A friend and I recently did a quick get-away to Branson Missouri we looked at different things to do and wound up picking this as our main item to do because of the great reviews. The reviews made it seem like you learn a lot about Branson, go to three great wineries, and have a really great tour guide walking you through the whole thing... that was NOT our experience. On the day we went they could only do 2 wineries so they substituted a moonshine/whiskey distillery for the third. The first 'winery' was about a minute from the dropoff location and only carried really sweet wines (think Boone's farm) and didn't really have any character or ambience so not the best start (especially since this was 1/2 our wineries). Also the 'tour guide' didn't even come in with us or explain anything about the winery. After that we loaded back on the bus and the driver/tour guide passed out paper for us to circle five wines to try from, no recommendations or talk about the next winery or the town. At the next winery, which was located behind some warehouses - so location odd, and when we got there the 'tour guide' told us to come back on the bus in an hour and again didn't come in or guide our experience. We walked in and unlike the last winery that was completely dead except for our group this one was fairly busy and none of us had any idea what to do, we had no direction at all. So after a few awkward minutes we realized we had to each jostle our own way up to the bar to turn in our sheets. We then had to go find our own seats, I did see that the 5 samples were $10 if you did this on your own. I didn't love any of these wines either but they were significantly better than the first winery and the atmosphere at the winery itself was pretty good. An hour later we loaded up and they took us to the moonshine/distillery, were we got 3 thimble sized samples and a tour. This was the only place we went that had a tour and that actually made their product on site (the others were more just like bars/tasting rooms). So even though I don't like moonshine or whiskey I'd say that was my favorite stop just because I at least learned something there and I feel like that group cared about their product more. Again the 'tour guide' didn't come with us and just rounded us up at time to go. The last part of the night was the dinner, which was good, although again the 'tour guide' didn't come in with us. Overall, I had fun since I went with a friend of mine, and we had some fun people in the group but honestly I wouldn't recommend this 'tour' as its not a tour, you could do the exact same thing just using Uber, as it doesn't include a guide or any education beyond what the places you go provide on their own. I feel for this price point, there should of been an experienced and friendly tour guide with our group... I almost wonder if our actual tour guide was sick that day and they just had the driver take us around. At this price and with these ratings I definitely expected more. Also neither my friend or I cared for any of the wines we tried and neither of us like whiskey/moonshine, I had expected to buy a few bottles but nothing jumped out at us. In retrospect since we only had this one night to do things I wished I'd gotten tickets for one of the local shows instead.
Réponse de l'hôte
May 2022
Mike was the driver for this tour. He drives/guides this tour 3 days a week. Same person, same tour, same places, same vehicle. All I can say to readers of the 2 Star review above is, "Read all the other reviews above and below this one." Sometimes you just can't please some people. 😞