The excursion did not start off on a positive note. When we arrived, they had no record of our reservation through Viator for 10 am. Luckily, I had printed out the confirmation from Viator and they offered to put us in a tour at 1:30 pm same day. We rearranged our day and came back at 1:30 pm. Howard led us on the trikes and he was very knowledgeable about the Sonoma area and the trikes were a fun way to see Sonoma. We stopped at a cheese shop and a historical building while driving through the vineyards and town of Sonoma. Two things that were disappointing: Howard was on the phone frequently handling personal business during the tour - not very focused on his customers. After two hours we headed back to the office - strange since it was a three-hour tour. There was no hiking. Howard said we were having a wine tasting. We did not really want to do a wine tasting, but thought the tour was a different tour than we had originally reserved and just went with it. The other couple on the tour also were surprised with the tasting - so clearly it was not expected. After the tasting Howard informed us that the tasting would cost us an additional $40 per person - on top of an already expensive excursion. None of us were happy since we had not been informed of the additional charge before the tasting. He wound up charging us $40 per couple - still not appropriate imo. Maybe we just hit him on a bad day - but what began as a fun excursion ended on a sour note.
事業者からの返答
We responded to this reviewer separately but in this public response, I'd like to say that we have a sign that invites anybody with even slight dissatisfaction to talk to us about it so that we can put it right for you. It is of course your choice to say nothing, wait a month and then post a negative review, but given the choice, 100 times out of 100 we would choose for our customers to leave us feeling, at the very least, satisfied. We are sorry that this reviewer did not. We do acknowledge that there were things we could have done better on the day, but we also would like to state that we were trying to resolve a situation that was entirely outside of our control. Due to a confirmed system glitch on Viator's end, we were never notified about this guest's reservation, so when they turned up, we were as surprised as they were. In trying to put things right, we managed to accommodate them later the same day, but unfortunately, nobody seemed to realise they had booked a Trike and Hike rather than our Classic tour. This explains why the guests were surprised by the wine tasting experience, which IS part of the Classic tour, but not the Trike and Hike. Rest assured that there are no hidden fees in our packages - indeed these fees are almost screamed out loud in the confirmation emails and on the same sign I mentioned at the beginning of this response. Unfortunately, the crucial element that went wrong on this day was not made by our team, but again, I do acknowledge that we could have done better in trying to put things right. At the same time, the guest could have spoken to us and we could have put it right for them on the day, so we are doubly disappointed to take this hit.
Thanks for taking the time to read this response - please take a little more to look at the overwhelming majority of five star reviews that we are proud to have earned!