Kimkim Trip Reviews for Canada

My trip was independent. Kim Kim planned about half the itinerary, including lodging and the car rental. This part of the itinerary was fine!
I also spent time in Waterton Lakes, Glacier NP, Winnipeg and Churchill.
Since Glacier NP was outside Canada, I was told I had to make my own arrangements for that park. That sounds like a strange policy.
I also had to make my own arrangements for Waterton Lakes, Winnipeg and Churchill, which are in Canada. I am not sure of the reasoning behind this. I used Booking.com for all my lodging and the accommodations and it worked out fine.
The travel agency would not book a small group tour (2-6 people max), 4x drive, to see the Polar Bears in Churchill. They said they only worked with a company that transported large amounts of people (30+) in massive transport vehicles.
I make my own arrangements for small group tours and my tours were fantastic!

The car company - Avis - gave me a credit for a half empty gas tank when I picked up the car.
I have not seen this refund from Kim Kim yet.

We had the BEST time exploring Canada on our trip with KimKim! Lola, our local specialist, was the best - she worked with us to plan the itinerary we wanted with unique stops along the way. The Niagara Falls day trip with Niagara Toronto Tours was amazing - prepare to get quite wet! - and we loved taking the train between cities. The bike tour of Ottawa is a must! Quebec City was our absolute favorite - don't miss a private tour with Mike while you're there! - and we loved the Mile End Food Tour in Montreal. Working with KimKim made planning a multi-city trip in a different country so easy! Lola took care of everything, and at each stop, we knew she and her team were just a phone call away if we needed anything. She was also very responsive both during the planning process and during our trip when we had questions. I cannot recommend KimKim more highly - we will definitely use them again in the future to plan another unforgettable trip!

Activity Reviews

Biking tour of Ottawa

Ottawa

We LOVED this bike tour! Our guide, Mike, was amazing, and there are tons and tons of paved paths in the city, so you're riding on biker/pedestrian-only paths most of the time, which made it feel really safe. Would definitely add this tour to your itinerary in Ottawa!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Private guided visit of Quebec and its surroundings

Québec City

This activity was probably our favorite of the trip! Mike MacDonald, the private guide we had, was amazing. So personable and knowledgable about the city and its history. The tour was a perfect mix of driving around and stops where we got out and walked to see the sites. Through it all, Mike talked us through the significance of what we were seeing and fun anecdotes.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Comfortable car - large GMC Yukon Denali - and great driving.

Explore Mile End's Flavors: A Delicious Walking Tour

Montréal

Such a fun way to see more of the city and have some delicious treats along the way! Louis was our guide for this tour and he was amazing - fun, knowledgeable, and clearly well-liked and respected by the people working at the places we visited. We were on a public tour, but there were only 5 of us total which made it seem almost private. You get a TON of food at each stop - highlights were the smoked meat poutine, the Greek pastry, and the ice cream - and learn more about this interesting neighborhood along the way. I would absolutely do this tour again!

Quality of Experience

Food

All the food was amazing and unique. I would never have tried some of the offerings if I was ordering for myself, and I loved all of them!

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Louis was wonderful - fun and full of stories and history!

Niagara Falls from Toronto

Toronto

Great way to see Niagara Falls if you're looking for a day trip from Toronto! Michael and the Niagara Toronto Tours team are a well-oiled machine, and the stop in Niagara on the Lake is really nice too. The falls are beautiful, and you will get absolutely soaked on the boat ride. If you've never been to the Falls, this is definitely the way to see them!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Roman, the bus driver, was an excellent driver!

Andreea our trip planner was very good to work with…. Prompt and accurate.

Hotel Review

Wingate By Wyndham Calgary Airport

Calgary

Great hotel room and breakfast; we would have like a dining room for dinner.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Near the airport and walking distance to a restaurant for dinner

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Moraine Lake and Lake Louise Half Day Tour

Canada

Evening Wildlife Safari Guided Tour

Banff

Our guide was fantastic…. So knowledgeable. He even gave us cookies and a keychain….very nice!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Banff Gondola Ride in Summer

Canada

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Afternoon Tea at the iconic Fairmont Lake Louise

Canada

Gorgeous hotel wonderful waitress; food beautifully displayed.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Lake Minnewanka Cruise

Canada

Comfortable bus; good guide

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Initially Benedict was the one guiding my trip to kimkim . Everything seems to be going well, him working out on my budget,etc.
All of the sudden I started working with a different planner, Clemens, he was good but I didn’t like the fact when he started telling me that Benedict quoted me wrong hence the price is so low
Everything was arranged but wouldn’t recommend Kimkim as they are too expensive,this would be the last time I will be using kimkim

We had a wonderful 2 weeks in Canada. Lived Banff and Jasper. The scenery was spectacular! I would say the only downside to the trip was the amount of time from place to place. That’s on us ,we wanted to see as much as possible. All in all it was a wonderful experience.

