It wasn't a friend of mine's, but the poster of the thread, but appreciate your comments.
Another thing people should be aware of, is that a lot of times, tour companies hire local tour guides for specific cities. Usually there's a tour guide and bus driver in charge of the whole tour. Then, when you visit different cities, they bring in local tour guides to show you around the highlights of that city. They probably contract with these various guides. When I toured the British Isles, we had local tour guides to take us around on walking tours, or bus tours of the area. We had one in London, Londonderry, Belfast, The Isle of Skye among them.
One time my husband and I took a tour of Oxford U with a “local” tour guide named Caroline. As soon as she saw us she said: “Oh, Americans. I hate taking you around; you’re all so childish.” I can’t say the tour got much better after that although my husband did ask her what apartments Laurel & Hardy had in A Chump at Oxford. I’ll never forget this humorless dame sneering “I have no IDEA where Laurel and Hardy stayed.”