One should always be suspicious of a one star review on a page that has only 5 star reviews. In this case, the person who wrote the review was impossible to please, even before the tour. We gave her an 80% discount and on the day of the tour she paid $165 less than the agree upon price. Her cooking class was $32 a person, hardly “extremely expensive” and included a wine tour at a small family owned winery. the rest of the party had a lovely time and were quite embarrassed of their friend yelling and carrying on at the winery. We agreed on 4 dishes and one included the making of Churchkhela. Unfortunately the host was unable to obtain the grape juice needed for this, so our guide offered financial compensation which would have cost about $25 but she decided on her own to discount the tour another $165.
According to guide and two hosts. the party had a lovely time, they enjoyed the class and unfortunately the parents allowed the teenagers to drink and there was one teenager so drunk, our bus driver had to ask for bags for her to vomit it. This goes against the agreement in which we decided only the adults would taste wine. After the class and the ample lunch (there were at least 7 dishes on the table) the party enjoyed the premises, relaxed and slept on the sofas and outside in the grass as well as vomiting on the premises.
This reviewer was displeased even before the tour and she is lying about the guide and the services. A Georgian would never allow a party into their home and not have enormous quantities of food. It goes against the culture of hospitality that all Georgian abide. The reviewer was so rude to the guide and to the hosts that I have had to promise to be more careful with future guests better to prevent this type of treatment. The hosts are a lovely family with three children, they invited my guests into their home and the guests managed to get drunk and the reviewer yelled and carried on despite the hostess offering a wonderful class and a perfect day out in the countryside. To write a one star review on a service that she agreed upon and was enjoyed by her party just tells us and perhaps future tour operators that this is a person who is unable to be pleased or happy. At the end of the day we are offering a service that our clients enjoy and that we would like to go on ourselves and we feel that her review is completely unjustified, mostly because she is lying. She was trying to get the tour for free and asked for multiple discounts before the tour. The party made a variety of dishes made with local and organic ingredients, tasted at least 4 wines and had a winery tour and there were more dishes on the table to be enjoyed with what was made in the class. We also had a translator/guide there and organized private transportation. I know of no other company in Georgia who could offer a private and customized service for that inexpensive of a price. We organized a kosher meal and made sure she had a variety of option because she had a lot of demands regarding dietary restrictions. We regularly work with people with dietary or religious restriction and have never had a complaint. This woman has clearly gone out of her way to complain is is exaggerating with a one star review. An educated person would not try to destroy a family owned business like ours out of nothing other than vengeance, after yelling and screaming at our employees and service providers, after we bent over backwards to make the class happen despite her booking very last minute in high season and gave her discounts and bargains not once or twice but 4 times and she still stiffed the guide upon payment and we lost money on the tour, we actually had a loss of money on this tour when she did not pay the agreed upon amount.
Normally when we have gotten communication about something that was not 'pleasing to our clients it is usually circumstances beyond our control and we offer compensation and we are sorry for this, but in this case, this woman clearly has an agenda, perhaps is not stable and was completely out of line in our country. We are always open to criticism and feedback, but we can do nothing when the feedback is based on lies and events that did not happen. This review is frankly shameful and an embarrassment to her family and travel mates.
As far as nobody contacting her, she never emailed us to tell this to us. She had not only the guide's number but our local contact in Tbilisi as well as two different emails and a skype contact. We are super easy to reach and I am online all the time except when I am in the air. We did our best to organize a tour for her after we told her our chef in Tbilisi was not available on that date due to renovations so we offered a cooking class in a winery along with a wine tasting. She agreed on a service and a price and was incredibly rude to my colleagues.
As I said above, read her review with a grain of salt because there is absolutely no truth or value to it. The reviewer obviously has an agenda if she is willing to lie for no reason. We will also stand behind our guides and wine makers who are doing their best for Georgia.