DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY! We did the Ink Block tour last week and it is overpriced and I had a very…read moredisappointing experience with the owner over costs. He is the dodgiest businessman I've ever encountered, to the point where I feel obligated to write my first Yelp review. I do not like sharing negative information but this treatment pushed me to share my experience so that it won't happen to anyone else.
To reserve a tour, you first have to pay a deposit at the time of booking (fair enough) but then you have to pay in full for each person ($70/pp) the week before the tour. The owner, Joe, also encouraged me to pay for gratuity for each person ahead of the tour but at least I didn't do that piece on my credit card. So before even setting foot on this tour, I paid $840 for a party of 12. As luck would have it, our tour date was the weekend of Winter Storm Riley, that super windy Nor'easter/ Bombogenesis! We had friends joining from out of town who couldn't make it due to canceled flights and power outages.
I got in touch with Joe the morning of our tour and told him 3 people couldn't join us (which later turned into 4 ppl), could he please help us out so we didn't have to pay in full for everyone who wasn't able to attend due to extreme weather and got the response of "Hey no problem! I will look when I get home... I'm already down here setting up.. so just come have a good time! :-)"
Foolishly, I thought this meant he would help us out. I was wrong. Although Joe was at the restaurants before, during and after our tour, and had them rearrange the place settings to be set-up for our smaller group, he claimed there was nothing he could do about the extra $280 I had paid. I talked about this with him at the end of the tour (he awkwardly showed up at our last stop and took over for our much more personable tour guide) and he kept telling me that he would look into when he got home on his computer but there was nothing he could do now. While we were standing in the restaurant. Read: I don't want you to stiff us on the tip. (I did still tip our tour guide.)
So the next day I followed up with him and asked for an update on the extra $280 I paid and was told he was working with the restaurants to see if he could get a refund for what he paid. When I reminded him he had told me this would be "no problem", he ended the email by saying "So I'm working with the locations to see if I can retrieve money back so I need some time. I promise I will do my best to help you out."
I wrote to him and asked for another update yesterday, 7 days after our tour, before I wrote any reviews. No response.
After not hearing back from Joe, who had told me he was "working with the locations", I decided to call one of the locations. Guess what? Joe had never contacted them. The owner was very sorry to hear this and said of course he would have helped out. He even kindly offered us free food the next time we go in since, as he said, we were getting "a sh!tty deal". The restaurants were great.
Once caught in this lie, Joe told me there was nothing he could do about a refund but he offered me another wine tour. Riiiiight.
A few ways Joe could have made this less painful of an experience was (1) not to lie repeatedly about helping me out with a refund. Why string me along? (2) given us something for the $280 I paid. If nothing else, give us the wine that I had pre-paid for, or the small bites at the restaurants. Just as a good business gesture of "Hey I'm sorry so many friends couldn't make it due to the insane weather and you have to eat the costs...here's an extra _ANYTHING_ for your trouble!" He had enough time to tell the restaurants our group size was smaller, just not enough to return some of the extra money he pocketed, so we paid the extra money for absolutely nothing.
For $840 we got:
3 stops at restaurants basically next door to each other (Area Four, Lion's Tail, Fuji)
At Area Four: 1 bottle of red, 1 bottle of white (retails for $19.99) poured amongst 9 people (incl tour guide) plus two small cheese flatbreads
At Lion's Tail: 1 bottle of red and 1 bottle of white poured amongst 9 and two meat/cheese boards (several vegetarians on our tour but you don't get asked about the food that's been pre-arranged)
At Fuji: 1 bottle of wine and 1 of champagne poured amongst 10 people (owner, Joe, jumped in here) plus edamame and spicy tuna rolls for the table (again, many didn't eat these)
In summary, we paid $840 for 6 bottles of wine plus nibbles from the host kitchens that many wouldn't eat, and got lied to by the owner for a week until he gave up the lie and told me he has a no refund policy. It was painful. Please don't make the same mistake!