Tea Around Town — Local services in Philadelphia

We didn't know what to expect, though assumed it would be a cute girly time, maybe some Bridgerton music in the background. ...It's not that lol.

Essentially, it's a repurposed Megabus filled with artificial flowers, rhinestones and paint. Cute for pictures, and we found it amusingly diy.

The snacks were lacking however. As mentioned by a few other reviewers - we left hungry. For $100pp, that's really not acceptable. 3 little macaron sized dessert treats pp, plastic wrapped veggies and questionable finger sandwiches. Who wants to eat a warm egg salad sandwich paired with hot tea, on a warm bus?

No water was given, which is kind of wild. Adding a cold bottle of water pp is inexpensive and would go a long way.

For the tea itself, the staff brought around hot tea and poured into our reusable travel tumblers. The first tea we received was not safe to consume immediately and burnt our mouths. All of the teas were fruity, sweet and tasty imo, but there was not enough time to allow the tea to cool to a safe temperature, drink it, and then be ready for the next round.

The souvenir travel tumblers were cute, but a better model would be to bring around small disposables with the tea samples and then having the patron pick their fave to fill up their tumbler and enjoy throughout the ride.

For onboard entertainment... Wow. As mentioned, we anticipated some background music and maybe a few pointers / fun facts about Philly landmarks. Instead -- there was unexpected live onboard entertainment with a hostess / singer - giving us some Disney showtunes, pop music, and interspersed landmark trivia. At times, too loud for conversation at our tables, but entertaining.

For the cost pp and rigid refund policy, the complete lack of customer service is pretty unacceptable. No numbers to call or text, so there was no way to confirm the reservation, or to confirm that the bus was indeed running 30 min late for pick-up. We received a no-reply text indicating the delay, but again for $100pp there needs to be an option to confirm this with a human being.

There were also unexpected fees for gas(?!) added to the ticket during checkout, and patrons were asked to tip the staff prior to deboarding. It's important to support your homies, but it felt tacky and should have been an included charge/ option during the checkout process online.

Overall, the experience seems geared more towards children and / or influencers, the costs are "misaligned" with the experience, and the customer service is non-existent. But, we did have a very memorable...

I am writing to express my deep disappointment and frustration with my recent experience with your Tea Around Town Philly tour. What was supposed to be a special outing turned into a completely underwhelming and upsetting event—from the moment I attempted to make a reservation, all the way through the actual tour itself.

The problems began when I tried to reserve the bus. The representative I was communicating with took an unreasonably long time to respond to my inquiries and eventually stopped responding altogether. Due to the lack of communication, I was forced to purchase every seat for the time slot I needed just to secure a reservation. I paid for the entire trip upfront, expecting at least a baseline level of service in return.

After securing the reservation, I inquired about adjusting the pickup location to somewhere more convenient—especially since the bus parks in the city area where we wanted to be picked up and dropped off. Despite offering to pay an additional fee for this accommodation, I was repeatedly told this was not possible simply because of how I booked it. I find this incredibly frustrating and inflexible, particularly given the circumstances and the fact that a solution was easily within reach.

When the actual tour day arrived, the experience only worsened. One of the guides spoke to our guests in a sarcastic and unprofessional manner, even making comments such as “you all are doing too much,” and “I’m tired; you should have booked an earlier tour.” Such remarks are completely unacceptable and disrespectful to paying customers.

To make matters worse, the bus had no functioning air conditioning on a hot day, leading to numerous complaints from guests. The tea options were extremely limited, and they even ran out of ice. The food provided was unappetizing and well below expectations. And despite all of this, the tour itself lasted only about an hour—far from the experience that was advertised or anticipated.

Overall, this entire experience was disappointing, frustrating, and frankly, a waste of money. I would not recommend this excursion to anyone. I expected a charming and enjoyable afternoon, but instead, my guests and I were met with poor customer service, discomfort, and subpar...

Unfortunately our Tea Around Town experience was very disappointing. The bus arrived about an hour late with no explanation to the group. It was extremely hot and to have my 80-year old mother waiting in the blazing sun for so long was not good for her health. They should have had someone come to the departure site to provide information and updates to the group. After waiting so long with no information, we began to wonder if we were even at the correct location. After boarding the bus we observed flies landing on the tea cakes and finger sandwiches that had been placed on the tables. Other people were still boarding so the flies had the perfect opportunity to sample the food at many tables. MB, the host, was very polite but the choice of songs and the singing was quite dreadful. There is so much history along the tour that the singing could be eliminated and more information about the buildings, neighborhoods, and other attractions could be shared. Or, just play some relaxing music instead of the depressing singing. We purchased the deluxe tickets and were seated at the top of the bus and in the back. It was very hot and it never did cool off adequately throughout the entire ride. The icing on the cake was that after forcing us to wait in the hot sun while the bus arrived very late, there was NO WATER on the bus to drink. Cierra was very kind and managed to locate one bottle of water which we gave to my 80-year old mother, but there was no water for any of the other patrons. The server took forever to make it to the rear of the bus to give us a little splash of tea. (She was doing her best.) This wait wouldn't have been so bad if we had been given water, especially after making us wait outside for a late bus in 95 degree weather. The reason for giving 1 star is that the staff people we encountered were very pleasant (and google doesnt allow less than one star). Otherwise this was less than a one...