Civitatis Tenerife reviews: prices, cancellation and is it legit?

Spanish speakers will probably know Civitatis already: on its Spanish-language website, the Tenerife activities add up to tens of thousands of reviews. British visitors are less likely to have come across it. Its catalogue on the island is mid-sized, but very much geared to the north, walking routes and Spanish-speaking guides and, unlike GetYourGuide and Tiqets, it has a genuine range of transfers. Its weak spot is transparency: it doesn't tell you which company runs the trip.

We don't earn a commission from Civitatis. We measure it by the same yardstick as GetYourGuide, Tiqets and Headout, which are our partners.

Who's behind Civitatis

Civitatis Tours, S.L. is a Madrid company. It was founded in 2008 by Alberto Gutiérrez, from Valladolid, as a free travel-guide website, and started selling tours the following year. Today it's run by Andrés Spitzer. The British fund Vitruvian Partners later bought into the company with about €100 million, alongside the founder. It says it has more than 4 million customers and more than 5 million reviews.

How it works

Civitatis simply provides a booking service: the tours are run by local operators. Unlike GetYourGuide or Viator, the listing generally doesn't name that company, so you don't know which company will pick you up or who's responsible if something goes wrong. Only people who have booked can leave a review, on a scale of 0 to 10.

What it sells in Tenerife

The Spanish-language website lists about 148 activities and more than 37,000 reviews, with an average of 9.2 out of 10. The English version has barely a few hundred reviews: its audience is mainly Spanish-speaking.

What sets it apart:

• Free tours of Santa Cruz, La Laguna and La Orotava, listed as free. You still have to book them, and with this format it's usual to tip the guide at the end: check on the listing how each one works.
• Hiking: the night walk on Teide from €26, rated 9.6 from more than 2,300 reviews, and the Anaga walk from €24, rated 9.7 from more than 3,300.
• Transfers from €7.50, with about 3,900 reviews. Neither GetYourGuide nor Tiqets is a real option for that; more in airport transfers.
• The north: Teide, Icod, Masca and Garachico from the north for €58, the La Orotava banana plantation from €20, a camel ride in El Tanque from €16.

It also has whale-watching boats from Los Cristianos from €27, the eco-catamaran with a hydrophone from €47, the submarine from €61, La Gomera at €110 and the Volcano Teide tours at the official price (€92 with the cable car).

Prices compared with the official websites

For the big parks Civitatis charges the same as everyone else: Siam Park €44, Loro Parque €44 and the Twin Ticket €78.

Civitatis isn't in this table, but it sells the Twin Ticket at the same official price of €78. Siam Park is shown crossed out from €48 to €44: there's no discount, €44 is what it costs on siampark.net. We haven't found Aqualand or Jungle Park in its Tenerife catalogue. No platform sells the cable car without a tour: €43 return on volcanoteide.com. The other comparisons are in compare prices.

Cancellation, payment and customer service

Each activity has its own policy. The whale-watching boat from Los Cristianos, for example, can be cancelled up to 24 h beforehand.

You can pay by Visa, Mastercard, PayPal or Klarna, in euros, dollars, pounds or several Latin American currencies. Depending on the provider, you pay the full amount when you book or just part of it.

Support is 24/7, but by email (reservas@civitatis.com) or contact form: there's no phone number in its terms. That's one of the usual complaints, along with an automated chat that goes round in circles without solving anything. On Trustpilot it scores 4.5 from about 195,000 reviews, with just 5% one-star, the lowest proportion of the six platforms, and it replies to 98% of negative ones within 24 h. Its Android app is rated only 4.3. These are today's figures. Customers praise the guides and how easy it is to book, and criticise timetable changes and the fact that nobody takes responsibility when the local operator lets them down.

On languages it's the most limited: Spanish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese. There's no German, Dutch, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Chinese or Japanese version.

Who it suits

Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese speakers; anyone staying in the north or after hiking routes and free tours; and anyone who wants to buy Siam Park or Loro Parque with the most leeway to cancel. English speakers can use it too, with far fewer reviews to go on. It isn't for people who need to know the operator's name before paying, nor for German or Dutch travellers.

Alternatives

GetYourGuide has more boats and names the provider on every listing. Viator competes on day trips with pick-up. For museum and garden tickets, Tiqets. Headout and Klook have hardly any catalogue on the island.