Bob's Special Tours
Bob's Special Tours
4
City ToursSightseeing ToursPrivate Tours
8:30 AM - 2:30 PM
Monday
8:30 AM - 2:30 PM
Tuesday
8:30 AM - 2:30 PM
Wednesday
8:30 AM - 2:30 PM
Thursday
8:30 AM - 2:30 PM
Friday
8:30 AM - 2:30 PM
About
Thank you for taking the time to visit our TripAdvisor page. If you are looking for sightseeing or leisure tours in and around the city of Salzburg or anywhere in Austria we can help you turn your travelling ideas into reality. Explore this beautiful part of Austria together with our passionate tour guides - our mini vans take you where the large coaches can't. Our family run business was established in 1976; ever since, we’ve been living up to our image of making individual tours available to our guests. Recommended by Rick Steves, Fodor’s and Frommer’s Travel Guides as “very personal and comfortable tour company”, we will make sure you won’t miss out on the most fascinating given facts and details Salzburg has to offer. Tour with us and… • explore this beautiful part of Austria in a unique way • enjoy your trip in a mini van that takes you to places large coaches can’t get to • let us provide you with an exciting mixture of historical sights, legends, folklore and breathtaking views • see Salzburg through the eyes of our local tour guides, who are passionate about their home
Salzburg, Austria

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Tours and Tickets by Bob's Special Tours

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.


4.0
4.0 of 5 bubbles661 reviews
Excellent
419
Very good
96
Average
52
Poor
34
Terrible
61

Libby
North Royalton, OH8 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Oct 2023 • Friends
Marcus, our tour guide for our Sound of Music tour was wonderful! He had lots of trivia about the filming of the movie, and we visited many locations around Salzburg. He was an excellent driver and very patient with questions. He gave us lots of local history of Austria as well. He recommended a great restaurant, Die Weisse, for authentic Austrian fare and local beer. Definitely worth the trip!
Written October 27, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

kiwitravelnz
Bay of Plenty Region, New Zealand101 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
May 2024 • Couples
Enjoyed 2 tours in one day. Morning visiting Sound of Music sights. Afternoon tour - Bavaria Mountain Tour. Highlight was the Salt Mine tour. Excellent way to explore scenery within Salzburg and beyond. Small group van tour with a fabulous tour guide. Highly recommend.
Written July 21, 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

JoyfulWriter
Chesapeake, VA718 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Oct 2014 • Couples
We booked an all day adventure which gave us two tours during an eight-hour period. We combined the Sound of Music tour with a visit to the beautiful little town of Hallstet. Our tour guide/driver Rosa Marie picked us up at our hotel promptly at 9am and at the end of the tour at 5pm, we were dropped off at Mirabell Palace. I may have known we would not be returned to our hotel, I don't remember, but that is something to take note of in case you have mobility issues.

The first 40-minutes of the tour was in and around the town of Salzburg and was some of what we'd seen on our own the day before. Rosa Marie did have some interesting stories she shared with us and gave some information on the city that we may not have known.

One of the really great things about the tour was that there were only six of us guests in the van. The small number of fellow-travelers makes everything so much easier and more enjoyable. There were only six of us to climb in and out of the van at photo stops and only six of us to gather together when it was time to leave. Plus, we got to know our fellow travelers a bit, which was nice.

Our first stop was along a lovely lake to see the back of a mansion across the lake -- the famous back where much of the action in the Sound of Music movie took place, including the boat scene with the children falling from the boat and the gate the Captain threw open for them. We saw it all from across the lake. We also saw a couple of beautiful swans sail in and land on the lake - a nice bonus. Rosa Marie told us a great story about the filming of the boat scene.

Helbrunn Palace was next, for a 15-minute stop to see the famous Gazebo (and bathrooms were very nearby as well). On the way, Rosa pointed out the yellow house used for the front of the Von Trapp house, and yellow wall along the walkway where Maria sang the "Confidence" song. We rode some gorgeous countryside and along a long lake on the way to a beautiful photo opt. We stopped above a town on a lake with mountains across the lake. The church spire helped us recognize the town as the one used in the opening credits of the movie.

