San Francisco Duck Tours

We took a fun tour on the Duck. It was a pleasant ride through the Wharf and coast on the waters on the Bay. It’s affordable and we happen to see it on groupon so it was worth it. It only got 4 stars because the seats were old and broken from wearing out and needs some serious repair.

It was our company’s president who told us to join this tour. We are SF natives so it was a bit weird for us to be touring SF. Anyhow, they tell you to get there by 10:30am. We were super early. I had to wait for the rest of our company to show up. It was not a great day for us to take this tour. It was windy and I mean windy as hell and cold. We were all freezing and it was quite uncomfortable. The tour bus becomes a duck and then you get to go on the water. That part of it was nice but the smell of the motor burning was not good. We were all freezing by the end of the tour. The 2 stars is for the driver of the tour bus who was incredibly funny and entertaining. But also for the lady who was sitting outside at the Ride the Ducks tour location. She was very accommadating and helpful.

Captain Van: Get your cameras ready! When I make this left turn you are gonna see the most photogenic tourists in the whole city!
Duck vehicle passes in front of a mirrored building and everybody takes a picture of the Duck vehicle passengers.
I should have bought the $ 3 quack making device. Turns out the Duck tour is much cooler if everybody buys the quack making device. A lot of heads turn when the Duck vehicle passes by with music blaring with quacking in harmony with the tunes. There are tons of tours of San Francisco but this was the most fun and crazy tour I have been on. Tour goes pretty much from Ghirardelli Square to AT&T Ballpark. Captain Van stops in the middle of intersections so you can take photos of important stuff. The coolest part is when the Duck vehicle goes into the bay and Captain Van lets everybody take a turn at piloting the Duck vehicle. Awesome photo opportunity!

I’ve never rode on The Duck Tours, but always wanted to take my family on it, however, after yesterday’s unfortunate incident, I’LL NEVER EVER TAKE MY FAMILY ON THE RIDE NOR REFER ANYBODY TO!
The Driver of The Duck Tours hit my car and did not get out of his car to ask if we were okay nor apologized. Mind you, I’m Pregnant and that vehicle isn’t small, IT’S A BOAT ON WHEELS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Instead, the Driver went on with his tour and even had the nerve to continue with his jokes.
DOES HITTING A CAR AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT SOUND FUNNY TO YOU? ESPECIALLY, WHEN YOU’RE DRIVING AROUND FAMILIES /​CHILDREN? I find that unsafe and cowardly of that Driver. I wouldn’t even feel safe. It COULD’VE been worse too as the Driver was reversing as he was going uphill.
This makes me question, WHAT TYPE OF PEOPLE /​DRIVERS DOES THIS COMPANY HIRE?!

We had huge problem with tickets for Duck Tour sold by Alcatraz company.
Confirmation order referred to the boarding location at pier 33.
We came there 1 hour before tour time. In the ticket office nobody knew where Duck tour boarding is.
We called Duck Tours customer support and were told boarding is across pier 43 ½ which was 30 mins away by feet from Alcatraz boarding. We made it 5 mins to 11, our Duck tour was full and about to leave.
Luckily the representative allowed us to board on next tour at 11:30.
Advice: Do not buy Duck Tour tickets thru Alcatraz web site.
Tour itself was fun and educative. Captain Van was very funny. Good history facts.
Duck tour is very good, but do not confuse it with other tours. And be careful when buying tickets thru internet.

This tour was the highlight of our trip to San Francisco. Everyone in our family loved it. Captain Van was awesome. He was so funny and was definitely not reading from a script. Well worth it!

Amazing experience! Captain Roger made it even better. Not to be missed if traveling to San Francisco. A little cheesy at times, but that’s what makes it fun. Take a jacket, it will get cold!

This was our 4^th Duck Tour (1^st in San Francisco) so we had a good idea that it would be a good ride.
Our boat driver was Captain Mike. He was funny, lots of energy, good history, funny personal stories.
We had a good tour with lots of city highlights, great excursion out in the bay, good photo opportunities all the way.
They make you buy the duck whistles now. Our previous tours in other cities were free whistles when you got on the tour, but we made due with our hands and our own quacks.

