Porto : Fonseca Wine Cellars & WOW Day Pass

Margarida is an amazing guide

It was fun to recommend 10/10, very friendly, share interesting facts about wine and has translation into your language, also has spots for photos and share 5 wine tastings. The Cowboy part my favorite!

Very rotating experiences. Super nice people. We bought daily tickets and value it. Also has esplanades many tours to eat.

We did the lot in one day- absolutely great- brilliant air-conditioning, all facilities were brilliant. Not expensive if you took your time- we paid €74 but stayed for 5 hours. Went to two cafes. Lots of lovely shops too- discount with your tickets.

The museums were well cultivated, felt like a journey through them. We did art of drinking, wine experience and Porto through the ages. The full day access for all 7 museums was 44e. Definitely worth it, but sadly I think they out priced themselves as it was really quiet. I’d highly recommend, there is a cool food market a few steps away.

The World of Wine exhibit is very interactive and tells the story of wine in a very palatable way. You follow wine, not just from the Duro Valley, but all regions fairly extensively. Everything from the climate, soil, to the end product, wine is covered in a way that won’t bore you to tears. Plus, at the end of the exhibit you’ll get to partake in a wine tasting of wines from Portugal. If you’re looking for an indoor experience while on your trip, this would be foolish to miss.

We weren’t sure what to expect, but WOW, we did enjoy our visit. We took in the Porto Experience, The Chocolate Experience, The Cork Experience, The Wine Experience and the Pink Palace Experience. Our favourites were the Cork and the Chocolate experiences, however all five were well worth a visit. The experiences were informative, interactive and fun; we had both chocolate and wine tasting along the way. Shops and toilets paved the way from one museum to another. We spent about six hours there, but we could have easily spent more time. The staff were friendly, knowledgable and informative throughout. The whole place was impressive and had a high standard of cleanliness. As it was late when we came out, we also decided to stay for dinner at one of their restaurants (PIP) - the best tomato soup ever and the mains were good too, recommended! Outside the restaurant there was a large area with seating which had views of the River and surrounding areas. A great day out for both adults and children alike with lots of surprises along the way. Well worth the visit.

Difficult to find. Staff helpful esp. Liked The cork experience and The history of porto. Would recommend even with kids.

Total discovery on a day when the weather was gloomy! These museums are a real surprise, with some incredible and surprising collections.... A museum that gains to be known and recognized!!!

WOW is a wonderful place to visit, but still not well recognized or given its due. We bought Viator “all-museums” tickets which were very reasonably priced. I knew there were many museum exhibits/restaurants/wine bars and we THOUGHT spending 11am to 3pm (4 hours) was enough time for a relaxing day. Was I ever wrong! Not nearly enough time to see this place properly and relax over lunch and also drink some wine and chill. You can’t see this place properly without being here for a full day and early evening. Take note, or you’ll miss ALOT, like we did. Lucky for us, we got there at 11am on a Tuesday and had most of these museums to ourselves. (They seem like they’d be too crowded on a weekend to really enjoy them). First the good stuff - This place is AMAZING. The individual museums are BIG- much bigger than I expected! They are fabulous, high caliber quality, and in-depth- history and take a while to get through the whole museum. We first zero-ed in on the Cork Museum (very interesting!!) and were pleasantly surprised on the depth and richness of the exhibit. Though after we left that exhibit, we knew we were already in time trouble on having a “relaxing, enjoyable time” at WOW. At that point, we rushed through another museum, had a somewhat rushed lunch on the patio, then failingly tried to RUN through 3 other museums before needing to leave for a J.Grahams Port tour at 3:15pm. - Cork Museum was our favorite, maybe because I missed my chance at a tour in Evora’s cork production area, or that the Cork Museum was a great mix of verbiage and tangible, interesting displays. Loved making a personalized cork, though directions or the automation made us screw up the first time. - The Pink Palace was a wonderful Instagram-cute concept for Rosé, including Rosé tastings. - The Chocolate museum was terribly hard to find & disappointing- too much verbiage to read, not enough tangible visual and stimulating displays. Loved the different chocolate smelling area and the samples and the claw machine. - The Porto history museum was pretty interesting. - Never saw the other museums and was so disappointed. - The grounds are beautiful and there’s a lot of outdoor patio table seating and dining area options, though many were closed at lunchtime when we were there on Tuesday. It would be nicer if we had more than 2 choices for lunch. The wine bars weren’t open til 4pm. Sadly, but again, we never had the time for that chill moment we had planned. - I would tell every tourist to go to WOW when in Porto, and to make enough time for it to fully enjoy all of it. 4 stars. It would be 5 if we didn’t get so easily lost all the time, and knew we needed much more time upfront. Now, the Not-so-Good stuff: (just my opinion as a Marketing exec) - The place DESPERATELY needs better maps and directions! BIG TIME. From where our Uber dropped us off, we WASTED precious time trying to translate the map and find the ticket entrance. Like 10-15 minutes walking all around this place, up & down alleys and stairs. Ridiculous. - The place is more spread out than I ever assumed. Many of the museums are all in the same large building, across 3 different floors, which is nice- though still very spread out. The Chocolate museum, however, was in a whole other building, down a long alley and, again, not easily locate-able. Had to ask for directions twice! The entrance door even says something about COFFEE, not Chocolate. ???? Chocolate exhibits should be rich in tangible displays. Pump Chocolate aromas thru ventilation? More interactive stuff. The Cork museum has the right mix. - Sadly, for us being so time-challenged, the cute Pink Palace exhibit felt like we were on a Bar Crawl-or was it Bar RACE? We literally RAN through it, gulped down every sample like a shot- vs “enjoyed” the museum like it should be. - There needs to be much more directional WOW signage overall. Even when you ask the employees on Level 1 how to get to an exhibit elsewhere, they simply give you directions to the main ticket entrance employees and tell them to direct you from there. Really!?! - Online website- Highly recommend you mention that the average museum takes an average of 20-40 minutes to thoroughly enjoy, or that one needs a good 4+ hours to see just the museums alone, and much more time to add in the stores and have lunch. I would have loved to chill longer at our outside lunch, and I never got a chance to shop any of the gift stores. (Pout). - Better trained employees? The employee in the Porto “Yellow Duck” store hadn’t a clue why Porto was related to a yellow duck theme, so I never found that out. WOW is a GREAT concept! This place has SO MUCH potential but it can easily be MUCH better, easier to navigate and enjoy without rush. I do love WOW & hope to return on a future trip to Portugal.