If you want the experience of hunting for truffles you need to look somewhere else. Through Trip Advisor I paid about $220 dollars to do this. I had another American join me who has done an actual truffle hunt in France. We met with two guys who are very nice and fun to talk to, but they are not professional truffle hunters and had no new information to teach us that I did not already learn from google. After some conversation, we walked for about 3 minutes to a small clearing where they had buried some truffles ahead of time. They showed us the dog digging up the truffles which was cool, but I thought I had paid for an actual truffle hunt. This portion of the experience lasted for about 20-30 minutes. You then go to a lady's house where she makes you some admittedly really good food and lets you taste some of the wine she makes in her home. The pasta she makes was one of the better things I had to eat in Slovenia. Summary: Not worth the money Very short No actual truffle hunting happens Some pretty good food I would rather go on an actual truffle hunt and find nothing instead of doing what we did for this experience. I only learned superficial information and heard excuses for why I wouldn't be able to see a truffle anyways.
Dear Nicholas, please see the answer from one of the 'two guys' that were with you that day: Hello Nicholas, We are genuinely sorry that you were not satisfied with the experience. I remember you well, and I remember us having a very pleasant time together, which is why your 2-star review honestly surprised me. At no point during the experience did you tell us that you were unhappy or that something was wrong. I would just like to clarify a few points. Regarding the price - the final price charged by the platform is not something we determine. The advertised duration of the experience is also clearly stated on the listing. Perhaps the experience felt shorter to you because, before going to the demonstration area, we spent quite some time waiting for a third participant who unfortunately never arrived. During that time, we were already talking about various things, including truffles and Slovenia. So we were certainly not together for only 20–30 minutes. I also remember the other American participant mentioning that she had previously done a private truffle hunt in France. Unfortunately, I do not know exactly what she experienced there or how truffle hunting is conducted in France, so I cannot really compare the two experiences. I would also like to clarify your comment that we are not professional truffle hunters. There were two of us involved. One of us hunts truffles as a hobby and enjoys spending time with his father and helping him with his English pronunciation during the presentations. However, the person who demonstrated the dog to you is an actual and experienced truffle hunter. The dog is trained specifically to work with its handler. What you saw was a trained truffle dog working with the person who actually hunts with and handles the dog. This is not something we simply learned from Google. All the information we gave you was accurate and specific to our particular region. Of course, some general information about truffles can be found online. But if the information we gave you was simply information available on Google, then you would also know that genuine truffle hunting takes place very early in the morning or during the night and can last for several hours. There is also no guarantee that anything will be found. Adding several hours of unpredictable hunting to lunch, wine tasting, and the rest of the experience would simply not be realistic within the advertised timeframe. That is exactly why we are transparent with our guests and explain that what you are seeing is a demonstration. The truffles are placed beforehand so that the dog can reliably demonstrate the search process. The dog does not know where they have been placed; it still has to locate them using its trained sense of smell. The purpose is to show guests how a trained truffle dog works and what the process actually looks like, rather than promising something that cannot be guaranteed during a short daytime experience. What is most unfortunate for us is that you never mentioned any dissatisfaction while you were here. From our perspective, we had a very pleasant time together, you seemed to be enjoying yourself, and we had many conversations and laughs. We are truly sorry that the experience did not meet your expectations. We respect that you may have expected something different, but we also wanted to clarify these points so that future guests reading your review have the complete picture. Thank you for your feedback, and again, we are sorry that the experience was not what you expected.
