Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ

Here you will find answers to several Frequently Asked Questions on our tour services. If you don’t find the answer for your question(s), please contact us by email!

Reservation and payment

How can I make a reservation?

All reservations to our tours can be made by sending us an email. After we have agreed on which tour or services you would like to have, you will receive a confirmation email with full tour details as well as payment instructions. We promise you an answer in 24 hours of the moment we receive your message. The reservations are taken until the night before the tour if there´s availability – we have someone working with the reservations until 9 pm Finnish time (GMT +2) every night.

Do you answer all the inquiries?

We promise an answer to all reservation related inquiries within 24 hours, no matter if they have been received via our Fast Booking option, the contact form or as an email. Even now in 2022 it´s weird but true that every once in a while there are messages that do not come through. If you clearly feel that you haven’t received an answer from us in 24 hours, please, send it again as email (happyguidehelsinki@gmail.com) including the needed inquiry information that you can copy of our contact form. Please also, make sure you write your email address correctly in the contact form. 🙂

How early should I contact you?

As soon as you are ready for a Happy Guide experience. 🙂 But the sooner, the better. We have some public tours open for everyone the whole year around, but not necessarily on the particular day of your visit. Last minute reservations are taken by email until the night before the tour if there´s availability. We have someone working with the reservations until 9 pm Finnish time (GMT +3) every night.

Especially during the peak seasons our guides tend to be very busy so the availability varies day by day. The sooner you know the date(s) of your visit, the better, since you will probably have much more options.  No phone calls for new reservations or availability related questions, thank you. Email us and you will get personal service our fast and happy way!

Should I email you in English? Or can I write in other languages?

We answer emails in all our four service languages, which are English, Finnish, German and Spanish. Responses for inquiries in other languages besides English might take a little longer, because this depends on the language skills of the person currently working in the customer service. If you need to call us, please use English. But bear in mind we have no possibility to answer reservation related questions like availability and pricing over the phone, that is why we have people online and ready to answer emails from early til late!

Do I need to pay in advance? What are the payment options?

The tour price as received payment is considered as confirmation for your tour.

Once we have settled with you what services you like to book we send you an e-invoice that has a link for a card payment (all commonly known cards accepted). As alternative you can also make the payment from your own PayPal account manually or a bank transfer. The payment method will be always agreed before the payment is expected.

For companies / retailers there may be different methods and policies available depending on the agreement.

Is it possible to pay with a credit card?

Yes. But please do not send any credit card information, since it might not be safe by email and we do not need it. Our e-invoices have direct link where you put the card details yourself.

Can I book a private tour but let it be available to other people as well; if there were to be other similar requests like mine?

No, if you refer to requests from people you don’t personally know but who are contacting us. Otherwise it couldn’t be considered a private tour anymore. 🙂 However, if you want to book a private tour for yourself but add new people later to it that you know or meet during your trip, this might be possible to arrange by emailing us in advance and sorting the price policies with us. In this case you will normally be the one collecting the payments from other participants while paying the fixed price yourself in total to us in advance. The availability of this arrangement depends on the tour as well as the amount of maximum people participating varies between our different services.

Can I book Happy Guide Helsinki tours via other channels?

We are also listed for well chosen online traveling platforms which we like and respect for their good reputation. Some of them offer an online booking option. All of our legal re-sellers are listed here: Bokún, TripAdvisor, Likealocalguide, Viator, Veltra, Get Your Guide, Expedia, Visit Helsinki and Visit Finland. Any other booking option for our tours is unauthorized and we recommend you to avoid doing business with them. We are happy to answer all the other questions about our services and/or Helsinki/Finland!

Cancellation policy and customer safety

What is your cancellation policy?

On most of our tours, you are eligible to make a cancellation without a charge until 48 hours before the tour. If the policy would be different to this we will let you know about it as part of the booking process. If your timetable would change or cancellation reached us later than within these time limits, the payment is not refundable. However, we will always do our best to reschedule your tour, if needed and anyhow possible considering our guide availability.

For our partners and cooperating companies there might be specific terms on the cancellation policy and refunds depending on the agreement.

What if the weather surprises me?

Helsinki is located on the coast of the Baltic Sea and for not having any significant hills to block the clouds up high weather can change here pretty fast. We are also far away from the continental plates and major oceans so after all it is very unusual that we would have a big storm: earthquakes, floods and other big natural disasters are pretty much unheard of.

Many of our tour activities are outdoors. We recommend taking proper clothing and comfortable shoes according to the weather for all tours, since especially outside the summer it may get mentionably cold for you when spending hours of time outdoors on the tour. Sunglasses, your own personal water bottle, gloves, hat and a camera might also be good to have with you. For bike tours we provide rain ponchos and sun lotion for all participants to be able to take the tour as planned. Consequently, our tour schedules are created with flexibility and most of time planned to be conducted between certain hours regarding their duration.

