Marvy A.
Yelp
Last month, my brother decided to celebrate his 30th birthday in Napa....and because we loved it so much, I once again contacted Beau to charter a shuttle to fit our large party. We selected Beau not only because we were happy with their service last time, but their prices were very reasonable - more so than the other companies I compared them to and so it was easy to decide on which to book with.
Everything went smoothly when I booked...I read the contract, etc. and sent in our deposit. A couple of weeks before our scheduled tour, I called to confirm our reservation, to see who our driver was going to be and also to see if we can request specific wineries. Apparently (so I was told), that because it was a private tour, and because our party was so big (12 people), that *we* had to book those tastings ourselves!
I was very surprised as that was not written anywhere on the contract, nor was I told this over the phone. Salli, from Beau, told me that she usually tells customers this over the phone, but it must have been missed somehow when we spoke and that she was sorry.
So off I went with calling different wineries and making reservations for our large group. I've only gone on tasting tours and have never had to make reservations....so the biggest challenge I had was trying to figure out how long it would take to taste...and also lots of Google-mapping to figure out how long it would take to drive from one winery to another.
A week before our weekend, I get an email from Salli double checking to see if I've made reservations already...and asking if I needed any help with making those reservations because she felt bad about the mis-communication. I asked her to help me with V. Sattui because I couldn't get a hold of anyone, and she said she would go ahead and do that for me.
A couple of days before our trip, our assigned driver called me to confirm our times and when I told him about the reservations we had to make on our own, he was surprised that I had to do it myself...telling me that Beau usually books those themselves! On top of that, on the day of our tour...when we got to V. Sattui, there were no such reservation....lucky for us though, they were able to squeeze in our party as a "walk-in".
I'm very disappointed with our past experience with Beau. I had such high expectations because of our last tour earlier this year. I guess it's true that you get what you pay for! Sadly, I don't think we'll be using them again - whether it be for a semi-private or group tour.