I am a professional tour guide and the owner of an officially registered travel agency based in Istanbul. I have been working in the tourism industry since 2008, and concerned about the authenticity of reviews on online travel sites. These days, every online platform is filled with perfect reviews. Especially on GetYourGuide. Eventually, people start wondering, “Are GetYourGuide reviews real?”, “Are they hiding reviews?”, “How can we tell if the reviews are real or fake?”
For this reason, I conducted a study focusing exclusively on the tours and services offered by GetYourGuide in Istanbul over a period of more than six months. The short answer: Yes, GetYourGuide removes negative reviews and shares misleading average ratings, as well as suppressing even average reviews; moreover, their system is vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation and is designed to sell all their listings.
Want proof? That’s why I’m sharing my report, which is based on over six months of documentation and my observations regarding GetYourGuide’s offerings in Istanbul.
Does GetYourGuide delete customer reviews?
Let’s start with the most disappointing issue. I filtered their marketplace for Istanbul and selected 10 random tour and service listings to monitor over a six-month period leading up to the writing of this study. Over that six-month period, I noticed that eight of these ten listings had reviews consistently removed, amounting to an 80% removal rate.
This is a systematic review of removals that have taken place over the last six months. Let me share some examples.
1st Deleted Review
“This was the WORST tour I have ever been on. Total Sh*t show! Too many people in group! Microphones not working. And the tour had NO advantage to improve unbelievable long lines. The Blue mosque was a disappointment especially after long lines. Was a horrible day and I left group early”
A GetYourGuide customer from the United States left this review on 20 September 2025. If you check the calendar, you’ll see that this review was posted well over six months ago. The reason my report begins with this is simply because it was the very first review in which I noticed what was happening.
In the review, you can clearly see just how disappointed these people were. This also raises the question, “Are GetYourGuide Reviews Real?” Despite all these experiences, this offer is still listed on the platform with a 4.4-star rating.
Screenshot before the comment was deleted
Screenshot after the comment was deleted
The comment was posted on 20 September and, as you can see in the screenshot below, has been deleted. You can find the link to this offer below, in case you’d like to check it for yourself.
Link of 1st deleted review.
2nd Deleted Review
“Scam!!! Don’t go!! We paid for 3 places and the guide only took us to the Blue Mosque, he cheated us and didn’t take us to Hagia Sophia or the cisterns. When I asked, the answer was that he wouldnt go to the other attractions we’d already paid for. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more time. I dont recommend it!”
Another GetYourGuide guest left this review on 1 December 2025 from Greece. Apparently, they trusted the provider and signed up for an activity to have a good time in Istanbul. What happened instead: first of all, they discovered that their ‘Hagia Sophia & Blue Mosque & Basilica Cistern’ tour offer only covered the Blue Mosque, which is a free attraction. Unfortunately, they had no alternative plan, nor could they recoup the time they’d lost with their money.
As a result, the offer misled customers, wasted their time, frustrated them, and even led to the deletion of the reviews they wrote on this platform, raising the question “Are GetYourGuide Reviews Real”. The same offer still has a 4.5-star rating out of 5 and remains listed on GetYourGuide for new customers.
Screenshot before the comment was deleted
Screenshot after the comment was deleted
As we can see above, the platform has also deleted this comment, which was posted on 1 December. Again, if you click on the link to the offer below and go to the relevant date, you will see that the platform did not publish the comment.
Link of 2nd deleted review.
3rd Deleted Review
“the audio guide on your phone isn’t clear. we didn’t have earphones and there was too much noise to listen properly”
A guest from GetYourGuide in Belgium left a balanced and seemingly fair 3-star review containing valid criticism and even three photos on 28 December 2025. You might be wondering why I included such a review in the average rating, especially given all the terrible reviews I’ve documented. The reason is to demonstrate the tolerance shown by these tour providers and GetYourGuide towards honest customer reviews. At this point, just as I did myself, you should be asking, ‘If they’ve even removed this review, what are they doing with the others?’.
This is precisely why I wanted to reserve third place for this specific review. Over my months of monitoring GetYourGuide, anyone can cite a few examples, but I’m presenting all documented findings and the platform’s actions in the Conclusion section of this article. However, this one proves that they are filtering and removing even average reviews in order to boost their portfolio of offers. This service is still listed on GetYourGuide with a 4.5-star rating.
Screenshot before the comment was deleted
Screenshot after the comment was deleted
The comment occupied the spot I’ve marked, and it sat between the two comments visible in this screenshot. In fact, if you scroll down to the relevant date in the link I’ve provided below, you won’t be able to find this deleted comment either.