Our next stop was Hallstet, an absolutely beautiful little town perched along the shore of a lovely lake, at the base of a great mountain. It's like a picture postcard, it's so charming - and easily walkable as well. We had 2.15 hours in this little town and enjoyed every minute of it. There are two churches you can go inside, lots of picturesque houses and buildings to admire, and some shops to browse through. There are a couple of restaurants and one little sandwich shop. We got a kebap and fries so we could eat quickly and continue our sightseeing of the town. It is a slightly uphill walk through the town, but not bad. The town has been known for its salt production for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, so a souvenir of salt from their mines is a nice thing to get from the gift shop.

I believe there is a tour one can take of the salt mine, but we didn't feel we had time to try it. That would have been nice. We did go into the Charnal House which only took about 5-10 minutes (see separate review).

After we left Hallstet, we stopped in Mondsee where the church is that was used for the wedding of Maria and the Captain. It's quite ornate and the town is charming. Our guide told us stories about the filming and things about the church. I had a wonderful piece of cake from the bakery in a restaurant very near the church. It is called "housecake" and was the best pastry I had on our entire trip.

We ended at Mirabell Garden where Rosie told us various spots used in the movie - at least four places were used in the filming. I would recommend Bob's Special Tours. Another bonus was that we got 10 euros off the price of our tour if we had a Rick Steve's book (which we did). Rick Steves recommends Bob's. Hope you enjoy Salzburg - we sure did!
Written November 18, 2014
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Thank you very much for your comment and for your confirm that we are on the right track.
Written July 21, 2015
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.

jbarton
County Kerry, Ireland272 contributions
2.0 of 5 bubbles
May 2014 • Friends
First of all I would like to say that I think if my friend and I would have gotten Peter as guide we would have had a great time. However we had Rose Marie who was less than amazing and I believe very interested in lining her own pockets. To start out with we bought our tickets from the information center and given a receipt. The lady there called Bobs and gave them our room number and told us to stay in our room as the tour guide would call our room when she arrived.We were both ready at the appointed time of 8:45AM. When no call came we went to the front desk to find out if anyone had been to pick us up for a tour and she told us the tour guide had just left! The front desk called Bobs and Rose Marie our guide returned in a not very nice mood accusing us of not being ready and giving them the wrong room number! I pulled out our ticket with the room number on it and she then backed off and said well I guess the information center made a mistake. (I doubt that seriously) We chose Bobs because they are the only tour from Salzburg that still goes to Halstadt which we really wanted to see. It is combined with the Sound of Music tour which we thought would be great. After a less than amazing start off we went we three other lovey ladies to begin our tour. We went to all of the SOM places but like one gentleman reviewer said we didnt really spend much time anywhere. When we arrived at St Gilgen we were ushered to a restaurant overlooking the lake and I got the same impression that possibly our guide had a vested interest but that was OK as the food was fairly good and the view nice. Before we had lunch our guide wanted to take us to a luge run which was closed which I thought was a bit strange but I didnt think too much about it at the time. Then we were off to Halstadt. When we arrived at Halstadt our guide got out of the car and started talking to some tourists who wanted a cab back to Salzburg. In a nutshell she left us there for 1 and 1/2 hours which was OK and took the tourists back to Salzburg however, I imagine Bobs knew nothing about and I would bet she didnt report the fare but kept it. The reason I am saying all of this I will explain shortly. All in all we had a reasonable time so decided that we would book the Eagles Nest tour for the next day. This time it was only my friend and I going on the tour. We were not able to go to Eagles Nest as the weather was very poor so our guide insisted we go to the salt mines in Durenburg. I wasnt interested in doing this as I am not very comfortable with small enclosed spaces and told her that we would prefer a tour of the area. She absolutely insisted that we had to do this "really fun tour". So we said finally OK. To make a long story a bit shorter the salt mines were pretty boring with it mainly being long walks down very dark shafts only to come to a larger cavern with a not very interesting movie. This happened three times, in between we had a slide down a hill and a short boat trip in a cavern. Before beginning the tour we asked Rose Marie how much the tickets were as we knew the entrance fees were not included in the price. She ignored our request and went to buy the tickets. W!e didnt think too much at the time as I thought maybe she got a special deal. Well far from it! She told us in the car we needed to pay her 19 Euros each which we did for the tickets. She actually purchased a family ticket for two as I saw the number two printed on the single ticket she held on to. I found out later after checking on line the price was 24 Euros for two people! She never gave us the ticket but stood at the check in place for the tour and put the ticket through for us. In reality she ripped us off for 14 Euros which she happily kept! I honestly believe that Bobs Tours does not know that she is doing this. I was so angry we went back to their office the very next morning to complain but they were closed over the weekend so I had no way of telling them about our experience. I would bet that is why Rose Marie wanted to go to the Luge ride as well the previous day so she could do the same thing. If Bobs Tours reads this I sincerely hope that Rose Marie will no longer be in a position to take advantage of unsuspecting tourists!
Written June 12, 2014
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

