| Rating |
Date Attended |
Reviewer [v] |
Gender |
Age |
Where From? |
Group Type? |
|
very informative
|
| Wed, Aug 13, 08 11:00 AM |
thejoe |
Male |
50-59 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family With Children |
| Whether you care about the differences between teas or some architectural sights, this tour has plenty of both. Even those just being dragged along for the tour shall find this a very worthwhile 3 hours. |
|
Highly recommend
|
| Fri, Oct 23 11:30 AM |
thehellers |
Male |
40-49 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family Without Children |
| My wife and I enjoyed this tour immensely. Nicki was a great guide, very informative and personal. The places we went to were diverse and fun. And of course all the tastings were great! It was a good walk and we both liked seeing parts of Chicago we had never seen before. Sadly, we didn't have enough time to go back to some of the shops and make purchases but next time we visit Chicago we will go straight to them. This tour is such a fun thing to do that really shows what Chicago is all about. |
|
|
Great tour guide on Sat 09/5/2009
|
| Sat, Sep 5 1:00 PM |
tharmon9 |
Male |
50-59 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family Without Children |
| This was recommended by trip advisor and as always was a home run. The tour guide was very informative and engaging. You won't gain weight on this tour because there is a lot of walking. You will not get full on the tour, the food is more like tastings. And a lot of the tour was to a spice shop and an oil shop with no food at all. But there were great products and very unique items I had never seen before. So there are plenty of shopping opportunities. The tour is a great way to visit a side of Chicago many visitors rarely get to see(Gold Coast). I highly recommend it for visitors and locals alike. Also, the folks on the tour were great. We had some funny folks that kept me laughing. Don't miss on seeing the 25 million dollar house near Oz park. The house is so big it looks like a school. By the way there is a Mexican restaurant that is not a part of the tour, but the food looks great, they make the guacamole' fresh at your table. Plan on eating there! |
|
Tired and hungry at the end.
|
| Thu, Jul 23 11:30 AM |
texaspatty |
Female |
40-49 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Couple on a Date |
| Not near enough food to sample. The tour was advertised as having more to sample than what you really did. Spices? Who samples spices? And oil and vinagers? Really? Oil and vinager...
The tour guide was fantastic. My complaints had to do with how exhausting the walk was and how ridiculous the "samples" were.
I'll list the samples: Reuban sandwich (three bites), a glass of tea, spice shop, oil & vinegar shop, chocolate shop, hummus and cheese on crackers, a slice of spinich pizza.
I feel overcharged for what I received. |
|
|
Very informational with lots of surprises
|
| Sun, May 18, 08 11:00 AM |
Terryriddle |
Male |
40-49 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Group of Friends |
| the stops were wonderful....group leader (Emily) was excellent. Good intereaction between group members. The stops along the way were very interesting. I would do another tour in a heart beat.
Tour indicated that there would be a focus on food...our group kind of expected to sample signature items from restaurants...ie famous onion ring recipe of buffalo wings etc. Only real food was a potatoe pancake and Heart Healthy pizza slice....the rest would be classified as taste offerings. I definitely left hungry and would have eaten breakfast prior to the tour if food was not emphasized. When asked which tour I wanted to go on , there really wasn't enough information to make an informed decision. May want to list the key stops in each neighborhood to allow potential guests to better match their interests.
Thanks for a very good look at a side of Chicago that I would not have visited. |
|
|
Wear walking shoes and ENJOY!
|
| Tue, Aug 11 11:00 AM |
TeriDash |
Female |
50-59 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Couple on a Date |
| Our guide Jessie was a doll! She had so much energy and personality. I am so glad they give you a guide (which included coupons for going back to the stores) to show you where we were going - we needed it to find our way back - LOL. You start out with a great sandwich (the marble rye was amazing!) then nibble and sip your way until you get to the best stuffed pizza ever. Thought at first no meat would mean blah - I was wrong! Cheesy tastiness!!! You guys asked me if there were any allergies when I booked and I do have them. I did not miss out on any part of noshing on the tour. The place that I could not eat at gave me a candy apple instead. I was 10 again :) It was good to see the rest of the Chicago area and see where real people eat and of course the wonderful and sometimes strange architecture. And the walk wasn't that bad, didn't even realize we had been at it for the 3 hours. Want to go back to those areas and want to do another tour. We HIGHLY recommend. |
|
|
Save your money.
|
| Sat, Nov 7 12:00 PM |
terich5 |
Female |
30-39 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Group of Friends |
| I was disappointed in the tour. It was a lot of walking and not much eating. I thought we would be eating something at every place. One place was a spice place and you could taste the spices but to me that is not eating. There was an oil/vinegar place where we again got to taste but that is not eating. If we wanted anything to drink you had to purchase it along the way. We paid $42 for the tour and still had to go eat after because we were still hungry. There was also no time for a bathroom break until 2 hours into the trip.
You could improve the tour by doing the following: giving an echo friendly bag at the beginning of the tour with a bottle of water and coupons to the tour stops; allowing purchases at the stops (I don't see how the businesses are benefiting if we cannot make purchases); at the spice and oil stores give away a small sample for us to take home; and a little less stopping to talk about the architecture. |
|
|
Unique and fun experience
|
| Sun, Oct 19, 08 11:30 AM |
terezacone |
Female |
50-59 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family Without Children |
| My husband and I greatly enjoyed our tour with Jennifer. She was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic and we learned a lot of things about the foods we tried that we didn't know before. It was a great way to get to see the local neighborhoods and architecture and to support the local businesses, which all had fantastic and amazing varieties of items we had never heard of.
We had a lot of fun checking out the different buildings and homes, including the Playboy mansion. It is a good way to meet new people, tourists and non tourists alike. The time just flew by.
You can tell that someone went to great lengths to make the tour a positive experience, even down to the bathroom stops. It ends just a couple of blocks from the Armitage brown line stop, so it's easy to travel back to the downtown loop or back to the beginning of the tour. Very clear instructions are given to us at the start, with all the stops listed on the handout as well as a map.
We highly recommend this tour. |
|
|
so happy we did this!
|
| Sun, Jun 24, 07 2:00 PM |
teresajaure |
Female |
50-59 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Family With Children |
| i almost felt bad that i was making my nieces (16 & 18) do this with me. it did not take long to see that they were really interested and enjoying our tour guide, nikki. i loved the shops we went to. each one was unique and interesting.
most of all, the knowledge that nikki shared, the history of chicago that she shared with us was so invaluable. there is so much we learned from her. my nieces raved about the tour! i only wish we had had the opportunity to do it right when we arrived in chicago -- so we could have gone back to the stores to do some major shopping!!!
|
|
not much food
|
| Sat, Jun 30, 07 11:00 AM |
Tedwardsmith |
Male |
50-59 |
Domestic Tourist(s) |
Couple on a Date |
| It wasn't a bad tour. The description was however misleading. There wasn't much in the way of food. The cheese and chocolate were nice to be sure, but it by no means was sufficient for a lunch. From the description, the tour was described more as a Taste of Chicago. That was clearly not the case. Specifically, there were three stops with chocolate, one of potato pancakes, and one of cheese. Because the tour took place over lunch, I would recommend a different description. It was simply a walking tour with some nice snacks along the way. The guide was knowledgeable.
Overall, I would give the tour a tepid recommendation. For food, the "Taste of Chicago" For tours, there are many, many of them. So, it's okay but not great.
Recommendations: tone down the description, be honest about what is actually offered, and add more attractions. |