In the case we would cancel our tour we principally try to reschedule it to our visitors but if that is not possible the tour price is 100 % refundable. This rule does not include any kind of force majeure cancellation like when the tour would not be considered safe during a fierce storm, although like said they are extremely rare here! We also accept rescheduling / cancellations from our clients until the last accepted deadline (usually 48 h) prior the tour without a charge. The tour price will be charged as full if the cancellation arrives to us later than this.

How do you take care of customer safety on your tours?

All our guides are professionally trained and our practices, such as the routes and working processes, are precisely planned in order to maximize the safety of our customers. We also organize regularly a safety training for our personnel. In the beginning of every tour where we use equipment, it is always checked to comply with the safety standards.

We start all our tours with a proper orientation and our professional guides are happy to advice you about the local regulations and cultural differences to make your experience in Finland even more happy and memorable!

What is the responsibility of a guided activity provider in Finland?

We as a responsible guided activity provider have a liability insurance as according to the Finnish legislation and as a sign of professional services. As a standard, we warmly recommend you to have your own personal travel insurance on all your journeys, though. We wish that you read our FAQ section carefully to find the answers to your possible questions regarding our tours. If there is still anything unclear left after that, please contact us by email with your questions and we will be happy to solve the issues and give more detailed answers.

We always do our best to minimize all the risks and guarantee safety. This applies to personnel as well as the equipment and safety gear, such as bicycle helmets, we use on our tours.

Pick ups and accessibility

Can you organize a pick up from e.g. the harbor by a car?

Helsinki has a very effective and eco-friendly public transportation network, which connects the cruise ship ports and airport to the city. It is also accessible with wheelchairs, mobility scooters and baby prams. We are happy to give you specific instructions on how to arrive in our meeting point by public transport. 

We aim to find you a way to enjoy this possibility. However we do understand that sometimes that can be challenging for various reasons. As responsible travel designer we aim to find the best solution for you!

How do I know what is possible and available on an accessible tour?

On our accessible tour services ‒ for participants using wheel-chairs, mobility scooters and walkers/rollators ‒ we follow the regulations of Finland. We work actively in collaboration with Finnish associations and companies offering accessible (tourism) services to get the latest information and updates of the sightseeing points and understanding accessible sightseeing means something different to all of us. The accessible vans we use have electric ramps so it is easy to get in and out of these vehicles.

We reserve rights to create and offer our tour participants the best, safest, most comfortable and firstly happy tour experiences in Helsinki and Finland. We are about to show you fun in safe and sustainable ways.

Tours and guides

How many people can be attending the same public tour with me on the day of my visit?

When we offer services daily, the amount of participants varies a lot from day to day. During the peak season our public walking tours might gather several dozens of people at a time, but then again it might be less than ten people as well. Our theme tours usually provide a more intimate experience depending on the service and the date of your visit. On all our bike tours, we have a maximum of 8 people per guide and extra guides in case if there are more people attending.

For a completely personal experience we are always glad to offer your group a private tour depending on the guide availability, just contact us as early as possible!

I read good reviews on a specific guide. Can I choose who will be guiding me/us?

Unfortunately this is not possible, because we share the shifts between our guides only a few days before each tour depending on the currently active tours as well as availability of our guides and their expertise and language skills. This is to ensure the optimal guide for every tour we conduct. All our guides are trained professionals who have a personal selection of tours they are available for, meaning also that they do only tours they know well and are comfortable with. They have all similarly received equally good reviews from our customers, so you can be sure to have the best possible member of our team for your tour!

Tour photos and other memories
We aim to take photos including all the participants of our tours. Every guide has a smart phone for such a procedure and activities. We publish many of these photos on our Facebook pages: Happy Guide Helsinki  & Bike Tours Helsinki . Some of them are also presented on our Instagram, TripAdvisor and on our public websites.
In case if you do not feel comfortable to be in our photos, we sincerely appreciate your privacy and it is not a problem. Please just let your guide know about it when you see photos being taken (or even before)! We are always happy to share these memories with you and appreciate even more if you are willing to publicly share your personal memories and experiences in the aforementioned forums!

Bike tour policies

To view the specific policies concerning our bike tours and the minimum requirements to join the tour, please see the Policies section on our Bike Tours Helsinki website!

Corporal / business

My company / organization needs a tour with customized program for our group visiting Helsinki. Can you offer something?

Of course! Besides serving many happy leisure travelers, we have lots of experience organizing customized guiding services and planning of activities for companies from all around the world. We are happy to make suggestions to you after you have contacted us by email and know more about your desires.

How can I cooperate with Happy Guide Helsinki as a travel agent, retailer or someone else with a business proposal?

We are always open to new suggestions and offers. You may contact us or email directly CEO Karri Korppi, info(at)happyguidehelsinki(dot)com and tell what do you have in your mind. We work closely together with several companies, travel agents and other operators in the travel industry.