Venice Nature & Eco Tours

Venetian Crafts Shopping Tour (masks, food and glass)

"Before our recent trip to Venice I booked from your website your - Venetian craftsmen workshop: masks, food & glass tour, this was of interest to us as it promised - This Tour will take you to the exclusive Venetian Ateliers and it will show you how the most famous traditional products are created, still completely handmade, as they were centuries ago On the Friday of the tour - 25th Sept - we arrived at the offices of Oltrex in the area of St Marks Square at the time requested - having been kept waiting in the hot sunshine for some time, we were finally greeted by a lady who announced herself as our personal shopping guide - at first we were surprised to be the only two people on this tour, but were then told that this was not a tour - rather that she was a personal shopper and would be taking us around the local shops, and what type of items were we looking to purchase. Having just spent the entire day shopping on the islands of Marano and Barano - which we had cut short to make this tour - had we wanted to simply continue shopping in the area around St Marks square - we wouldn't need any assistance from a so called personal shopper. We explained firstly to the personal shopper and then to the manager of the tour office, that what they were offering was not in any way what we had booked for - we wanted to see how these crafts were made - not just to purchase them, we could do that from any of the numours shops in the area. The manager of the tour office became very agitated and said we had to take the tour, as there was no alternative, when we again pointed out to him that this was not the tour we had booked - he then demanded that we write on the tour voucher that we had turned down the tour - -we started to put the correct facts down onto the voucher, but he said that was not acceptable and we had to write down what he wanted us to put - - we refused, as soon as I mentioned that I would be taking up with you on my return home - he started scouting at us and finally stormed out of the office - - at this point we left the office. "

Paul G., United Kingdom