This is by far the most unprofessional business I have dealt with in a long time. I'm usually pretty laid back, but I feel the need to warn others about them. So prepare for a detailed review.
We signed up for the Saturday afternoon 1:00 tour and paid online about a week ahead of time. The website and confirmation email said meet at Union Market in Church Hill, which is great because we can walk there and it's a fairly central/ downtown-ish location. Two days before the tour, they send an email indicating the pickup had been moved to Strangeways Brewery, which is 9 miles away in in the middle of an industrial park. Isn't the whole point of a bus drinking tour to avoid having to designate a driver? My man, who had purchased the tickets, messages Drink Richmond to say that is not going to work for us and we will gladly take a refund. There followed several exchanges, one of which involved the Drink Richmond staff telling him not to "stress out" (unprofessional) and then asserting that they we just asking to see if a change in pickup location would be ok. The email was not worded as if it was a question. Then they send an email to all the riders stating essentially "this one guy complained, so we are switching back to the original location" (also unprofessional).
We get to the market on time and there is no sign of a bus. No new emails. No calls. We meet other riders who are confused and frustrated. They had gone to Strangeways, but told there was no pick up there so came to Union. After waiting 20 minutes in the cold. I called the Drink Richmond number to confirm and the staff said he'd call the driver to check and call me back. He didn't call me back (unprofessional). 15 minutes later I call him again and am told the bus is 5 minutes away. The bus does finally show and there are two folks they picked up from Strangeways already on the bus. Clearly everyone was confused. We also found out later that couple had booked the Friday tour and had actually been called last minute to reschedule them, so they were pretty frustrated as well.
The driver was really nice and helpful. He indicated he was actually called in to work his day off on a route he doesn't usually work; he does the Williamsburg runs.
Stop #1. James River Distillery. Good tour. Good tasting. Well worth the stop. We are happy again.
Then we are informed that the remainder of the stops had been changed and I was frustrated again. The website listed the different itineraries that they rotate through during the week and we chose that particular one because they did not go to a cidery, but most of them do. We were supposed to go to Hardywood, then to Cirroc Vodka. Instead...
Stop #2. Blue Bee Cidery. As above, I'm not a cider fan. We got to try 3 samples. Then the staff took us out to the court yard and pointed at the different buildings and told us a little about their history. It was maybe 10-15 minutes to do the tasting and the "tour". We go out to the bus and the driver is gone... he was told he got his lunch break then because we would be on an hour long tour.
Stop #3. Stone Brewing. I love Stone and live nearby. In fact we had just been there the previous weekend. That's why we chose the tour that we choose... to go to new/ interesting places... that didn't happen. Stone gives us all four decent pours of their IPAs, but no explanation of the beers, how they are made, nothing... and no tour at all.
Over all. This tour was in no way worth 60 bucks. The staff are unprofessional and disorganized. You can't even count on getting what you signed up for. I wish we would have just Ubered around town ourselves. read more