…
Theres more to this trip that I can go on and on… but it would literally be way too long. Just save your money and do not go on these tours.
If someone from this company wants to contact me for my experience on this trip, please message me.

this company is horrible.
Tour guide decided to make fun of foreign students… Of course, the tour bus was full of foreign students from Korea. How stupid can you be… I hope that tour guide is fired.

If I can, I would give 0 star.
I paid for my parents trip to east side/​canada.
After I booked for the travel, they sent me a confirmation email with price which was different from listed price on website. They didn’t mention that on the website. At this moment, I was already pissed off. Maybe I should find other tour company.
They said that it is due to busy season. So they broke down the price to justify the cost which including $ 600 airfare per person.
However, when my parents checked in at the airport, I saw that airfare was $ 420 each.
They ripped me off almost $ 300 from the flight ticket.
Maybe they don’t have brain to think that I could check the price. Or they don’t care since I already paid for the tour.
When I got the tour schedule, I noticed that samho added many optional tours/​meal upgrade.
My parents told me during the travel, tour guide pushed a lot to buy options.
I will never use samho again. This was unpleasant experience.
A lunch restaurant in toronto was horrible.

Just called the office to inquire about some trips to the easy coast. My mom spoke to Sandra and she was so rude in answering our questions. We were planning on traveling with a group of 8 people but with her rude service it makes me doubt the care they would give… I won’t be using their services. Horrible horrible customer service!

The rudest liars with no follow up. Guess the owner doesn’t care how the client is treated… guess lying is part of their company policy to get people to book with them.
LOW CLASS /​NO CLASS = NO THANKS
You will see why they charge the cheap rates because that’s the level of service you will get.

Samho tour is not responsible.
We had a very hard time .
They gave us a wrong information (fright time

I live in Los Angeles and went to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup last year and two major hurdles encountered due to the lack of training and experience of the ethnic Korean local tour guides.
The first verdict: The first day we arrived at Porto Alegre to watch the second game for the Korean team. In the morning, we visited a tour sight for about an hour. When we came back to the bus, the belongings in the bag (such as passport, camera, money) left on the seats by the tourists disappeared. Not to mention the guide lost the game tickets for that night. I was lucky that I didn’t lose any as my friend from Brazil repeatedly reminded me «DON’T TRUST ANYONE» there and I listened to him (carried everything everywhere, though at times looked stupid). As expected, they called the local police… to no avail.
Later, the guide bought the game tickets from scalpers. It caused people from sitting all over the places in the stadium that also caused inconvenience (it got out of the guide’s hand). My ticket was initially not honored as the stadium management noticed that my name on the ticket was different than the one on my ID (I was able to get by with it using my street wise — remember I used to live in Seoul and New York city).
I learned that the tour guide was not local to Porto Alegre; he came from Rio to fill the temporary position.
The second verdict: At the last day on my way back to US from the Rio airport, TAM Airlines claimed I didn’t have my reservation and the flight was full due to the World Cup. I asked the tour guide to reconfirm my reservation one day in advance and she claimed she did. Obviously, It wasn’t done properly. I noticed that the tour guide’s Portuguese was so limited that the clear communication was not possible.
I was lucky to catch that flight as one seat became available at the last minute after the rest of the parties, including my brother, went on board.
With this level of the tour service, I do not recommend SamHo Tour.
The purpose of the review is to request SamHo to improve the service and closely monitor the quality of the tour guide.

If you like sitting on hella uncomfortable bus seats for 90% of the time you should totally do this tour. Smh.
Okay. Sigh. Here goes my review. So I only did this tour because my mom is in town from Asia and knew that this tour is designed for KOREANS from Korea. That is their target group. I knew it wouldn’t be that enjoyable for me but that was fine by me, because I thought that my mom would enjoy seeing more of the States and that is what mostly matters.
We did the tour that leaves from LA: Vegas: Utah: Arizona: Yosemite: Bay
I should have known better in that accomplishing this all in 5 days would be a real push. Clearly Samho knows this too because we LITERALLY only spent 30 minutes at each location, we were rushed back onto the bus trying to stay on schedule. Every other time was either spent on the bus or sleeping at the hotels and waking up HELLA early around 4:30am each day to get back on the bus.
The. food. is. terrible. Shitty korean food and home town buffet type of food but worse. My Korean isn’t that great, but throughout the trip all I heard was people complaining and bitching more and more about how frustrating it was to be on a bus ²⁴⁄₇ eating shitty food. Sad. The old ajushee and ajuma couples looked depressed and annoyed.
I’m so glad we got off at SF.
Go at your own risk. But seriously. Don’t.

so unkind… called and ask for info but very rude response back. planned out all trip but not going with this travel agency.