My mother, my sister and I had an excellent trip thanks to the planning and help of Fernanda from Global Tourisme. The hotels were welcoming and comfortable. The guided tours were all excellent, with interesting guides who spoke perfect Spanish as we requested. We visited Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City and it was perfect! Thank you so much.

It's so crazy to just get to book a trip and essentially forget about it until the day of. My guide, Fernanda, did her best to get as much as she could in the short time I had. I chose a weird time of year to go to Canada, but she still pulled some strings and I got to see some cool stuff. I see myself using KimKim for any vacation I plan. The cost was really fair, too.

Hotel Review

Le Nouvel Hotel

Montreal

The loft bedrooms are so pretty, and the hotel is positioned close to a lot of interesting places. The metro entrance isn't far either.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Review

City & Country Tour

Québec City

The bus tour guide is really awesome. If you're considering it, you NEED to do the city and country tour. There's so many interesting spots I never could have found on my own.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

I feel that this trip most of the attraction is very repeating. Almost the whole of the 15 days we are viewing lakes and mountains. If want to do other activities,wr still have to pay extra, and the tickets are very expensive. Other than that the instructions for our bookings are also very blurred. Some places we are required to make advance booking but we are unaware in the end we have to pay extra inorder to visit the lakes tour. Thus, overall this trip was a very bad experience for me and my family.

Both of the hotels we stayed at in Montreal and Quebec worked well. Our food tour in Montreal was a favorite for all four of us. The guide was exceptional and the food was wonderful and different. Okay, I'm not a pureed liver person, so I passed on that, but that's just me. If I liked liver, I'm sure it would have been great. The ride on the inspirational ferris wheel was fun! The tour we did of Old Quebec was also very enlightening and again, the guide was fun and very informative. UBER and cabs worked great for getting around when we weren't walking. The Five-course dinner cruise was okay, but I think I would skip it on another trip. I enjoyed the food on the food tour more, and while the lights at night were pretty, I'd rather see the shoreline in the day time. We took a cab to the waterfall and enjoyed that. Carl was very helpful and Kim Kim again came through for us.

Hotel Reviews

Le Saint Martin

Montreal

The hotel was located in the downtown area which was a very busy area and hard to find an grocery stores, but it was convenient, clean , very comfortable, and the people at the hotel were always helpful.

Authenticity & Character

Location

It's fine, but in a rather busy, trafficy area. Next time, I think I'd like to be closer to the older area.

Staff

The staff were friendly, welcoming, knowledgable, and helpful.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hôtel Le Concorde Québec

Quebec

The big circular restaurant at the top made it easy to find when we have been our walking. The location was conventient to everything we wanted to see. I loved our room. Beautiful view out of two sides since we had a corner window. Looked out at the lights of the city and the river.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Worked well for us since we like to walk. Convenient for taking UBER or a cab to the Falls, the airport, and whereever else we wanted to go if we couldn't walk that far.

Staff

The staff could not have been more pleasant or helpful, at all levels. One of us dropped a ring down the drain whlle showering because there wasn't a drain cover, but maintenance quickly came up and retrieved it.

Cleanliness & Comfort

All the areas seemed well cleaned and taken care of: the entry way, waiting area, restaurants, rooms, elevators.

Activity Reviews

Mile End Montréal Food Tour

Montréal

This was one of our favorite parts of our trip to Canada. The Food Tour included six interesting, tasty examples of local food, and they were DELICIOUS and fun to try. Our guide was exceptional. She was fun, knowledgable, and tuned in to our needs.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

The guide was the best.

Transport

No problems.

Old Montreal VIP

Montréal

We enjoyed having some open time to just head out and see what we could see. Stopping by local shops and restaurants was fun. We had a fun time riding the Inspirational Ferris Wheel. Beautiful weather.

Quality of Experience

Just relaxing, hanging out , and walking around discovering the city was fun.

