Blue Sky Vineyard — Attraction in Illinois

My group of work people took a 2 hour bus trip to the wineries in this area - the first two treated us very well. The third -Star View not so great -due to having 17 people. So we stayed outside. We then went to Blue Sky where took our very large order for food and drinks (this is where we planned our dinner stop) and then asked how many people do you have? My boss said how many is allowed? She said 9 and he said we have double basically. So he asked if we should cancel our order and they said no. We sat outside in an area away from any other people and only one person went back in forth with our food and drinks and wore a mask. We were spoke to like criminals basically (I personally tried to help the situation with my boss and the workers were just very rude in general) “put your mask up” “we can’t hear you” so my boss takes his mask down to repeat himself and all they say is “put your mask back up and above your nose” we were very disappointed because we looked so forward to this visit. A worker went out to our bus and confronted the driver about how many people we have. He is from Effingham area where that is not a rule they have or were made aware of on an websites or phone calls we made in advance to this trip. At this point we didn’t feel welcome and decided to leave. They tried to charge us $500 dollars. We only received about half of our items. They tried to lie and say they didn’t have enough bottles to pour the wine, seal it and let us take it home. When we asked for a refund instead they went inside and got the bottles and came out to fill them for us. They didn’t want to give us an itemized receipt when we asked so instead them refunded us $200 because they could not show us why we were charged $500 originally. ||||What a terrible experience - I will never go back and I know the 16 others I was with won’t either. I would suggest sticking with Von Jacob and Alto Wineries if you...

My husband and I enjoyed the Shawnee wine trail 5 yrs ago and got engaged during our trip. We remember visiting Blue Sky during that visit and were looking forward to coming back. We arrived on Thursday at 5:45pm and told we could do a tasting but last call for buying chilled bottles had past. We asked the bartender if we enjoyed our tasting could we buy a glass and sit outside and then buy and take unopen bottles with us. She said yes. She said we had 15 minutes. It was 5:58 when we finished our tasting and ordered glasses of wine to sit outside and enjoy. The couple standing in front of us purchased 2 glasses. When we ordered we were told last call was over and could only purchase bottles to go. Tasting 4 wines did not take us 15 minutes! We were about 10 ft from the bar. So basically the bartender took our $16 plus $2 tip for 4 tastings each and rushed us out before the winery was closed at 630pm! The winery is not supposed to close until 6:30 and it was right before 6:00pm. We were going to buy 2 cases of wine but instead left feeling very disrespected and disappointed. No way I was giving them another dime! Gorgeous building, good wine, horrible service. There are too many wineries in the area to put money into a business with such rude service and stop serving more than 30 minutes before closing. I should have asked for my tasting money back. We drove almost 5 hours from home to visit. We gift wine from all over to family and friends and are looking forward to visiting other wineries in the area. Blue Sky will never get another dime from us! Horrible,...

On Friday June 23rd I booked one of their suites online. It showed it was available and that someone would contact me. The next morning I received an email from them thanking me for my reservation and saying they would be in touch to confirm my stay and to request payment information. Later Saturday morning I called them because I wanted to be absolutely sure I had the room. The person that answered the phone assured me that if it said it was available online when I booked it then it was my room. She also said they were busy that day and someone would call me back later. Since I hadn't heard from anyone by Tuesday afternoon and since our room reservation was for this coming Sunday I called them again. This time I was told that I didn't get the reservation and that just because it said it was available online didn't really mean it was. I told them what I was told by one of their employees the morning after I made the reservation. The person told me that their help isn't very reliable and that I shouldn't have been told that. I was told that unless they called me back to confirm my reservation then I didn't have one. If that isn't the worst way to run a business I don't know what is. How long should I have waited to find out I wasn't going to be called and didn't have the room? I had read great reviews about this place and thought it was going to be the perfect place to take my wife for our 35th wedding anniversary. Boy was I wrong. They have now ruined our plans. I wish there was a way to leave a lower score but terrible is as low as...