Charleston Carriage Works — Local services in Charleston

It’s taken me a week to write this because I had mixed feelings about my experience on this ride. I’ll start by writing about what made this ride great. The tour guide was knowledgeable. I don’t remember his name but he enjoyed talking about the history of Charleston. He loves what he does and obviously is passionate about sharing his knowledge. I loved how he began the tour talking about the horses that the company owns and how they are cared for. I felt that was important to lead with as some of us care about animals and want to make sure that what we are signing up for is good for them. So that part was important. Then he began discussing the importance of black American culture and how it has shaped even todays culture of Charleston. Which again, is very important and good to know. Everything up to this point was perfect. But then it started to get uncomfortable as for the entire rest of the tour he solely focused on slavery and slave quarters. Pointing out every house we passed that had slave quarters attached to them. My entourage was people of color and were the only POC on the full carriage ride. We were all very uncomfortable as we felt that the entire ride was solely focused on making sure we all knew where the slaves lived through the tour. There were so many different things that could have been brought up and/or discussed in this 1 hour tour. The big earthquake, the fires, the rebuild. But the entire tour focused on slavery and even ended with where they bought and sold slaves every Sunday. With all of this being said, me and my family did not feel that the tour guide intentionally set out to make any of us uncomfortable. We acknowledge his passion about a city that he loves. We just wish that it could have been about many...

We came up from Florida with a small group of high school kids and we were looking forward to seeing Charleston on a carriage ride. We only had 3 hours downtown and spent most of it waiting for this ride. When it was time to check in we were told then it was running 1 hour behind. We did not have the time to wait and in order to get a refund we had to walk down the street to the corner where we got the tickets. I wanted to check with the other 4 or 5 companies doing rides but the boss said lets go. Her knee was bothering her and she didnt want to walk back to see if we could squeeze in 8 asap. So we didnt and the kids were disappointed. I understand things happen but if they had called us 30 mins earlier and said that we would have had time to check the other companies and maybe found these kids a tour.

Per your response - you stated our tour was at 1:10 and your salesperson was calling us to let us know it would now be at 1:50 when we checking in at 10 mins before tour time. Ok so its not the 1 hour delay I stated but that is still 40 mins later and it's not that we didnt want to wait but it was we could not wait - the kids had to be somewhere else at 3. Also, had we known that our tour would be late - we would have gone earlier or used a different company.

Now instead of owning your mistake and apologizing - you want to make excuses and blame us for your ability to meet a scheduled time. Definitely next time we are here we will use a...

I booked and paid for a carriage tour for my wife, our son, his girlfriend and myself over two weeks in advance of the ride. My wife and I were repeat customers who enjoyed our previous experience with CCW. This was our son's first visit to Charleston. We wanted to make it special.

We arrived at the carriage works early and immediately asked the manager if it was possible for the four of us to sit together in the front bench of the carriage. We were assured that would be no problem, and we could occupy it. We waited. The carriage loaded. We were placed in the rearmost row.

The manager - who had assured me less than an hour before that we would have the front bench - said something about the the rearmost bench being the best seat in the house with an additional comment about the best seating for photographs. It was as if he deliberately ignored our request and was going out of his way to do us a favor.

The actual carriage driver was a woman who spoke far too softly and far too quickly. We could only make out a fraction of what she was trying to convey. We kept turning to each other asking, "What did she say?"

Granted, this is a small irritation in the grand scheme. But this repeat customer will...