kemishare
Barcelona, Spain11 contributions
1.0 of 5 bubbles
Jan 2015 • Solo
I booked the original sound of music and Hallstatt tour and was really expecting to have a great time. After waiting for two hours in the hotel room without being picked up, I called the office and left a voice message but no one answered back. Then I called the hotel front desk and the staff told me the driver came by but was looking for me in wrong room number and wrong last name and then left. I got really upset because apparently the tour operator took down the wrong information (aka. one number of the room number and the first character of my last name). So I asked the front desk to call the driver to see if he can still take me to this tour. After waiting for another half hour, the driver came back and took me to his car. There were 3 other travelers in his car and the first thing he did was taking me to the office to make the payment. I told him that I don't think i should pay the full price because I didn't get a chance to see the first attraction stop and all the time I've been wasting due to the operator's fault. The driver called the operator and then passed the phone to me. The operator said "you either pay the full price for the tour or you stay at home" , without any apologies for his stupid mistake. I cannot imagine a tour service company can talk to a customer in such an extremely rude way. Overall, I wasted the best time of the day to wait and deal with this unqualified tour service and by the end they ruined my mood for traveling. Hope you can take my experience as an alert when trying to book a daily tour in Salzburg.
Written January 13, 2015
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Thank you very much for your comment. Thank you for helping us to improve our services. We apologize again for the late pick up and that we could not give you an immediate equevalent solution. We work on our improvements and are sure that such a matter will not happen again and work a plan it's our guides and office stuff to improve all of our services. Sorry again for this incident.
Written July 20, 2015
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.

moni780
Los Angeles, CA3 contributions
1.0 of 5 bubbles
Sep 2014 • Friends
Where do I start. Maybe if we had another guide this might have turned out differently but here's a run down of our Sound of Music/Hallstatt Tour.
We were a group of 6 ready at 8:30am like we were supposed to be. When Manfred came to pick us up he thought we were going to be a group of only 2, so thus started a 20 minute phone call with the office. I gave him my printed receipt which he wanted to take a picture of and send to the office. Finally, when he was ready at 9:05 he was upset someone decided to go to the bathroom while he was on the phone. So we held him up by about 45 seconds after he was ready. When we went to pick up another couple he said we owe them a beer because we made him late. At this point my blood is boiling because that was just a lie. He told us that because we were 6 we should have booked a private tour... We heard how he normally does private tours about a dozen times. Then the trip started with a drive by a road, he pointed and said the abbey was up there. Gee thanks good to know. Then he took us by the neighborhood he grew up in and then we stopped by, I think it was his mother's house, so he could pick up some papers. The sound of music part of this trip was so disappointing and we mainly got information on things we should see in our own time. We did make it to the Gazebo. When we got there he said we had 3 minutes to take pictures and go to the bathroom. What!?.. 7 women plus other tourists, 3 stalls... When we arrived back at the van somewhere between 5-8 minutes later he pointed his finger at us and yelled at us for being too slow. That was the last straw!! At that point if I could have gotten my money back and left the tour I would have. We told him to stop criticizing us and it erupted into a yelling match. I was in tears in the back of the van. It was a lot of money and I really looked forward to this tour and it was just awful. The only good part was him dropping us off in Hallstatt. But for the money we could have taken a cab and probably should have.
Written September 22, 2014
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Vallintine
Suffolk GB8 contributions
1.0 of 5 bubbles
Bob's Tours didnt bother to show up for us or call us and when the hotel called them they denied having had my booking even though I had been in communication by email with them