Link of 3rd deleted review.
4th Deleted Review
“The entrance to Hagia Sophia is way overpriced. It’s super expensive, poorly maintained, and you always see the same thing. Not to mention the inconvenience of going with a stroller, they don’t make it easy. The Blue Mosque is free and a thousand times more beautiful.”
Another interesting review, which also disappeared from GetYourGuide after it was published on 25 December 2025 by a guest from Spain. The reason it features in this report is simply that the review does not appear to criticise either GetYourGuide or the local tour provider. The guest mentions her disappointment with Hagia Sophia, goes on to discuss the difficulties they encountered with a strollers, and states that the Blue Mosque is better. Yet this review was also deleted along with the others.
I wanted to include it in this report because it is yet another unethical removal of a guest review. There are no swear words, no accusations or anything of the sort, yet GetYourGuide approved the removal of this review following a request from the local provider, effectively silencing this guest’s voice regardless of how their experience with both parties actually went.
Screenshot before the comment was deleted
Screenshot after the comment was deleted
In the image above, it is clear that this comment—which should have appeared between the comments for Germany and Canada dated 25 December—has also been deleted. If you wish, you can click on the link below to go to the relevant date and try to find the comment yourself.
Link of 4th deleted review.
5th Deleted Review
“The guide didn’t show up. We couldn’t visit the mosque. Don’t book with this company.”
To demonstrate that reviews have been lost across a wide range of dates, I have decided to include this one in my report, dated 7 January 2026, by a traveller from Spain. I have observed months of systematic removal of comments from GetYourGuide on various dates over the past six months. Morally, the most distressing aspect of these reviews is the people who had to face situations like the one described in this review at a moment’s notice, when they were unable to react.
In their case, the day is already lost, as they were relying on this activity provider, which partners with GetYourGuide. But the reason I’ve chosen this review is because of the date. After the start of 2026, reviews initially became much harder to find, as they were being deleted even before they were published.
How do I know? Each individual listing includes a section stating the number of reviews it is ‘based on’. The numbers were increasing and changing without any new reviews being added.
This could mean: 1 – Reviews were automatically being removed, or 2 – Some older reviews from periods well before my target dates were also being deleted.
Screenshot before the comment was deleted
Screenshot after the comment was deleted
As you can see in the screenshot above, this comment—which should have appeared above the one left by the Japanese tourist on 5 January—has also been deleted.
Link of 5th deleted review.
Result for the Comment Deletion Section
As you can see from the examples above, comments are being deleted. During my research, I identified hundreds of deleted comments, but as you can appreciate, it is not easy to share all of them here. Whilst I was monitoring, documenting and keeping records of all their reviews, the volume of these removals suddenly began to drop slightly.
Then, towards the end of February and the beginning of March 2026, I noticed that reviews were being deleted from time to time, with minor changes and some disappearing altogether. Afterwards, I realised it wasn’t because GetYourGuide had taken steps to ensure the authenticity of their reviews, or because the tour providers felt guilty.
This is because the busy season has arrived, and removing such a large number of negative reviews requires a dedicated team to report each one to GetYourGuide, at least as many people on the GetYourGuide side to review them, and another team to delete them. Ultimately, even without specific targets by name or similar, recent negative reviews for the same offers are still out there. Ultimately, even without specific targets by name, recent negative reviews for the same offers are still visible.
You can filter and monitor them daily, just as I have done on their website, Are GetYourGuide Reviews Real.
Other GetYourGuide Platform Issues
In the course of my research, I identified a number of misleading claims that were deliberately used. These irregularities are quite serious matters, and as I believe every consumer should be aware of them, I felt compelled to include them in this report. My main observations regarding what I consider to be harmful to travellers:
1- All the offers I follow on the GetYourGuide marketplace are misleading,
2- The offers include a tour, but the ticket is not included in the price,
3- Places not included in the itinerary are being promoted,
4- They’re selling non-existent tickets and, what’s more, demanding extra money at the check-out screen,
5- Promotions are being run for offers that generate higher commissions rather than those based on expertise.
Let me explain these briefly.
GetYourGuide Offers I Monitor Are Misleading
Many tour operators claim to offer the services of a historian-guide, but this is not actually the case. In Turkey, not every guide is required to be a historian; moreover, although many of them have knowledge of history, they are not historians.