They are con artist.
They mislead and try to con money out of your pocket left and right using all kinds of tactics. Of course, they offer some good deals (such as quality hotel). but the way conducting business is at the level of con artist.
I live in Los Angeles and my trip was to JeJu island in Korea.
The good — The five star accommodation was nice and the breakfast was first class.
The bad — Ad reflects «4 day tour», but it’s a three day and two night tour arriving on Monday and leaving on Wednesday. It allows only one full day (Tuesday) in the island. When I asked SamHo why it’s called «4 day tour», their answer was to count from the time leaving LA airport; It takes two days to get to the Island (including losing a day in the international date line). They sure know how to insult customer’s intelligence.
The Ugly — The tour guide took us to places trying to sell health products (such as horse bone powder, and stem cell ginseng) by highly trained sales force. The worst place was to show a cheap Las Vegas style circus from China that had nothing to do with the culture of JeJu; the worst is the location where it’s in the middle of no where. That’s under the name of «Optional Tour». Totally wasted our precious time in JeJu Island.
I wish SamHo improves their business conduct to provide positive travel memory to customers.

My mum and I just did a 4 night, 5 day Oahu trip through SamHo. My mum had heard good things about them so she insisted that we book our trip through them. The trip was $ 1250/​person, so $ 2500 total. This included:
– 4 night stay at Hilton Hawaiian Villages with complimentary breakfast buffet all days
– Airport pick-​up and drop-​off
– Quick tour of downtown Honolulu and dinner the first day
– All-​day tour of the island with lunch and dinner included*
– One additional dinner**
* Lunch that day is at the Polynesian Cultural Village, where a $ 50/​person admission fee has to be paid (not included in the initial payment to SamHo)
** All meals would be at restaurants that USA Tours (the tour group that SamHo is affiliated with in Oahu) already had relationships were. If you didn’t want to go to these restaurants or didn’t have time to meet up with the guide, then you have to forfeit that dinner (they will not compensate you for it).
*** Additional note: An additional $ 50 (for tip to the guide for the 5 day stay) was also required to be paid.
While my mum and I had a great time in Oahu, we felt that SamHo kept us in the dark about most of the trip. They had emailed us a general itinerary before we left, but it didn’t have any specifics about what we would be doing or seeing. Some more information please! I emailed our contact there (Rachel) and she responded to one email but then ignored the next one. As a control freak with OCD tendencies, I like to know everything about my trip before I go so this was all very anxiety-​inducing for me…
We were told we would be met at baggage claim by our guide. We made our way to baggage claim after arriving at Honolulu International Airport and there was no guide. We waited, called the coordinator, and then finally managed to meet our guide (who had wrongly assumed that we were a honeymoon couple. Thanks SamHo for telling her who she was supposed to pick up –_​-​). Then we embarked on our downtown Honolulu tour, which we had been told by SamHo would take 2.5 hours. Yeah… the tour didn’t even take one hour. Mainly because we just drove by most of the places. We made one stop for a couple tourist photos and that was it.
For our dinner the first day, our tour guide strongly suggested that we do the «Three Star» Star of Honolulu cruise, which would be discounted for $ 10/​person since the tour agency would be paying for our dinner (since it’s included in our trip). The cruise was an additional $ 150/​person so $ 300 total. Which we paid without researching since we were about to part ways in like 5 minutes. But later I looked it up online and the «Three Star» cruise + hotel pick-​up comes to $ 298 for 2 people. Then again, there might have been additional fees that I didn’t see which would add up to $ 22, but from where I stand it looks like it would have been cheaper to book the cruise ourselves.
The all-​day tour of Oahu our second day was fine. The tour guide picked us up at our hotel and we embarked with a group of 10 people total. We got to see a lot of the island, but it would have been nice if there had been some kind of handout that listed all the places we were seeing (don’t worry, as a Unilocaler, I took notes! :P). While we just drove by a lot of places, thankfully we also stopped and got out at many places, so we were able to take a lot of pictures. Our guide even took us to this Korean «outlet» store so we could buy chocolates, macadamia nuts, and coffee as presents.
Thankfully we had two days to ourselves to explore the island so I made the most out of it (thanks to Unilocal!). While I’m glad the guide helped us do some touristy things, I enjoyed the days we had on our own much more. But coming via this tour package did make the trip more reasonable financially, so I can’t really complain too much. However, will I be using them again? NOPE.

Just BS
Don’t waste your money. Don’t waste your time…
sh*T let me tell you just little bit.
First, force you to eat in 7minute. Takes your food away because next bus arrived. Haha…
On the first day, there was no bus to San Francisco, so they put me in a Sienna, drive up to Bastow and to San Francisco. That’s only the beginning, but I don’t want to go on… IF YOU’RE SO CURIOUS, TRY IT YOURSELF, BUT I WARNED YOU ALREADY.

