Auschwitz-Birkenau & Wieliczka Salt Mine Day Trip

It was an amazing and educational tour. The driver was very friendly and extremely helpful. In case you are travelling with kids be prepared to walk a lot!

This trip was amazing! I learned so much about each aspect of the tour and really appreciated the assistance and expertise of our driver and guides.

Tour guides and drivers are amazing, helpful, knowledgeable, and professional. We were able to skip the lines to go into the attractions

Run all 5 stars. Messages, emails and even through the app, received confirmations from the location and pick-up time. Punctuality. Comfortable vehicle. The person was very friendly and helpful. The food was very tasty. The visits with the guides very well explained and the guides were always available for clarifications. We love it.

A must-do while in Krakow. You will learn things about the concentration camps you didn’t know during the tour and also through the 20-minute documentary shown on route, the Liberation of Auschwitz. A completely eye-opening experience. While Auschwitz was more personal with more visual artefacts and appeal, the scale of Birkenau – the enormity of the atrocities committed there – was unfathomable. And through control of the populace through fear, human beings did this to other humans, or stood by and let it happen. It's a reminder that we cannot let similar forces, operating all around the world today, to succeed. After booking, I had many questions about the order of sites (I definitely wanted to visit the camps first and the salt mine second), the timing, the lunch, and particularly whether a gluten-free option could be provided. Mr. Shuttle staff, Gosia, Aleksandra, and especially Zuzanna, were friendly, positive, and took initiative in all their responses. Great pre-excursion customer service. The reason for 4 stars instead of 5 was that our guide in the camps, Teresa, while phenomenally knowledgeable, authentic, and deeply empathetic, had a lot of Information to impart so spoke very quickly, and with her accent, was at times hard to understand, especially through the earpieces provided for all group tours. I was not the only participant to have this experience. I managed to hear and assimilate about 2/3 of what she said, which was a shame, because her knowledge was encyclopedic and I know I missed details that I would like to have heard. The salt mine was simply incredible and our guide, Samantha, was easy to hear and easy to understand. She used humour where appropriate and was very organized with respect to logistics. While I am glad I took the mine tour, it was in a league far below the concentration camps in terms of impact. Our driver – born and raised in Krakow, but went by Mike for the sake of his English speaking guests, was excellent. He communicated all the arrangements – from bathroom and snack breaks to exact time at sites and exact meeting spots – very clearly. Ample breaks were provided, which was welcome as the day was long (but only 14,000 steps) with a fair bit of waiting to enter the sites by group. For example, 10,000 visitors tour the salt mine daily! He also was aware of my tendency to get carsick and installed me in the front seat, checked in with me throughout the drive, and also provided me lots of interesting tourist info on the side. However, I was less thrilled about the drop-off, which was to be at the pick-up point in front of my hotel. Mike instead dropped me 2-3 “blocks” from the hotel with unclear directions how to get there navigating through paths in Planty Park on the basis that my hotel – Amber Design Residence – was in a restricted zone in the old town, which was not the case. Also much appreciated was the gluten-free meal Mr. Shuttle was able to provide for my husband who has coeliac disease. A highly recommended tour.