Zoom Tours Toronto to Niagara Falls

We had a great time on our tour from Toronto to Niagara Falls. The tour guide was punctual to pick us up and knowledgable. The tour was a great price for a full day of stops. We were able to see the vineyards, Niagara on the river, Niagara Falls, the tower at the falls, and the holiday light show. Everything was included. The bus was a small one which we enjoyed because we had a small group rather than a huge bus tour that could have over 50 passengers. Great service. Our driver, Amir, was kind enough to drop us off at the restaurant that we had reservations at that night. I highly recommend them.

We booked the «Niagara by night» tour which promised hotel pick-​up at 1PM and departure from the Falls around 10:15PM after the fireworks. The tour was efficient, in that we were able to see Niagara-​on-​the-​Lake, do a winery tour, check out a few vantage points by the falls, do the steamboat ride, and catch the fireworks at night before making it back to Toronto by midnight. That is certainly a good quality to look for in an organized tour. The value was also quite good, at around $ 100 CAD for a 10-​hour tour (we left a 15% tip for our guide). And that’s about where Zoom’s merits end.
We were picked up 15 minutes late from the hotel, I guess understandable given traffic during the day; we then made a fairly long trip to pick up other members of our 12-​person tour from the airport hotels by Pearson. The van was comfortable enough but a bit cramped for such a long ride (2.5 hours including traffic).
Our guide «double D» was nice most of the time, but gets a bit annoyed when people are late to return to the bus due to a cramped schedule. DD’s accent was thick in French and it was a bit difficult to make out some of the things he was explaining over the van’s microphone. Our group was a bit quirky in that EVERYONE was back on the bus 5 – 10 minutes BEFORE the scheduled meet-​up time; maybe I am just a lousy American but typically getting to the meeting point at the specified time is not going to get an annoyed greeting from your seatmates.
It seems like the problem with the tour is that too many things are planned in a short amount of time, resulting in an extremely tight schedule when there are issues with traffic. For example, we had exactly 30 minutes to walk around Niagara-​on-​the-​Lakes; granted it is a small one-​street town, but you barely have any time to explore some of the quirky shops and sample the olive oil before having to rush back to the bus. At the winery we were given a boom-​boom-​boom tasting of 3 wines before being hustled back into the van, and didn’t really have enough time to explore the wines for purchase or walk around the winery itself. This is not the problem of the guide who did a relatively good job making sure we saw the items promised by the tour; perhaps it is a bit better however to remove 1 or 2 things on the agenda, such as the winery tour, or extend the duration by an hour to make sure things are done in a comfortable way.
My personal preference for the future would be just to rent a Zipcar from Toronto and drive here myself, taking time to explore the places I am the most interested in.

Really: 3.5 stars
[This review is for the day tour minus buffet]
Got picked up right at our hotel (King Edward). The bus was 15 minutes behind, but we gathered that it was due to other guests not being timely. It was a large coach bus and was relatively empty (Sept off-​season). Our driver was very capable, and didn’t talk too much, which I was fine with since I wanted to relax rather than be bothered with endless facts.
Took us about 30 minutes to round up some more guests and then another 75 minutes to reach the Falls, where we were immediately put onto The Maid of the Mist Tour. Then we has about 2 hours to Dias we pleased. We walked to the Canadian Falls and back, then checked out some stores before boarding the bus again.
Next stop, the whirlpool, which in reality was an excuse to wait for some other guests to do a helicopter tour (who were late in returning, by the way). The view at the whirlpool was fine, but wasn’t the most spectacular stop — especially after having seen the falls. Our guide also seemed to have a personal gripe with the local tourist shops warning us not to shop there due to being overpriced. I appreciated the tip, but he repeated this snippet several times. Was just interesting…
Then the floral clock, which, to be honest, was nothing much. But all the bus tours seem to stop here for some reason. We were kinda bored and wanting to move on.
Then a stop at Niagara-​On-​The-​Lake for an hour. This was a pleasant stop and walk around a quaint town. Lots of cute shops and picturesque buildings.
Final stop was at a winery (forget the name, sorry!), where we had white, red and ice wines. This was another nice stop along the way.
Got dropped off back at our hotel. The driver did do some honking and yelling at other vehicles. Must have been a stressful day, but it didn’t seem professional or pleasant.
Basically, it was a slid enough tour with some hiccups and odd stops along the way.

We had guests in town and of course we wanted to drag them to Niagara Falls! This time around, we didn’t want to drive but instead wanted one of those guided tours the buses for which I often see running a muck in the city!
After a quick interweb search I zeroed in on Zoom Tours. They have a very easy to navigate website and I quickly booked our tour online. I promptly received an email confirming my booking. You provide your credit card information while booking, but actually pay on the day of the tour.
The tour guide was supposed to pick us up from the downtown Inter Continental (complimentary pick-​up/​drop-​off at select locations) at about 9:00 am but was quite late. The tour guide did apologize for being late; apparently he was running around, in his small mini bus, picking up tourists from all over the city. Thereon the tour proceeded very smoothly. We stopped at Niagara on the Lake, a vineyard for wine tasting and a few other spots of interest before reaching Niagara Falls just around lunch time. After dispersing for lunch (we went to the very bland buffet at the Sheraton) we went on the Maid of the Mist (included in the tour packagel) and took some pictures before our tour guide came back for the return trip to Toronto at about 5:00 pm. We were staying overnight at the Falls, so the guide graciously dropped us off at our hotel. Zoom Tours will pick you up the next day but that costs extra.
The tour guide was a conversational, informative fellow and kept us entertained throughout the tour. All in all, Zoom Tours is a pretty well oiled tour guide company. It’s $ 79 per person (lunch buffet excluded) well spent! I am going with 3.5 stars.