I would like to remind you that to become a historian, you need to have undertaken research in this field and attended university. In Turkey, those studying the Tourist Guiding programme at a reputable university complete a four-year course. If we add a further four years of history studies on top of that, that amounts to a minimum of eight years.
As a tourist guide who leads tours every day, I see these agencies’ guides out in the field. They’re all young people in their twenties. To cut a long story short, these people aren’t historians at all. Yet on the platform, they’re presented as historians and expert guides with their photos. If you look at the reviews included in this offer—which haven’t been deleted yet—you’ll understand exactly what I mean.
The Tour Is Included, but the Ticket Is Not
They do not include tickets in their prices simply to compete with other activity providers, and tourists who see these low-cost offers unfortunately book these deals, which are too good to be true.
For example, this offer includes a tour of Topkapı Palace tour with historian guide 🙂 for just €15 per person. The entrance fee per person for Topkapı Palace is €51.63, which is 2,750 Turkish Lira. You can find the current and official ticket prices for the museums here.
I won’t comment on the impression created here, but I hope you can see that this price is well below the official starting price. That was the aim, after all: to bring offers like this to your attention.
Attractions Not Included in the Itinerary Are Still Being Promoted
Another striking fact emerges from the next GetYourGuide offer, titled ‘Hagia Sophia & Basilica Cistern Audio Guide + Optional Topkapi’. The tour is based on a visit to Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern, yet the name ‘Topkapi Palace’ has been used even though it is not included in the tour.
Unfortunately, tourists book these kinds of offers thinking they are getting a Topkapı Palace tour and ticket at the listed price. What’s more, these tours are actually held at different times. I won’t even mention the tour standards, the guides, or how many people are crammed into the same group.
In conclusion, given that we know the entrance fee for Topkapı Palace is only €51.63, this tour offer, which is being sold for €69, does not reflect the facts.
GetYourGuide Offers I Monitor Are Misleading
This is quite a sensitive issue, but I think it can be easily understood. First of all, there is no entrance fee for the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. No matter how much money you pay, no one can jump the queue. Everyone queues at the same entrance for a dress code check and enters when their turn comes.
This offer on GetYourGuide claims in the title that an entry ticket to the Sultanahmet Mosque is included. The title states: ‘Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque Tour & Ticket + Optional Basilica’. What’s more, the price of this offer is listed as just €15. According to current prices, the ticket price for the Hagia Sophia is €25 per person, whilst the Basilica Cistern charges almost €43.
When you try to select dates and make a booking, it eventually reveals the truth to you, bit by bit. Because this €15 fee doesn’t cover any admission charges. All it covers is a (so-called) ticket for the Blue Mosque—which is actually free to enter—and a 10-minute tour of the mosque with an unidentified tour guide and a group of 80 people. You’re also seeing a different price on the checkout page, and of course I agree with your views on this matter.
Higher Commissions Matter More Than Expertise
Whilst monitoring the GetYourGuide website, I recorded their marketplace pages every day. In the course of this work, I noticed that the offers appearing on the first page of search results were always these low-priced, fast-selling products.
Having demonstrated in the previous sections just how misleading and inaccurate these claims are, it is of course no coincidence that these products appear at the very top of the list simply because they sell well. Rather than prioritising high-priced activities that are rarely booked, the platform has adopted a policy of prioritising these low-priced, fake tours and offers in its rankings.
This situation can be summarised briefly as follows: rather than offering activities that are suitable and in your best interests, GetYourGuide prioritises offers that are easy to sell and generate commission. It turns out that the experience of the people who will be providing the service for your booking is not important.
Conclusion
As demonstrated in the study above, GetYourGuide reviews are being suppressed, deleted and taken down. It is rather disappointing to see that a platform which attracts so much traffic online and consistently appears at the top of search results has policies that run counter to this.
However, whilst genuine user reviews from a number of different platforms were identified during the course of this study, they have not been included here as they would not alter the current findings. Tourists whose reviews were deleted, and who were affected by the issues I have mentioned in other sections, have shared their experiences on various forums.
Although this was not the primary objective of the study, the five other issues identified with the tours and activities offered via GetYourGuide, Are GetYourGuide Reviews Real, have also been included.
Accordingly, offers such as those for ‘historian-guided tours’ listed on GetYourGuide do not reflect reality; furthermore, the offers do not include museum entrance fees, the locations featured in the offers are not actually included in the itinerary, and tickets are even being sold for free attractions such as the Blue Mosque; moreover, offers that generate higher commissions are promoted on the platform’s front page.
