Napa Valley Wine Trolley — Attraction in Napa

I hate to leave bad reviews, but my wife and I felt our experience was completely misleading based on the descriptions from their website and upon reading some of the previous good reviews it confirms what we felt (that our day was likely much different than what we were promised). Had we known what we were getting into, we would have definitely chose to just uber/private taxi to a few select wineries instead.

We did the trolley tour the week of 8/23/21 for some context.

The pros: The trolley was a pretty cool environment. The breeze while driving felt great on what became a pretty hot day. The driver was friendly, funny, and informative. He did a great job. The trolley was right on time to pick us up. The trolley provided plenty of water bottles for everyone. The first winery we stopped at was exactly what we imagined. A textbook tasting of four different wines for a fair price and we were able to sit outside and enjoy the nice day.

Now the cons begin: The Classic Tour is advertised as going to 3-4 wineries. We went to three "places" and I would argue that only one of them (the first stop) was a true winery. Our second stop was puzzling. This turned into a wine trolley tour to a tour of Yountville. First, it wasn't a winery. It was a tasting room downtown Yountville that had wines available. Second, I feel like we stopped here more for the convenience of food than the wine. It seemed like more of a convenience stop because the food was made at a pizzeria inside the tasting room/market instead of what I imagined, which was more going to true wineries and lunch being provided along the way. In all fairness, both the wine, pizza, and value of the tasting were very good at this stop, but this stop was strange because it felt like the school bus driver just let the kids off for a few hours and said "go check out the town, I'll see ya in a few hours". The most puzzling part about this stop was the fact we had nearly an hour of downtown after the lunch and wine tasting was done. Almost as if wandering around the few blocks of Yountville was an intentional part of the tour. We got back on the bus and the tour guide was like "yeah isn't Yountville nice; did you check out the market; did you check out the bakery". Sure yeah, but why the heck are we just stopping in a town for that long when we are supposed to be at wineries haha. I doubt anyone thought their money was going toward that. (by now, it was already our hunch that logistics for this particular day were messed up) To end it, we were dropped off at yet another cellar/tasting venue almost downtown Napa, not a winery/vineyard. This place was just a building and we were seating outside backing up to a parking lot. To add salt to the wound on this one in particular, they charged $50 to taste four wines with a retail price on their wines of about $60-$75 per bottle. More overall, the cost. It's $125 for the trolley transportation which doesn't include any of the tasting fees (I understand this part is clearly advertised, I will admit). But I bring it up because for the experience we happened to get on this day there is no way it was worth that. Depending on the day, you could easily come short of that with Ubers and just select...

Upper Valley Tour – Worth the money!

My husband and I took the Upper Valley Tour, September 14, 2016, because it was our first time in Napa Valley and we wanted to see Castello di Amorosa. We had a great time on the tour. All three wineries were excellent. Be advised that it is chilly and windy in the open air trolley in the morning, definitely wear a light jacket or sweater. Since it was just the two of us, it was nice to be in a group and socialize. Turns out most of our group were from the East Coast!

Sure, you can drive yourself to the wineries and purchase admission to Castello di Amorosa for the tour and wine tasting and save some money, but I wanted my husband to enjoy himself, see the beautiful scenery, and be able to drink without worrying about driving. Believe me, even though we were only doing tastings, after 3 wineries, we were feeling no pain! Our Trolley guide also told us interesting information about the wineries and the area along the way. He stopped the trolley at the Napa Valley sign and took our picture in front of the sign. He also took our pictures in front of Castello di Amorosa. . I do apologize that I forgot our guide’s name. The staff at all three wineries were extremely knowledgeable and very personable

We went to Castello di Amorosa, Clos Pegase Winery and Beringer Vineyards.

The tour and tastings at the Castello di Amorosa were included with the Trolley Tour ticket. The tour of Castello di Amorosa was very impressive and the best part was the wine tasting, which was in a private tasting room with only our group. We really enjoyed the wines there. We purchased some bottles to be shipped to us and also joined their wine club.

We had lunch at Clos Pegase in the basement/cave of the winery, which was interesting. The lunch was okay, but it would have been nice to ask us in advance which lunch meat we preferred. Luckily, my husband and I got what we wanted (I am not as fussy as he is), but the last person got whatever was left if they liked it or not. The salads were excellent, but the sandwiches had a lot of green “lettuce”. My husband didn’t like it and pulled it all out and there wasn’t much left in the sandwich after that. I ate the green “lettuce”, but it would have been better with less. The wines were very good there and we purchased some bottles to be shipped to us, which also waves the tasting fee. I thought the architecture of the building and the gardens were beautiful! This was also a private tasting and lunch with only our group.

Even though I am not a fan of Beringer, our tour guide told us to taste their reserve wines. They are not the typical Beringer wines that we find in our local liquor store on Long Island in New York. He was right! The wines were excellent and we even joined the wine club.

I would recommend the Wine Trolley if you just want to relax and let them handle everything, especially if it’s your first time there. I definitely would like to return to Napa Valley and would book their other tour in order to experience...

This experience could have been great, but it was not. It definitely was an experience we will remember for years to come. To be clear, this is not a negative review regarding the driver, he was amazing and did what he could with what he was given. We visited during a California Heat Advisory, temps 103+, they notified us that due to the heat advisory they were not able to provide a trolley but instead they would provide a charter bus to provide guests with an air-conditioned mode of transportation. We were disappointed as we paid for the trolley experience, but accepted that our timing was just terrible, who would have thought that October would have a heat advisory? We get to the pickup location, meet the bus and check in, and then we were off to the first destination, about 30 minutes away. Halfway there it was very noticeable that there was absolutely NO AIR CONDITIONING on this bus. We get to the first location, a beautiful Castle, Castello di Amorosa. Absolutely beautiful, we wish they allowed us more time at this location so we could have taken the tour to see the torture chamber below. Gia was fabulous, and the wine was fantastic. Then we load back into the already hot bus to travel another 30 minutes to lunch at Tra Vigne Pizzeria. Food and Service here was great! This is where things went sour super quick, by this time its high noon, its 100 out and the bus with no air full of people start to get real grumpy and smells start drifting. Our next stop was Raymond winery, we had super high hopes and were extremely disappointed. The winery smelled terrible, we've visited numerous wineries and blending rooms and never came across one that smelled this terrible or sewage and rotting fish. The entire winery was decked out in this weird BDSM / Moulin Rouge type of theme, the new owner went way too flashy, definitely overcompensating for something. The wine was terrible, and not a single place to dump your wine out. It absolutely ruined our palettes for the rest of the day. The last winery was fine, and by the time we got there we all just wanted water to rehydrate from the sauna we were being forced to travel in. The winery workers acted like it was a hassle to bring water and demanded that we shared water with 30 other people, which we already were. The concept would have been great if we were actually on a trolley, even in the heat, but the fact is they turned the trolley wine tour into a traveling sauna that nearly caused the entire group to leave with...