FareHarbor Reviews

Excellent service and product

Comments: Overall, I really like Fareharbor - I like the way it looks when people book.

Pros:

The customer service is amazing and fast On a day to day basis, it is easy to use and you can add all the information you need to for all your guides.

Cons:

I sometimes struggle with set up and amending items. We usually have to get Fareharbor to do some or all of the set up as we get some things wrong. Saying that, all you need to do is reach out to their service team and they usually sort it out in minutes.

Seamless offline to online inventory management

Comments: Saves time, improve overall efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Pros:

There are very useful features for every booking and reservations website. Customers can make reservations directly from our site. Its swift integration enables any website to become multilingual providing customers with a variety of payment and communication options.

Cons:

Satisfying. I have experienced the best all along.

Zero Customer Service

Comments: Starting my own business and wanted to use FareHarbor for my bookings. Had the Zoom call, answered the questions that were emailed to me and then….. NOTHING!!! They just disappeared. I’ve emailed, called, messaged and I get the standard reply of someone will get back to you. Bummer I thought this would be the easiest part of opening my business. Disappointing.

Pros:

What I liked about FareHarbor when I’ve used it at my other jobs was the ease of use.

Cons:

Zero Customer Support. Can’t get a human on the phone.

FareHarbor and Tour Management

Comments: I have been using FareHarbor for over 15 months on a daily basis as I give tours on a Segway part time. Its easy to monitor on my mobile home screen and gather data about a client before they arrive. It also lets me know what liability forms they have completed before their arrival. Overall I am happy with my FareHarbor experience.

Pros:

FareHarbor is easy to use as an app on my mobile phone or on the desktop computer. Its responsive and gives me data in real time and this is helpful when client's are making changes so I can react accordingly. Usage is intuitive so no real training is needed.

Cons:

It would be helpful if FareHarbor would highlight clients that are double booked other wise there is no downside to FareHarbor.

Pay as you go

Comments: Fareharbor was the perfect solution for us over the last years but with increasing direct sales, the commission fee is getting now out of control. We will change therefore sooner or later again to Bokun, which is kinda sad. For comparison:
Bokun Pro = 588USD/Year (1.5% Fee on 100.000USD Sales = 1.500USD)
Total: 2.088USD/Year Farharbor = 6.0% Fee on 100.000USD Sales = 6.000USD)
Total: 6.000USD/Year

Pros:

The pay-as-you-go function, as we have changed from Bokun to Fareharbor during Covid. I think this is the only business model that is fair, as both sides have the same reasoning to develop sales in that case.

Cons:

- The Marketplace is very weak - No option to cover the booking fees for customers (this doesn't make sense to me, especially no with Google Business integration, as customers can see that tours are cheaper on other OTA platforms like GYG or Viator). - The bookings fees of 6,00% is very high, 4.00% would be much more reasonable

FareHarbor allowed us to bring our reservations online

Pros:

Being a cloud-based service, FareHarbor allowed us to move away from our antiquated reservation system to a more robust system that allows online reservations and is much easier to manage for a multiple-site operation.

Cons:

API access for creating new user accounts would be a nice addition.

Great Booking Software

Comments: Great! Highly recommend any tour or business needing reservations/ticketing to integrate FareHarbor.

Pros:

Customer service is amazing, they're kind, quick and smart. Usually able to help and solve your problems within 24-36 hours.

Cons:

Some of the booking restrictions get funky on some of our items. Maybe some more resources and explanation on how to use resources.

WANT YO BE THE BEST IN BUSINESS USE FAREHABOR

Comments: It is the best thing I have in my business. It makes my work easy and fast and also enjoyable.

Pros:

24/7 availability it helps because customers are not available at the same time. Gives the best customer service with no crashes. Instant review.

Cons:

I have no regrets no doubts even with payments this is great.

Fare harbod gets the job done!

Pros:

Ease of use and customization is what keeps me in love w fareharbor

Cons:

Developers need to make money and support the product but % of transactions adds up

Average at best

Pros:

The add-on integrations were really good.

Cons:

The overall user interface just did not seem to live up to what other products on the market can offer. Also customer service took a lot longer to respond then some other booking softwares.

All the functionality I need with great customer service

Comments: Overall Fare Harbor is a great tool that helps my manage my food tour and excursion business on a day to day basis quickly and easily. The customer service is great. Their knowledge base and resources are outstanding as well as there in person customer service.

