I typically try to avoid giving a bad review, but I can’t avoid this one, and you should avoid this tour.
The tour was scheduled for 12/25, yes Christmas I was surprised too, so I booked it, almost expecting it to be canceled. We were informed on 12/19 that some of the locations they would typically take us to were closed but they were working on, making this a very memorable experience for us but we would need to start an hour later. I reminded them of my severe shellfish allergy, the guide said NO PROBLEM.
The day of the tour we were joined by a group from the cruise ship who had to catch the ferry back to the boat by no later than 4:30, this caused our tour to be rushed. Stop one (1) was a new place for the tour where we were given frozen drinks and a fried pork dish with fried plantains. I could not have the food as it was fried with shrimp; one of the tour guides had to find this out for me as the other one said it was fine, she didn’t take cross contamination into consideration at all, the entire day, the other guide did.
Stop two (2) was in front of a church, on the sidewalk, where we were given a minimal amount of history and grocery store spam/rice/nori wraps. No one could confirm the sauce or cross contamination so once again, no food on the food tour. Stop three (3) was at a wall, next to the restaurant we would have typically gone to but was closed, best Mai Tai’s from what we were told. At the wall we were served grocery store bought poke, with homemade white rice, some local sodas and a small servings of homemade pasta salad (think condiment container). I had the pasta salad, wasn’t that good. The rest was either quickly cross contaminated or could not confirm it was safe for me to eat. We were then given an apple banana and sweet longan, from the market to try. The last three stops consisted of a Pizza place (which was good), a Fish Taco establishment, where the tacos were inedible for me, and very greasy/not good according to my family, and finally Gelato, great little place but you could go there on your own.
The tour should have been canceled, I would not recommend this tour, especially with an allergy. Spending ~$145 for a couple small drinks, a slice of pizza and a bite size gelato was not worth it. Very, very disappointed.
Ответ от хоста
Jan 2025
Jennifer, we do appreciate you spending your Christmas Day with us, thank you for booking our tour. All we can say is we went to great lengths to make this tour special for you. As you were notified, a few of our normal restaurants were closed so we came up with a different food tour that we considered better than the normal tour. Our guides deal with shellfish allergies all the time with no issues. The restaurant with the plantains was on the tour for the first time, so forgive us for not knowing what oil they fry their plantains in. This obviously ruined your tour from the beginning, and according to the guides the group became more and more miserable as the tour went on. The spam has no shellfish, the poke has no shellfish, the pizza has no shellfish, the fish tacos have no shellfish. The fruit has no shellfish. The gelato has no shellfish. There was plenty of delicious food for you to enjoy but after the first stop you weren't in the "mood". The fact that you refused to eat any of this is not on us. Again thank you for joining us on the top rated tour in Kona!