Old Quebec Walking Tour

Québec City

Our guide was a fun guy, and we enjoyed being in a group of just the four of us. He had done a group of 45 the day before, and I would. not have been interested in a group that large.

Quality of Experience

Excellent guide, fun activities, educational.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Our guide seemed to know what he was doing and he did it well.

Transport

We walked and it was close enough from our Hotel to work out well.

Fernanda helped me make a booking for a special trip to Banff to celebrate our anniversary. During the booking process she was very helpful in suggesting the places to visit. Once we went there, I was disappointed to find that the first hotel Rundlestone Lodge had a booking for double beds room. Later we found that the other hotels in Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge and Coal Coast Harbour Vancouver also had double beds booked. We cancelled Kelowna room because of wildfires. Fernanda helped cancel without any penalty.

We were able to make alternate art arrangements during our trip.

Activities suggested were very good. We enjoyed them very much.

Carl was helpful enough when booking our trip, but there were a few things that went awry. When we arrived at our hotel, our room reservations were all mixed up, but it was an easy fix. But then, we had a whale watching trip booked -- and it was booked in the wrong city! I only happened to catch it by checking our vouchers against the times the company listed on their website. I had to call the whale watching company myself, cancel the tour, and book us on a trip with a totally different company at a different time. Our trip was pretty straightforward, but still got messed up. I wouldn't recommend working with Global Tourisme in the future.

Hotel Review

Sylvia Hotel

Vancouver

Amazing location right on the edge of Stanely Park! The hotel is very old and the rooms are a little dated, but the location and price are worth it! Also, most of the front desk staff were very helpful and accommodating.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Review

Whale Watching in Victoria

Canada

We were booked on the wrong tour in the wrong city. We weren't able to go on this tour.

Planning our first trip to Canada was made easy by our trip planner Fernanda. She came up with some nice trip options for destinations that we had only heard of. Our hotels were nice and comfortable. Our favorite hotel was in Toronto (Chelsea Hotel) because it had a water slide. The Niagra Falls excursion was our favorite.

Unfortunately our trip was cut a bit short by illness but we were very happy with the ideas and options that KimKim offered. We will use them again.

Thanks Fernanda!

Carl planned a food tour, bike tour, and Ferris wheel experience for our family of five while visiting Montreal. The tours were superb and memorable. Specifically, the food tour in the mile end neighborhood provided a history of a multicultural section of Montreal and delicious sampling of food from five different local restaurants. The bike tour was led by an expert in architecture and we learned many interesting architecture and historic facts about Montreal. The guide was attentive and catered to what we wanted to see. Our trip to Montreal was more than we expected and Carl did an excellent job in planning these experiences for us.

Activity Reviews

Mile End Montréal Food Tour

Montréal

Memorable tour of a multicultural section of Montreal. The food tour helped us understand the history of the neighborhood while enjoying delicious food from local restaurants.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Well paced walking tour

Bike Tour in Montreal

Montréal

Our tour guide was an expert in architecture and led us on a fascinating tour of Montreal where she shared history and architectural insights. The ride was interesting and well paced.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

High quality bikes, well paced tour.

Vancouver and Granville Market was wonderful. Our trip from Vancouver to Whistler, Kelowna with very nice wineries, Banff with beautiful mountain sceneries, Columbia Icefield excursion, Jasper National Park with amazing Mountain Scenery was really fantastic. Our stop in Canmore before leaving from Calgary, was a little more disappointing. The selection of our route from KimKim was overall very satisfactory.

Hotel Reviews

Holiday Inn Vancouver Centre, an IHG Hotel

Vancouver

Service is lousy

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Aava Whistler Hotel

Whistler

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Sandman Hotel & Suites Kelowna

Kelowna, British Columbia

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Banff Caribou Lodge and Spa

Banff

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Tonquin Inn

Jasper

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Canmore Inn & Suites

Canmore

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Take the Banff Gondola to Sulphur Mountain