Pros:

Onboarding and transitioning was easy and they are very helpful getting you up and running. I find the software easy to use and easy for me update and edit tours and availabilities. As a major player in the rez tech arena, Fare Harbor is competitive with upgrades and has API's with nearly every imaginable API you could want.

Cons:

The reporting feature does not have a great UI and I find it difficult to extract the info I want. Also, one major downside is the booking window is a popup, therefore google conversions cannot be exactly tracked, only tangentially.

Alternatives Considered: Peek Pro, Checkfront and Rezdy

Reasons for Choosing FareHarbor: The handwriting was on the wall that EZ Tix was starting to fail as a company. I needed to make a switch fast and EZ Tix had designed my website. Fare Harbor designs websites for free, and they are great, and are at no cost. But beyond that Fare Harbor had all the features I was looking for in booking software.

Reasons for Switching to FareHarbor: I liked Fare Harbor's pricing model, free website managed by them and all the functionality I was looking for.

Fantastic software that seamlessly integrates with your site

Comments: Our non-profit arts organization / national historic landmark started shopping for a new ticket vendor amidst the pandemic when our formerly tried and true ticketing vendor (BrownPaperTickets) became negligent and withheld earned income from ticket sales for our events that took place in 2020. A sales rep from FareHarbor had been regularly reaching out to check in with us and see if we wanted to learn more about their product, and while shopping for a new service I spent countless hours doing research and speaking with representatives from several ticketing vendors (EventBrite, SimpleTix, etc.) and decided to give FareHarbor a shot as well. The sales representative was fantastic and thorough, answered all of my questions (and subsequent questions), provided support, and was highly transparent about everything - fees, onboarding, etc. We made the decision to try FareHarbor primarily because of how customizable their services are, the autonomy we get as a customer, the support provided by their team, how seamlessly it integrates with our website, and the fact that the branding is on point. Most other services have their own logo front and center with your business's logo and information secondary, and with FareHarbor all communication and interfacing makes our branding, logo and information top priority with subtle branding of their own. We are over the moon with their software and service!

Pros:

The customer service team has been exceptional in providing complete information and support throughout the vetting process and then getting us set up, customizing our dashboard, training our staff, and continues to be highly responsive and supportive. It also integrates seamlessly with our website and is exceptionally user-friendly, not to mention how beautiful it looks!

Cons:

So far we have not yet encountered anything we don't like about FareHarbor and their services. I'm thankful that the sales team was as persistent as they were with our organization in trying to share their product with us, or we may not have known it was an option for us. Thank goodness she kept calling, how many people can say that?

Alternatives Considered: SimpleTix and Eventbrite

Reasons for Choosing FareHarbor: We had used Brown Paper Tickets as our ticketing vendor since 2008, and in 2020 they withheld the earned income we should have received from ticket sales for tours that took place between July and September of 2020. Brown Paper Tickets also shut down their customer service, and stopped responding to our inquiries about when we may receive what's owed to us. It's now 2021 and they still owe us over $30,000 for those tour ticket sales, and we are just one of thousands of venues and customers who are owed money by Brown Paper Tickets. They have lost our trust due to their gross negligence, and have yet to confirm any sort of timeline as to when we will get paid. As a small non-profit, we rely on that income to remain open to the public.

Switched From: Brown Paper Tickets

Reasons for Switching to FareHarbor: We used SimpleTix in a pinch while finishing the 2020 tour program and while it worked great it was slightly less user friendly, didn't integrate with our website as seamlessly, and wasn't as customizable as we needed it to be. They do have great customer service though. We decided against using EventBrite primarily because it required a one year contract and the branding was focused on EventBrite and not venues - for example, if you buy a ticket to an event through EventBrite, the email you receive has EventBrite branding front and center and the venue's information is minimal, so all EventBrite tickets look the same no matter what venue you purchase tickets for. It's not customizable. We also need to have customer support available 7 days per week, as our events take place primarily on weekends, and the sales representative was very transparent in saying that they did scale back customer support availability to be 5 days per week. FareHarbor has customer service 24/7, is fully customizable, doesn't require a contract, and the fees are comparable to other ticketing platforms. They also integrate with our website so that when a customer purchases a ticket, they never leave our website - and it didn't require altering the format or template of our website. The FareHarbor service team took care of all of it for us, made adjustments as needed, and has continued to provide consistent support for us.

