Tea Around Town — Local services in New York

I'll itemize the good and bad so ppl can see what's applicable to them for decision making Bad: My understanding of getting the top tier package was that you got to pick your own seats. We had three people that paid together and then two other people that paid together we wanted to sit across from each other but when we got there we were told that seats were assigned so we didn't even get to sit by our other group. I went to slide into the booth to get out of the way of other customers. Someone had left one of the metal three tiered stands under the lip of my seat and it got jammed into my foot as I scooted into the booth. Very painful. I asked before I got on if there was a bathroom. I was told yes. I asked about halfway through where the bathroom was located and I was told it was near the exit. Neither people informed me that if you were going to go to the restroom that you needed to do so before the bus stopped. I was trying not to interrupt everyone's tea so I waited until we stopped and people started to disembark. People still needed to get off the bus I was going to pop in the bathroom really quickly. I was told once the bus stops you're not allowed to use the bathroom because they have other guests coming and they need us to hurry and get out. If you're going to feed middle age to elderly women 6 to 7 cups of liquid you're going to need to let them use the bathroom. I got off the bus I politely mentioned to the other guy standing outside of the exit that they should try and announce that people should use the bathroom before the bus comes to an end that way we all know and don't end up in the middle of New York without an easy bathroom to get to. He laughed like I was joking. I was serious. Had I known I would have gone before the bus stopped and just shuffled past everybody and interrupted their tea. I couldn't get my Tumblr open. That's what they serve the tea in is a plastic tumbler. I asked the server to help me. He told me he could not help me he could not touch my tumblr. That doesn't make sense. Somebody touched the Tumblr with your hand to put it in the cup holders before we got on the bus, or cocktail glasses were passed out by staff which means they were touched, the tea kettles being carried around were being touched. Why would you refuse to help a customer and refuse to touch something that hadn't even been used yet? It just doesn't make sense if I was in a restaurant and I needed help with something like that the server would gladly open it. Rebooking is a nightmare regardless of your reasons and cost half of your original order. If you need to rebook and one of the guests previously booked cannot come if you were in a party of two you're just out of luck and forfeited your money because they do not let parties of one person schedule or reschedule. A girl sang for most of the ride. She had a lovely voice, but it was hard to talk to the other yes with her singing. I would have rather had the classical music playing in the background that was on when we first came on. They gave little information about the sites that you saw. I know it's not a history tour but I thought more than a forward sentence about each site would have been given. Maybe the history of tea? Type of tea or even the pairings of what would go well together? None of this. They told you the flavor of the tea and poured it in your cup and that was it. If you have to rebook and pay the additional 50% they want to run your card before they will tell you which times are available. If you have other things you're doing while in town and only have certain times and days you can go they won't tell you any of that information until they run your card for the 50% fee. I just kept saying we're going to run your card and then we'll let you know about availability. good: The...

I will be as honest as possible. When I booked this tour for my group I was skeptical because I don't consider 4/5 stars something I would be interested in, but some people in my group really wanted to do this.

Pros: The foods and teas were delicious, the bus decorated very pretty, the table settings very pretty as well. The tumbler we got to take home was cute and the box for any leftovers was very cute/pretty as well. The singer was fabulous, the servers very friendly and as helpful as they could be. Cons: I specifically told customer service I wanted my group to be seated together, we were not, four of my group had to sit at tables of two further down the bus which was did not make me happy, especially after telling them ahead of time we wanted to be seated together and was told no problem.

The iced teas were LUKEWARM, on a hot humid summer day you would expect iced teas to be iced cold.

The tea samples were just that, samples/tastings, not enough and we were told we get 6 teas total, one every 15 minutes we only got three and had to ask for the fourth one as the trip ended, so we felt rushed off the bus and could not finish. They also told us they discontinued one of the teas and didn't have the other one.

NO ICE on the whole bus to cool off all of the drinks??? Terrible.

NO MOCKTAIL, only rose or sparking apple cider (we paid for premium for the mocktail or rose, I was dying to try the mocktail) and we were told they discontinued it, so why was it still on the website? Very disappointing.

The ride was a bit bumpy, so we had to be cautious with everything on the table and the air conditioning was not working like it should on a hot humid day, it was a bit uncomfortable.

When you pay an extra $40 for premium, you expect to get enough for the money you paid, but the extra two tiny savory foods, some of the desserts and the "drink" and priority entry was not really worth the extra money.

The scanning system to scan your tickets is AWFUL and doesn't work very well.

We arrived 20 minutes earlier and had to stand outside in the humidity and heat while waiting for them to set up? Telling the standard ticket holders to go stand away at the wall of the library in the blazing sun was not very nice while the premium people got to stand by the bus under the shade.

The bathroom, although decorated nicely, was smaller than a small coat closet, too tight.

The steps, if you are not careful can cause an accident, some are very steep, someone should be there helping some people who need help up and down the stairs and there should be warnings about them and the floor upstairs with the different levels that I almost tripped on.

I don't like giving bad reviews and was hoping the reviews were wrong, but some of them were pretty accurate.

I hope my review helps those who are walking a fine line of whether to do...

I thought I was being so innovative by suggesting my friends and I try a tea bus for my birthday. To our dismay, the whole thing turned out to be a complete disaster.

Needless to say, my quest for an awesome and unique birthday experience definitely fell flat with this disastrous choice.

After enduring a torturous 40-minute wait at the stop, we were finally informed by an attendant that the bus had broken down. How typical, we thought sarcastically, only to be assured that this was a rare occurrence. Yeah right! We reluctantly accepted our fate and considered our next move: demanding a refund. The nerve of the Tea bus company to waste our precious time like this is absolutely unfathomable. And to add insult to injury, we were given only option: reschedule for another day. As if that wasn't infuriating enough, it took a call to corporate to finally open up another option: a refund. The audacity of these people!

I can't believe we actually thought booking another bus tour would be a good idea after the disastrous experience we had with the first one.

Here we are, foolishly believing that things would magically improve just because it's a different day. We were even reassured by the representative that everything would be great this time because he booked 8 seats for us so we could all sit together and enjoy the experience. Getting all 8 of us together was like planning a presidential campaign! Some of us had to travel from Brooklyn, Queens, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and the far reaches of Suffolk Long Island. When the bus arrived, we were all decked out in our gloves and fancy headwear, half exhausted but still super excited! But then, we were told that our reservation couldn't be found. The lackluster attitude of the obnoxious tour guide sent me into a rage! He callously stated, "Oh, I only see 5 seats reserved. We can't accommodate all 8 of you, so you can't board!" It was a complete disaster and we was beyond frustrated. We were seething with anger when that incompetent representative had the audacity to ask us to step aside so he could board everyone else first! We were absolutely livid because we had paid almost $300 per couple for the luxury experience. Why did he act as if we hadn't paid our hard-earned money or done something to deserve being treated so unfairly? It was utterly ridiculous and completely unacceptable. To top it all off we are very disgruntled because we were never offered any form of...