Canada

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Drive from Banff to Jasper

Canada

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Jasper to Banff

Jasper

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

We loved our vacation! The snow and mountains were breathtaking. We really enjoyed skiing the second day. Two of the three of us had never skied and an instructor was imperative! We had Christopher at Lake Louis and he was excellent. We had to secure the lesson through the Fairmont concierge however- Julie was amazing and we were so grateful for her help! We loved both hotels but the Caribou was under construction and they started banging away on the scaffolding Monday morning.
There were a few times we were frustrated:
The car rental company was not clearly communicated. We had to go searching for any clues as to which company it was and found it on a receipt. We asked for help but I guess because it was the weekend we did not get a response until Monday.
One of the museum sites we wanted to visit and that was suggested was closed the two days we were in Banff (Mon and Tues)
The hotel did not give us ski lift tickets for the second day and this was not clearly outlined. The itinerary stated to pick them up at the “hotel”. Since we changed hotels and the first hotel had our first set of tickets, we assumed the second hotel would have the second set. That was not the case.
We wished some activities were suggested to us prior to the trip. There were a few things we would have liked to do and tried to make reservations for however everything was booked up.
In Banff we didn’t have any direction on the best places to eat (which all required reservations).
We also wish we were told that we needed to make dinner reservations at the Fairmont restaurants ahead of time.
I admit we had very high expectations after our Italy trip; but this was why we used Kimkim again for this trip. We were less impressed this time but still loved the trip and plan to return during the summer at some point.

Hotel Reviews

Banff Caribou Lodge and Spa

Banff

We loved the big, crackling fire in the lobby! The restaurant was excellent and the room was big and roomy. The heat did not work well at first but it was repaired quickly. the hotel itself was under repair so there was scaffolding built along the side we looked out of. We could not access the balcony or even open the doors because of this and the workers started banging away Monday morning. They should have mentioned there was a floor heater for our use. That helped a lot. The spa/hot tub was awesome. The desk failed to give us both sets of lift tickets. We did not know they had the second set and we had already traveled to our next destination without tickets. It was just a headache we didn’t need.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise

Lake Louise

Amazing! So beautiful. The staff were incredibly helpful, especially Julie at the concierge desk. She helped us secure a ski instructor at the last minute and that made our whole trip! We are so grateful for her help. The food at the new restaurant was excellent. We were really happy with our stay here.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel Arts

Calgary

Very cool hotel in the heart of downtown. We weren’t here long but it was a comfortable stay and the staff was very friendly and helpful. We walked right around the corner for dinner at Ten Foot Henry; outstanding food.

Authenticity & Character

Loved the art!

Location

Staff

So helpful and friendly

Cleanliness & Comfort

Our sink would not drain but otherwise, excellent

Activity Reviews

Take the Banff Gondola to Sulphur Mountain

Canada

Breathtaking! We really enjoyed this!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Ski/Snow rental

Canada

Loved our instructor Christopher! The lodge was cozy and vibrant. We had a lot of fun.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Excellent vacation and Carl was very helpful in trip planning in advance as well as help during the trip. Will definitely continue to use KimKim for our next vacation.

We have used kimkim in the past and like that it advertises specialists in the country in which you want to travel. The service provided for this trip was disappointing. Granted, we were a large group (initially 12 people), but there were many significant details that were missed creating complications and producing unneeded anxiety. The kimkim platform seemed to overly complicate communication and our travel specialist frequently did not check in on the platform for days at a time - so it was difficult to communicate and to remind him of all of the details about our trip (which we should not have had to do in the first place); we finally had to connect on WhatsApp. I will not go into the details that were missed, but suffice it to say that there were complications before the trip and at every stop that required reaching out to the travel coordinator to intervene. I was the primary contact for our group and kept much of this detail from all so that they could experience a restful and anxiety-free vacation. Ultimately, we paid quite a bit for this trip and the kimkim fees were significant, but I do not believe of value in this instance since this was a stressful experience for at least this traveler.

Both the historic tour and the foodie tours were fun and meeting people from all over the country (USA) made it enjoyable. I don’t remember our guide’s names. But the daily interactions with the people of the city, the Uber drivers, people we met on the tours was probably the most fascinating.

Hotel Review

Hôtel Alt Montréal

Montreal

Hotel Alt provided everything we needed while we stayed in Montréal. The staff were extremely friendly and helpful. Fresh croissants every morning spoiled us!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Everything - the room and the entire hotel was spotless.

Activity Review

Old Montreal VIP

Montréal

Our guide was very knowledgeable and we learned so much about Montréal!

Quality of Experience

Our guide - he was very kind and very Canadian French. His family roots were established there so the tour went deeper…

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

It’s a walking tour so you’re constantly moving except to stop to talk about specific points and spots.