Game changing softwear

Comments: Excellent. This is one of the very best companies I have ever worked with. Very highly recommended.

Pros:

Easy to use. Fantastic customer service. Increased our bookings and reduced our admin time enormously.

Cons:

They have rebuilt our website which is great and includes lots of best practice insight from our industry. Sometimes updates aren't seamless between the main part of FareHarbor and the Web team. This is a minor irritation and I still rate them highly. They don't currently offer an integrated Cookie solution but I believe they're working on developing one.

Superb Customer Support.

Comments: I used Fareharbor for the past two years and looked into several other options in order to soak some of the booking fee within the business rather than the customer paying it all. We decided that if we were to have to pay for the system, our prices would need to rise so the customer would obviously end up paying no matter what.

Pros:

Incredible 24 hour support enables any issues or queries you have to be handled quickly and proficiently.

Cons:

I feel that the booking fee of 6% charged directly to the customer would be fairer at 4% with the turnover we have.

Best Online reservation system

Comments: Best online software that I have used.

Pros:

Ease of scheduling , reports, and bookings

Cons:

Change the meeting points on an item for a custom tour

Alternatives Considered: Peek Pro

Reasons for Choosing FareHarbor: better system

OG's of online Res

Comments: WE love it! We are proud to say we have been here since the beginning of the company and have always been treated very very well!

Pros:

Ease of use! Love [sensitive content hidden], he is the best! He helps us all the time and anytime we need help!

Cons:

I can not think of anything that I don't like.

FareHarbor has changed my life

Comments: Running our business more smoothly and efficiently.

Pros:

As a business owner, FareHarbor has helped me by freeing up my time for other tasks. I love the creative part of doing business, not the day-to-day operations and scheduling.

Cons:

There is a learning curve. I do want to add the support I receive is amazing any time we do get stuck.

Booking Platform

Pros:

All the options FareHarbor offer combined with an efficient bine technology developed by the company's technical team

Cons:

Perhaps not being able to have a member of the company here in my city to deal with day-to-day issues

Big Fish review

Comments: Overall,you are a good booking service

Pros:

Easy to use and accurate.reps respond quickly.

Cons:

Deposit time to get into company account

Excelet booking support

Pros:

Booking calendary and payment system, trustable

Cons:

So far so good, probably when i have to make some changes but i ask for th team support.

Excellent Support

Comments: Excellent

Pros:

Patient, polite service 24 hours a day. The operators able to explain clearly how to progress.

Cons:

As a non techie I require frequent support.

Great online booking solution

Comments: Everyone is really courteous , and professional. The support staff are knowledgeable and resolve issues quickly without trying to make me do the work instead. I really appreciate that, I hate when I ask for help and I am sent a link to a help file.

Pros:

The support team is incredible. They pick up the phone right away and they fix problems for me while I speak with them. The software does everything it needs to do.

Cons:

The only con was that until very recently they required customers pay in full for trips. They just added functionality for allowing customers to pay deposits or in full, so I guess there are no cons left!

Hard Times

Comments: I don’t know what to do. I have no other way of refunding my guests because of the booking fees Fare Harbor owes to my customers. How can they legally hold MY and my customers money indefinitely? Don’t trust this company with your business and don’t trust this company with your money.

Pros:

I have used Fare Harbor for years and have always been happy with the services provided, ease of use and customer service. Times are hard now. We are in the middle of a world Pandemic and the tourist industry is being crushed. Honestly, I didn’t expect Fare Harbor to help me through this crisis. But I also didn’t expect Fare Harbor to hurt my company and my customers, but that is exactly what they did. I have hundreds of customers to refund because of cancelled trips due to Covid-19. I am risking my company, but it is the right thing to do. So I deposited money into my Fare Harbor account to refund my guests and Fare Harbor will not release the money. It is money from my bank account straight into my refund reserve so I can credit my customers credit cards, and Fare Harbor is holding it. It has been 8 days. I have promised my customers their refunds and Fare Harbor is blocking me from processing them by holding my money. It’s tens of thousands of dollars. I have bank verification the money has been in their account for days. Now my company is at risk because I told my customers they would get their refunds.