MALIKAH helped us out with buying the tickets she was very nice and professional and gave us a great deal since we had a Lot of people! I wish I would’ve remembered the tour guides name he was very funny and made the whole experience amazing!

Tour guide was friendly, but told stories that were not actually true.
Seats are very small. We were a group of three. Our third person was supposed to sit next to a very large woman who was using about 90% of the seat. The young employee loading the seats was not happy when we moved to another available seat that could fairly be shared.
It was fun for the kids, but not worth the money or the hassle.

I was so excited about this trip. I just moved to the Bay Area, so I thought it would be a fun way to learn some history. The tour is kind of deceiving as 90% of it is just driving around the city, some interesting facts in between painfully loud music.
When we did go in the water, the tour mostly focused on letting all of the children drive the boat and let parents take pictures. The tour guide talked about how valuable the baseballs were from AT&T Park and then the tour was over. Most of that part of the did revolve around how people fight over getting those baseballs to sell them.

Great way to see some of the city with laughs thrown in, plenty of interesting facts thrown in with a non stop commentary, a bit of fun on the water sets it apart from the buses and bikes. If you’re lucky enough to get capt Mike, its probably worth another star. Kids will love it, a b
Bit of a drive of the boat and quacking along with the songs …

First off… if we could rate our driver only this would be five stars. Captain Rogers was his name. I won’t take points off for him being a burner, because he was just so damn cool! He loves what he does.
Now the tour and the route we took kinda sucked. We went down king street on a game day, whaaaaaa?!?
Also the seats were a little too snug. I felt like a 6′ tall monster on a kiddie ride, and I’m only 5′.
All in all we had a fun time pretending to be tourists. Don’t forget the duck whistle.
Ps don’t sit in the back… too tight.

Pretty disappointing. This could be a great tour but their current route and personnel miss the mark.
The route on land was fine, San Fran traffic is what it is, but their hook is land and sea… the buses go into the water. Well, instead of moving down the SF bay and giving you a hood view of the city, they go out by the ball park and right back in… lame.
To make matters worse, the guide, spent more time telling Us about his personal experience with auto accidents and anger management than he did about SF city facts. Additionally, he made inappropriate comments at other motorists throughout the tour.
Finally, beware the «quacker.» It’s a noisemaker shaped in the form of a duck’s bill…, fun at the start… enough said.

I would highly recommend the Ride The Ducks Tour to anyone with a good sense of humor. No matter their age. A definite recommendation for kids and out of towners to SF. Well spent money on the Groupon I bought (2ppl for $ 40). Being grown and seeing that I have no children of my own. My boyfriend and I still found it very entertaining 90 minute tour. Our tour guide that was a new transfer from Seattle Duck Tours was great.

This is a customer service complaint. I haven’t been on the tour yet, but I hope the company reads these reviews because I just had an extremely rude experience on the phone.
I got a groupon for the Holiday Lights and Sights tours as a gift. I tried to go online to make a reservation, but you have to put in your credit card info, and since it was already paid for, I figured I’d just call. After waiting on hold for awhile, a woman came on the line (didn’t say her name). I said I’d like to make a reservation for the tour this weekend, preferably Saturday. Practically before I ended the sentence, she very curtly said «Saturday’s sold out.» That’s it. Nothing offering Friday or Sunday options. However, I thought this was weird as I was just on the website and saw numerous times were available at both the Fisherman’s Wharf and Union Square location. I told her this, and she paused for a minute, and said, «well, they’re sold out.» But not on the website, I said.
She sighed, and asked me for which location. I said hopefully Union Square but either one would work. She then rattled off of bunch of times that were available and the number of seats available-​there were 15 spots open for the 8 or 9pm time slot. Sold out huh? I then asked about Fisherman’s Wharf, and there were even more open spots at that location. 2 at 5pm and 5:30pm, 4 at 7pm, 6 at 8pm, and so on (don’t remember the exact numbers, but you get the idea). So I went ahead and booked that one.
She then asked me for my info, but not even in full sentences.
First name?
Last name?
Address?
Number? (not even phone number)
That’s literally all she said every time, all while breathing heavily into the phone, making it difficult to understand her orders. She just seemed annoyed with me and mad the entire time we were talking. I get there is probably a lot going on this time of year for them, but I just couldn’t believe she would lie or not even check which times were available. Was she hoping I’d just go away and not book anything?
Hopefully I can come back after the tour and re-​rate this company, but for the time being she left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Oh what fun it is to quack in a bus that turns into a boat! The sights that we saw in San Fran led us to want to explore it more and even led us to Ghiradelli square:) I really loved when we were able to go into the water. There was a short ride in the water and a bit of annoyance due to the heavy quacking from fellow passengers but a great deal for 30 dollars in 2hrs we explored a lot and the best part was getting to drive the duck tour in the water!