The blamed it all on the weather when I returned home and contacted them amazing how Panarama Tours managed the same tour on the same day!!
Written January 23, 2007
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Thomas Winston M
Portland, OR22 contributions
1.0 of 5 bubbles
I thought this was supposed to be a light-hearted, fun-filled Sound of Music tour! You know..."do-re-mi" and all that. We wanted schmalz and, instead, we got shock-and-awe. We paid 30 Euros to go on this tour with Bob's Special Tours. Well, it was "special" alright.

Our tour guide was Hans, and from the very first minute, it was clear from his remarks that this tour was going to be a forum for grandstanding...a place where he could air his personal views about people from other countries, backgrounds, political persuasions. "Dirty, thieving gypsies". "We hate the Turks." "Christians and Muslims simply will never get along." "A rich, American Jew owns that house." (Perhaps the most shocking....Hans recast the crimes against humanity as the "collaboration" between the Austrians and the Nazis..."COLLABORATION?!?" Really?!?!?!)

We experienced FOUR hours as CAPTIVES in a small van with a guy who spent the better part of the time at the Wolfgangsee searching for former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's (conservative!) vacation house...with such zeal as if it were a pilgrimage. If we hadn't been so far from our hotel in Salzburg, we would have asked to be let out and searched for a taxi to return...and then hit Bob up for a reimbursement.
Written December 27, 2010
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

chimeck
Singapore, Singapore11 contributions
2.0 of 5 bubbles
Aug 2017 • Family
We booked Bob's tour online and took the Sound of Music/Hallstatt day tour with Alwin. The experience was average at best. I've traveled a lot around the world and have experienced many great tour companies and guides but unfortunately Alwin was not one of them. He did the bare minimum a tour guide should do - drove us around, offered to take some photos for us, and gave us brief narratives of what each place was about. But that was it. Instead of having a tour guide, it felt like having a driver who drove us around all day with very brief one liner descriptions of the places - descriptions that we could easily get on our own from Google. For over 90 euros per person, it was the most expensive tour I took during my trip to Europe and too expensive for what was offered.

For example, when we stopped at Mondsee, Alwin simply said "here we stop at the church where the wedding took place in the movie". In fact, this was the kind of description for a few other attractions. We paid for the SOM tour expecting more insights and stories on the filming locations rather than brief headlines like that. Otherwise we could have gone on our own.

When we stopped at Hallstatt for lunch, Alwin only said he would wait for us at the car park and pointed us towards a general direction for lunch. He did not provide recommendations for lunch (we had to ask) nor told us that the best photo spot where most people took photos of Hallstatt were actually a bit of a walk down the town. It took us some time to figure out our bearings in Hallstatt and in the end we had no time to take photos at the spot that most tourists went to.

There was a guest on the tour who was initially super enthusiastic about it. She tried to initiate conversations and even started to sing and encouraged our guide to sing along (it should have been the other way around). Alwin looked bored, sang a few phrases, and went quiet after that. In fact, half of the ride on the van was silence with no music or narrative from Alwin.