Cons:

My husband and I own this business. We are family owned and operated. We are successful and have a great reputation. We have worked hard for a decade to make our company what it is. We care about our customers. Now Fare Harbor is single handedly destroying what we worked so hard for. I have spoken with several representatives of the company. At first they said 5 days. Definitely 5 days. After 5 days passed, they said any day. Now that it has been 8 days they are saying it will get there when it gets there. They will not say why they are holding my money to give my customers. They have not apologized, and I have no clear answers when I can expect it.

From customer support to foolproof features, our experience with FareHarbor has been superb.

Pros:

While the features of this software are plentiful and easy to use, we most enjoy the prompt, friendly customer support available to us through FareHarbor. Our Account Manager, Kristin, always delivers excellent work even when we provide her with information that can be unclear. She is a fantastic liaison between our business and FareHarbor Support, and she seems to go out of her way to ensure we're using FareHarbor to the best of our ability by facilitating appointments with FareHarbor support for us to learn how to make minor changes on the backend of our website, answering questions in a timely manner, and implementing new information to our website on a weekly basis.

Cons:

One feature we enjoy least about this software is its mobile functionality. While it's certainly compatible with mobile devices, it's not always the most mobile-friendly in terms of working behind the scenes and formatting. Some examples include trouble viewing booking notes and updating manifests, text appearing too large, pictures a bit out of focus, etc. However, any adjustments we ask to be made in terms of format are quickly resolved by FareHarbor Support. On another note, there are times when we make adjustments in the dashboard ourselves - without the help of customer support. Yet, often those changes still have to be submitted to FareHarbor support staff, so they can make those amendments appear on our website to customers. It feels repetitive. If those small changes could automatically be reflected on the website, we feel both our staff and customer support staff could become more efficient. Finally, there seem to be plenty of features available at FareHarbor of which we users are unaware. For instance, our website was outdated and desperately needed some attention. We weren't aware we could get a website upgrade, or makeover if you will, until a support staff member reached out to us about that possibility directly. Perhaps implementing a list of available features - especially those that are at no additional cost - to all users would be a positive change all around and would ensure use all parties are using FareHarbor to the best of their ability.

WOW, I am SO happy with this system

Comments: We chose FareHarbor after having issues with our past "#1 Online Booking System," including it's failure to list a calendar when our site was viewed on mobile. I wouldn't have left if not for the stream of failures of the other software, which was pretty nice when it worked... now I'm happy it happened because FareHarbor is amazing. We are an escape room business with 3 themes, 4 rooms, 5 menu selections. It took a few days to get everything dialed in with FareHarbor, now the system saves me so much time and effort. The flexibility is amazing. I was a little worried because, although you can do everything yourself, it seemed you are encouraged not to. I worried this was going to be an issue, but their customer support is top notch. If I want schedules, promotional campaigns, ANYTHING changed, they get it done, and probably faster and smoother than trying to do it myself. Yet I still have the flexibility to easily change and add bookings, dates, prices, availability to individual activities on the schedule on the fly. Two of our rooms can be booked together or separately. We used to put them on schedule separately (book individual rooms this time of day, book pair of rooms for bigger groups that time of day) since if one of the rooms was booked, the two room option was no longer available. With FH both options are on schedule and customer demand drives the calendar selection... if one is chosen, the two room option automatically stops displaying, and the other room can still be booked individually (and visa versa). I saw someone mention the "cost" of the system. We weighed this against other systems and find the cost differences to be pretty much a wash. Their credit card rate is great, especially compared to the cost of going with one of a few other popular escape room booking systems, I would have had to pay for a gateway, route with a merchant's account, pay a variable and mostly higher rate for credit cards... this is all in one and so easy... and a few less things I need to keep track of. Yes, there is a convenience fee for online booking, we absorb this fee into our prices. And really, it's a booking you may not have had were it not for the booking system. They have many features I'm sure (or would hope) other systems have such as auto booking cutoff times, auto email confirmations and reminders, etc. Actual 24 hr cust svc, not "you can contact them 24 hrs a day, leave a message, but not hear back until the next business day."

Pros:

Flexibility, ability to change items on the fly and really give the best customer service I can because I can be flexible. I integrate it with my personal calendar so I get the bookings synced right to my phone. The ability to be flexible. Did I mention how flexible it is?

Cons:

There are a couple items that are tricky to set up, but why would you when you can just email or call and have them do it. I'm learning to delegate to them, and it's freeing up even more of my time... ok that part's not a con, but the tricky to set up thing is.