We love Duck Tours and this one was just as great as ones we’ve experienced in other cities. Knowing our cruise ship was stopping in San Fran, I booked this for us in advance, but it turned out to not be necessary to have it pre-​booked. Others just walked up with no problem.
Our driver had more energy than, well, ANYone else I’ve ever known! His enthusiasm was much appreciated, although I missed some things because my ears couldn’t keep up with his mouth.
I will say that we spent so much time on the water that I was concerned we weren’t going to see much of the city, but fortunately, we did indeed see a lot after coming off the water.
Very enjoyable tour and I think the price is very fair for what you get.

If I could just rate the driver/​captain/​guide alone, I would give him 5 stars. I had Roger and he was fantastic. A free spirit, a traveler, a comedian, a humanitarian. Roger did heart-​warming things like stop the duck vehicle next to a softball game and have his entire tour cheer on the little pig-​tailed girl who hit a home run. He also runs a non-​profit organization on the side which supplies socks and sleeping bags to San Francisco’s homeless population. He is a world-​traveler, but it is clear that the city by the bay is his true passion. He knew good local spots to eat, see sights, and just about everything else under the sun. He loves San Fran and it shows. He also loves the Giants and focused a lot of the tour talking about baseball (which I don’t mind– I love baseball too.)
The tour was full of families and the tour company gives everyone a whistle-​duck-​bill-​sort-​of-​quacking-​device. Oh my lord, this drives one mad– all the quacking that goes on relentlessly among the children.
The land portion of the tour was great– I was sitting in the back of the duck and I could hear very well, even with the quacks. I had an over-​zealous soccer mom, donning pink hair, seated behind me (talk about a «quack») who had to add her two-​cents to everything Roger said, and although that got somewhat agitating, it was also kind of cute, I guess– this was probably her big vacation of the year. («Oh honey! Yes! Let’s do that! That golden gate bridge looks amazing!» And then singing «take me out to the ballgame» at the top of her lungs when we went by the stadium… that sort of thing…)
The water portion of the vehicle was a waste of time. The engine was so loud that I couldn’t discern a word of what Roger was saying. He let the children come up front and steer the duck, which was nice. I sat in the back and wrapped my coat around me tight and checked my facebook page during this part of the tour. It was a beautiful 60-​something degree day, but it gets quite chilly on the duck, so take a scarf and a warm jacket.
So if you have children and don’t mind loud quacks, I would recommend this tour. Otherwise I would probably say just opt for the gray-​line double-​decker bus tour. You’ll hear and learn more.

My Mom thought it would be fun to play tourists in our own city, so she wanted to go on the Duck Tours for her 50^th birthday. On 7/​16, our Duck Tour tourguide was Captain Van. We left promptly at noon and were off to drive around the city. Everyone gets a quacker and also pictures are taken before you get in the truck. The whole folder of pictures is $ 25 and cards are accepted.
What’s unique about the Duck Tours, are that they not only tour the main points of the city, but they also take you out and around the bay. After driving through Fisherman’s Wharf, North Beach, Chinatown, Downtown/​Union Square, and SOMA we made our way towards the ballpark to go out into the bay. Captain Van was extremely knowledgeable about the city and also about the shipyards by the ballpark. He also told us some fun facts about Treasure Island, Coit Tower, and parks in the neighborhoods we passed through.
Aside from going out into the bay and into McCovey Cove, there wasn’t much else to the bay portion of the duck tour. If you really want to go out in the bay, the Rocket Boat tours are your best bet (
). My sister got to «drive» the truck while we were out there so the Duck Tours are definitely kid friendly!
I would definitely recommend the Duck Tours if you are visiting San Francisco or if you are a local and just feel like playing tourist for the day.