Perhaps the experience would have been better with other guides. The places we went to did seem beautiful but the lack of context, passion, and enthusiasm from the guide just made the whole experience a very dull one. Based on this experience, I feel the tour was only worth half its price. You are better off traveling to Hallstatt on public transportation or renting a car.
Written August 31, 2017
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Dear chimeck! Thank you very much for your honest feedback! We are very sorry we could not meet your expectations. Of course we take all of our customer's feedback seriously, which is why we discussed your feedback with Alwin. As we already responded on your e-mail you sent to us, what we discussed with him met our experience with his tours as well as with the past feedback from other guests we recieved for him which only has been positive. Alwin is one of the best tour guides we have, being not only knowledgable about the sights we visit on our tours but also about the Autrian history in general. During his tours he gives plenty of information about every location before the tour arrives at that spot to ensure that you have more time to spend at the attraction itself. He also gives recommendations about lunch and good photo spots for Hallstatt. Giving only brief one liner decriptions about the attractions and not telling stories about the Sound of Music movie is not what Alwin is doing on his tours. He is not only telling about the filming of the Sound of Music Movie but also telling the story of the real Von Trapp Family versus the film version of the family. Being fond of singing is not an important criteria to become an employee of Bob's Special Tours but instead we lay great emphasis on their knowledge. Because of this and because of the small size of our tours we can provide a more personal and more informative tour. If you wanted to spend your day singing, doing the tour in a big bus would have been the better choice for you. Best regards from Salzburg Jonathan
Written September 1, 2017
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.

John N
Baltimore, MD26 contributions
1.0 of 5 bubbles
Jun 2014 • Family
SCORE THE FILM SITE VISITS - THEN READ THE REVIEW BELOW....

CHECK THIS LIST AND THANK ME LATER! The SOM FILMING SIGHTS

a. Mirabell Gardens - Dropped off there after tour. No guide.
b. Residenzplatz - NOPE
c. Nonnberg Abbey - NOPE (See Photo)
d. St Peter's Cemetery - NOPE
e. Festival House - NOPE
f. Horse Pond - NOPE
g. Fronburg Castle - SORRY, NOPE. Drove by and didn't even get a glimpse.
h. The Gazebo - Yes! Finally something.
i. Leopoldskron Castle - Yes (you can take a city bus to see this or pay Bob's!)
j. Mount Untersburg - NOPE.
k. Mondsee Cathedral - Yes. 2.5 hours into this torture, and then only after the luge stop. And after the bad strudel stop. Then Mondsee. If you REALLY need to see this - rent a car and SAVE BIG! Or hire a limo!!
l. St. Gilgen - NOPE.
m. Anif Castle - NO, but in all fairness, nobody gets near it. Not even Bob. ;-((

7 NOPE!
3 YES!
1 DRAW!

First, you need to read between the lines of all the reviews. (Even Rick Steve's winks at you about this utter waste of money and time.)

Second, the tour itself is poorly described, poorly run and probably sagging due to age and the crush of tourists eager to "make it easy(ier)".

Third, when demand outstrips supply - you get mediocrity. The "Bob's Tour" was a study in that Econ 101 lesson. The tour-guides bad jokes about the catholic prince and his Jewish mistress left only the "Sound of Crickets" chirping....when the guide asked if we wanted to listen to the SOM sound track OR - a chorus singing a capella, naturally we all voted for SOM - but the guide had different ideas....."Bob's Tours - where democracy goes to die"

Fourth - I recommend this tour to anyone who likes to keep their distance from the sights. "See the red onion dome across the river and behind that really big building? That was in the SOM movie...now back to the bus!!"

Fifth - Attention luge lovers - this tour will take you to a bunny slope where you can take a luge down that wouldn't scare a bunny rabbit. And strudel fans should note - the restaurant we stopped at had the strudel from 1960 for sale that they try to pan off onto Julie Andrews all those years ago.

Annoyed doesn't fully describe the feeling of disappointment here. My young children were appalled and that sez it all. Give your money to a busker or beggar if you really must do something with the money.

Last, the guide should be banned from the industry. The driver should also get a check-up. As he adjusted the air-conditioning, he swerved into oncoming traffic. But I digress....
Written July 13, 2014
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

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