My husband and I have been on several food or combined food/history tours in various cities, and are unanimous that it's always the best way to get to know a place. So we were surprised to be as disappointed as we were with our Boston tour.
I'd say the tour is planned well. It's a good selection of diners, cafes, and historical points of interest. We set out with great enthusiasm from the aquarium, but right away we could tell our guide, Joan, was not comfortable in the job. She frequently made the classic rookie presenter's mistake of turning around and looking at the topic of her lecture while speaking, which made it near impossible to hear her. Our timing seemed to be chronically off, and at one point she had to leave us behind to rush ahead and gets things prepared at the next place - good thing we were okay walking by ourselves! We spent an unusually long time at the Carrie Nation bar, with most of the group fidgeting for a while, which delayed the end of the tour so long that people were just walking away by the time we got the State House. I appreciate that Joan wasn't trying to cut anything down just to save herself time, but guests who have paid for a full tour shouldn't have to leave it before it's over, just because the guide can't plan time well.
On a more subjective level, I'd say she needs more practice in presentation. Not just remembering to look at your audience when you speak, but to more carefully approach the construction of a story. Frequently she launched into an anecdote, only to have to say midway through "oh, right, I forgot to mention that earlier..." which made for a fragmented learning experience (and heaven help the non-Americans, who got absolutely no introduction to who Paul Revere even is).
The company itself may have reason to reconsider the food distribution. Everything was delicious, but it was a hot day and no attention seemed to be paid to the elements. We picked up sandwiches in an Italian market, to go, then went to a cafe for coffees and cannolis, then to a park where we ate our sandwiches. It seemed very out of order - why didn't we get the drinks to go so that we could have something to drink along with our sandwiches? Everyone was dying of thirst by the time we got to the next stop, which was unfortunately a slice of salty pizza!
My husband, an engineer, also complained that we kept looping around the same streets periodically through the tour, which argues inefficiency. The company may have a good reason for doing things this way, but I hope it's a very good reason.
My conclusion: walking food tours are the best and I wish this company great success, but please give Joan some more training in both presentation and time management skills.
Réponse de l'hôte
Oct 2019
Thanks very much for the helpful feedback. We're disappointed to hear that your tour didn't meet your expectations, however, we're encouraged to know that we can take the feedback back to our guides team and learn for future tours. We're always focused on giving our travelers an experience that is fun, local, original, and memorable. Most importantly, the tour must have value to our travelers, and we always strive to make sure that each traveler is getting what he/she wants out of the experience. We're sorry that we fell short of our standards, and we encourage you to reach out directly so that we can make it right for you. Thanks again for the feedback and we're looking forward to improving for next time.