Saint Paul Gangster Tours

My husband and I came to St Paul for an anniversary trip, and discovered the cave tour. We decided to add the gangster tour to out ticket, and extend the fun, and we were certainly glad we did! This delightful bus tour took us to the sites of much nefarious gangster activity, so we could see the places we were learning the history of. Our costumed tour guide was Lois, who kept us enthralled with sordid tales of of the dark doings of some of the most notorious criminals to ever visit St Paul. We learned that at one time, gangsters were actually invited to come to visit St Paul, whenever they liked! (take the tour to find out why--it's fascinating!). We really enjoyed Lois' storytelling, and learning about the darker side of St Paul's history. I definitely recommend this tour to anyone visiting the cities.

What a super fun experience! Our tour guide for the caves (Josh), as well as the tour guide for the bus tour (Lois) were animated, full of information, and played their parts well! Appreciated the sit breaks since I have issues with my knees!

Loved the outlaw tour! The guides were fantastic, funny and informative! Edward was great sharing stories with us throughout the caves and “John Dillinger” on the bus tour was funny and kind! (Also the bus was roomy and comfortable)

Great tour. Our guide was so fun and informative. Jeff, the bus driver was amazing in getting the bus around construction in narrow streets in St. Paul. I took my hearing aids out as the speaker system was quite loud. Unfortunately, I lost one some place during the tour. Jeff and managers were terrific in helping. They called me a couple times to update my on their search. It was my fault that I was not careful enough, but they showed such concern, and that is not common in today's world.

The tour guide, Ellie , aka ‘Lipstick’ was one of the worst tour guides I have ever experienced on a tour bus. First of all, she talked about herself more than the gangsters. She thought she was hilarious and she was not one bit funny. She talked about getting a bad review from someone because she was , too, in her words, ‘salacious’. My 12 year old grandson was on this bus. Her clothing was most definitely inappropriate. I would like to mention I’ve been in this tour before and it was fabulous. It was a few years ago. I encouraged my family , 5 of us, to go in this tour because of the first experience I had. I would recommend the tour to anyone from past experience but after today I would avoid ‘lipsticks’ bus at all costs. I feel she ruined the tour for all of us.

My family attended the bus tour today. We booked this tour over a month ago for 5 of us for a birthday celebration. We arrived 15 minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave. We tried boarding the bus and the driver said we needed wristbands to board. We went to the coffee shop and were told by our guide, Ellie, that the driver was wrong and we didn’t need wristbands after all. We were not the only group given the confusing information. Our tour guide even went to far as to call the bus driver a “dumbass” because he told multiple people they needed to get wristbands. Two people from our group needed to use the restroom so myself and the other 2 members of the group decided to board the bus and save spots. The bus was full and our group was split up and not able to sit by one another. Not a huge deal, but had the boarding situation been more organized and we hadn’t been told we couldn’t board the bus when we got there, we would have been able to sit by each other. The bus tour itself was horrible. Our tour guide was overly animated and obnoxious. She was all over the place with her topics and I had no idea what she was talking about half of the time. The only interactions she seemed to care about was from the group towards the front that seemed to laugh at her “jokes.” She even brought up a previous 1-star review that she received telling the bus they said her flapper dress was too “salacious” and showed her “breasts” too much. My 12-year old son was on this tour. I understand the tour guides are playing a character, but she was over the top and her “act” completely took away from the experience and I learned nothing. She sounded like she was out of breath the entire time she was talking. My son spent the tour playing a game on his phone and another member from our group put AirPods in. I am extremely disappointed that this is how I chose to spend my birthday. I was really looking forward to this tour based on the excellent reviews, but I would definitely not recommend booking this if Ellie is the tour guide.

I'm updating my review after someone reached out to me about how they've remedied the bus speaker system. I appreciate that this company reads the reviews and responds to ensure the customer experience is good. I rarely leave less than positive reviews but I do want to provide constructive criticism. First, the positives: the bus was very comfortable and clean and the driver was excellent. The information and sights about the history of St. Paul was extremely interesting and compelling. Our tour guide really knew the history. Unfortunately, the volume of the delivery really detracted from the whole experience. Some of the blame is on us for not bringing it to his attention. I wanted to but I couldn't find an appropriate moment to mention this in a busload of people. Suggestion, maybe have the guide ask attendees about 15 minutes in (and maybe periodically) for feedback on the volume. Actually, if he hadn't used the microphone it may have been fine.

Cool information in the tour, but the guide started the tour by personally insulting me about my hair. I have cancer, so that wasn't okay at all. I should have asked to get off the tour then and there, but instead I sat through 2 hours of information I could have gotten from the St Paul Wikipedia in 5 minutes.