Wieliczka Salt Mine Guided Tour with Hotel Transfers from Krakow

Fascinating, magnificent salt mine, perfect English-speaking guide. Negative point: at the end of the tour, we were dropped at several exits, and found ourselves alone more than 500 m from the RV point. The end of the tour needs to be better organized.

The place of course was lovely and awasome but our guide Ola was outstanding. The best. She made the tour a great experience and made the difference.

Tour booked for 10am. Received a text the day prior to say pickup is now 9am. No problem- we thought we would simply start and finish earlier. To begin with the driver was late picking us up. We were his first pick up and had been waiting in the cold for 15 minutes. No apology offered. We then ended up at the airport to collect the final 2 pax before heading to salt mines. This took us 1hr in total for a 20min trip. Upon parking the driver walked us up to the meeting area telling us we had to wait another 30mins for the other mini cabs to arrive before we could enter. Our minivan was left unlocked and the back door wide open with people's luggage & belongings left in it- they were clearly distressed and when they asked him about going back & locking the van he said 'don't worry, no one steals from my van'. Hardly reassuring. We FINALLY begin the tour. Our guide Peter/Poitr? was heavily accented and was quietly spoken. With a group of 30+ often following behind in single formation it was quite impossible to hear him for most of the tour. When he would finally wait until we were grouped together he would start talking and then turn around away from us so we could not hear him once again. He would also repeat himself three times at most door ways which was very annoying. When groups are pushed through so close together you hear the tour guide speaking from the groups in front & behind you, making it hard to hear a guide who doesn't face you and won't speak up. People were clearly agitated toward the end but he didn't care. Just kept the stupid smile on his face and continued with his silly remarks that no one found amusing. This guy is an idiot. The other guides could be overheard telling their groups interesting information about the horses that used to work in the mines etc and our idiot was more interested in pronouncing the name correctly of one of the statues. Boring.... The mine itself is very impressive. How it was ever built and is still accessible is truly amazing. Unfortunately our guide wrecked the experience for most of us and we were so happy to get in the elevator and leave. Oh, and he tells us at the finish that we leave from an exit in a different location to where we entered. Without waiting for all of us to be at the exit where we can hear him properly he says to walk through the park and then walks off toward a church yard by himself. No one could see a park and everyone wandered off in a different direction. Needless to say it took approx another 25 mins for our 8 pax to find the minivan and finally head back to Krakow. Not organised well at all. To top it off the driver dropped us at the BOTTOM of Old Town and when I told him we were a long way from our accommodation (TOP of Old Town) he argued with us that we said it was okay. He actually dropped an English couple off way too early and thought we were staying where they were. As he had pulled over and was making no effort to take us any further we got out and walked the 20-25minutes back to our room. Not what our legs wanted after doing all the stairs at the salt mine and half the town trying to find the van. Hard to recommend.

This trip was most interesting and the guide,a young lady called,Yolanta,was absolutely spot on. She certainly knew the history of the Salt Mines and made the whole experience a brilliant day out

Great organisation via Headout. Experience in salt mine was very interesting but tour group size was very large. That said, the tour guide was excellent. A great many steps down to lower level and a lot of walking. We were warned about this but a good level of fitness required. Main problem was that it was very claustrophobic in the tiny crammed elevator to exit level. Would not be good for some people and no prior warning was given of the elevator. The souvenir shop on exit was very good. The toilets are mainly outside. Not sure I would go again but so glad I didn't miss it.