Stay away from this shady travel agency. I went on the Vegas 2 day 1 night tour and they just scam you like crazy.
FOOD: — All these establishments will also get rated on Unilocal accordingly.
Sizzler — Barstow, CA: Wost diner food i’ve ever had in my life. Whatever, it’s in the middle of nowhere. Food in Vegas will be better right? (Not with Samho!)
Ginseng Korean Barbeque — Vegas, NV: Gave us fried fish and rice and a small plate of bulgogi for us to share with strangers and the food was COLD.
Kimchi Korean Barbeque: Some of the worst kimchi jjigae I’ve ever had.
Bento box lunches: Didn’t give me a utensil to eat with — when I asked for one, they said they didnt’t have any more, and the food was cold. (understandable)
WHO GOES TO VEGAS FOR KOREAN FOOD WHAT THE HELL? The food provided on the tour was terrible would be the biggest understatement of the century. I could have gotten this food (and better quality) back home in socal, or made it myself. When they said meals would be provided, I thought they would be giving us Vegas buffets, not $ 7 Korean food.
SHOW TICKETS: (Don’t buy it from SamHo, buy it yourself — they will scam the living hell out of you)
The tour guide sells us tickets for the «best» seats to Le Reve for $ 210. Ticket prices for the best seats online are $ 195 + entertainment tax — cool that checks out I thought. I get the ticket, it is a regular seat and the ticket clearly says $ 155.65 on it. I ask the tour guide whats up and he says there are entertainment taxes and whatnot on top of the $ 155.65. That still doesnt explain why it’s a damn REGULAR seat and the ticket price was $ 155.65 INCLUDING THE TAXES. I call the company after I get back to ask them to explain and the manager says handling charges and company profit and just hangs up on me. I am absolutely stunned.
EXPERIENCE:
Someone else on the bus moved our belongings on our seats and stole them, the tourguide BLAMES us for causing a scene, not the bitch that took our spots. The information he was telling the tourists was inaccurate, as well as very racist toward whites, blacks, Chinese, and Latinos.
The bus arrives in Vegas at 4:30 PM. The tourguide informs us that we will be having dinner at $ 5:30, which is fine. He also tells us that there is an extra optional (read: mandatory) $ 30 charge for the Vegas tour. WAIT HOLD UP, DID I NOT PAY FOR A VEGAS TOUR WHEN I PAID $ 130??? Guess what? You need to pay the $ 30 Vegas tour fee to get to dinner and to get to the show as well!
Before we leave for dinner, the tour guide tells us that we have to wake up at 5 AM the next day because we’re leaving at 5:30 AM. Umm. that is obscenely early. We ended up staying in Vegas for a total of ~13 hours. That does NOT constitute a 2 day 1 night stay. We spent 11 HOURS in the bus the second day going to the most useless places that no one would ever want to see — what the hell is there to see in Death Valley? We get back to socal and spend 3 hours taxing everyone back to their respective locations (didn’t know it was Samho Taxi) and we finally get back to LA.
tl;dr: company of shady theives that will ruin your vacation. save your money, time, and emotional scarring and don’t book anything with these sacks of excement.

Please don’t waste your time and money on Samho «Tour&Travel». You’ll end up leaving really really disappointed. And annoyed.
I guess I was wrong to have high expectations in the first place but this place will rip you the hell off. My trip was supposed to be spent in San Francisco for 2 nights and 3days. NOT 3 HOURS AT THE FISHERMAN’S WHARF.
Let me break this down for you guys
Day 1-they’ll take you to BARSTOW. You’ll eat «organic bibimbap» and switch on over to a different bus. Be prepared. The tour guide won’t shut up. For 5 hours.
At night they will take you to a nasty korean restaurant then a hotel in the middle of nowhere. In FRESNO.
Day 2-​you have to wake up at 6am, get on the bus by 6:45, and head on over to SF. They will feed you disgusting breakfast before you get there.
When you get to San Francisco, it’ll roughly be around 11:00am and make you pay them tip ($ 10/​person/​day).
You’ll be dragged to the city hall and library for a couple minutes to take pictures/​bathroom break. Then back on the bus to go down a block or two to ride the cable car (extra $ 10/​person).
Then you’ll arrive at pier 43 to eat lunch on your own, then meet up by 2:20 to ride the boat (extra $ 25/​person).
3:30pm-you’re back on the bus to see the golden gate bridge. They stop the bus before crossing the bridge so you can take pictures for 10 minutes, then they drive back and forth really quick. They won’t take you across the bridge where there is another stop overlooking a freaking beautiful view because the bus has to pay a fee. Lastly they’ll take you to the nastiest korean restaurant to eat dinner and you’ll be in the hotel by 7pm.(the hotel is in union city btw. Roughly an hour away from SF)
Day 3– They make you get on the bus by 4:45am. To eat sullungtang…
Again, prepare yourselves because the tour guide WON’T SHUT UP. He will ramble on about how we will be eating «a hot soup that the black angus took a nice bath in»… (WTF)
After breakfast we get back on the bus to go to SOLVANG (another wtf moment) and eat lunch there and hang around for an hour. Then we go to some *super famous* beach aka Pebble beach. Then straight home. They played «My Name is Khan» and «Evan Almighty» for us on the drive back home.
The trip sucked.

Went on what was supposed to be a 2 night 3 day trip to San Francisco. We ended up spending a total of 3 hours at San Francisco. 3 hours. I find that a little ridiculous. Most of our time on this trip was spent on the bus. I found that Sam Ho makes too many unnecessary stops. I guess this tour sort of caters to the older crowd.
Long story short: crappy food, 95% of trip spent on bus, our tour guide talked too much, crappy hotels, ridiculous wake up times, NOT worth it.

Shady business practice, I would be very careful when booking here because they charged me differently then what they quoted me in the first place telling me the price went up between when they quoted me and authorized the payment but it was only a few hours apart due to the sales rep sending the itinerary and payment authorization letter late. Before charging my card the sales rep should have informed the updated price but no they just charged it. When I asked for cancellation they wanted to charge me a cancellation fee of whooping $ 500 bucks. Do not book here.

Just came back from Sam Ho’s 3 nights 4 Days
Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, and Las Vegas trip
and I gotta say it was awesome!
After reading all the 1 star reviews on Unilocal,my wife and I regretted that we made reservation for this trip.
BUT!!! This is big «BUT»
The trip was actually amazing!
Maybe having low expectation played some role in this
but we had the best bus, the best driver, and the best guide (His name is Bruce Ha).
There are many reasons why I loved this tour
but main reasons are:
1. I didn’t have to drive or plan the trip (Because I always do)
2. Educational: Our tour guy was really funny and knowledgeable.
3. Prevost Bus — Luxurious Bus that runs smooth and quiet. (I didn’t get motion sickness even without Dramamine!)
4. Cheap! $ 299 per person including Hotel & all meals (foods were pretty good too. Most of the time Buffet style)
5. Perfect weather and season to visit Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. (not too hot, not too cold)
We could have selected optional tour such as riding Airplane at Grand Canyon ($ 150) and watching KA show at MGM Grand ($ 130) but this trip was something that we didn’t plan in advance so we didn’t have enough budget to do so. What I liked about our Guide person is that he didn’t guilt trip us to take the option, nor treated us different from others because we didn’t select those option tour.
I read reviews like how the trip was inside the Bus most time and blah blah blah. Of course! It’s a bus tour! What did you expect? Bring your iPhone, iPod, or iPad or whatever if you get bored! Oh don’t forget to bring extra USB battery pack if you do bring these devices.
I highly recommend SamHo and will go on a trip with SamHo again.
I suggest that you call and ask whether Bruce Ha (aka Ohmyguide) will be your guide for the tour. He is simply the best Bus tour guide! That’s what I’ll do. And not all the bus from SamHo is Prevost 2010 model, so ask the person if that is the bus you will be getting.

Btw, you have to be fluent in Korean if you want to really appreciate this tour, but we had one Caucasian person in our tour and he seem to enjoy it as well.

*Rubbing hands together*
Oh man oh man, I could not wait to give these shady Korean m*therf*ckers a BAD review. First off, let me say, Sam Ho Tour & Travel is one of the reasons why I hate Korean people.
My fob cousins came from Korea for the first time to the states and we booked them on this tour. They went to the Grand Canyon and Vegas. They are barely in high school so my brother went with them, in case anything shady happened. The tour tells you there is an «optional» $ 30 tour once you get to Vegas where basically they are just going down the street and letting you get off the bus to take pictures and then back on the bus.
My brother went to save my cousins (which would’ve been a total of $ 90 for a bullshit tour) this «optional» tour. But once they got there, the tour man said, «oh, well it’s not optional.» LIARS! Not only that, we gave each of them enough spending money for souvenirs and such, but b/​c of the extra $ 30 they had to spend on this, they didn’t have enough money…
Then, we booked them for another tour (we booked all these tours all at once btw) to go to a one day trip to San Diego to go to Sea World. When they got back from Vegas they said they DID NOT want to get on another bus, so we called to try and cancel. Guess what? Penalty fees! So we bit the bullet and sent them. It cost $ 130 PER PERSON to go to Sea World.
This is what happened… there was NO bus, only a mini van taking FIVE people down there. They did NOT provide any food, so my cousins basically starved all day long at Sea World. For $ 130 you can’t provide food? Are you kidding?
Since they said the tour to Vegas and Grand Canyon was nothing to write home about, I told them, only tip $ 5 to Sea World (even though I was gonna say to not tip at all!). THE GUIDE DEMANDED $ 10 FROM THEM. That’s all I have to say.