BEWARE Cor Magis Wine tours

A bad winery tour AND a car accident in Tuscany. Sorry to hear about your experience.

The worst part was the owner emailing for a statement--- and saying how he hoped we'd take another tour with them AS IF LOL.

It was a HUGE disappointment though the other people on the tour were very interesting and the conversation was nice.

Wow! That is horrible- he doesn't apologize, does not follow through with the partial refund and then wants you to come back! He must be crazy. I am sorry to hear about your bad time and we will stay away! Thanks for making us aware of the situation.

Also had a bad experience with this company. Booked a 1/2 day tour through our hotel. They rang the company and confirmed they ran the tour we wanted to do. I filled out the booking form giving credit card details and my hotel faxed it through for me. We met at the appointed place at the appointed time and our names were not on the list. I didn't think too much of this as we had only booked that morning for the afternoon tour. The tour guide insisted on payment in cash saying my credit card would not be charged. Basically no payment no tour so I paid.

A couple of days later I noticed a charge from Cor Magis for the tour. I emailed them pointing out I had paid the guide in cash and they replied saying it wasn't their tour and to contact "Siena holiday".
I contacted them and they said they would "look into it". Nothing for 2 weeks.

So I contacted the girl who booked for me at my hotel and explained the situation and asked if she could remember booking for me. I told her I couldn't understand why Cor Magis said they ran the tour I booked and were happy to take my money. She replied that she remembered and had contacted the company and must have given them an earful, as they promised I would receive a refund. The refund came through a couple of days ago with an apologetic email from Cor Magis.

Big thankyou for Nathalie at Palazzo Ravizza in Siena. I'm sure without her intervention I would still be 70Euro out of pocket. If you want a private or small group tour out of Siena book through Siena holiday - they have a website. The tour was really good and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

They still haven't honored the promised refund. I guess I'll have to go through my credit card company.

This was our absolute worst travel experience. I'm not even so mad about the waste of money but the waste of a day in Siena. Live and learn.

Yes, it's a shame to have a late start, one pretty mediocre wine, a fender bender that shortened the tour, and no regrets expressed by the tour company (though I'd think the promised partial refund, though not yet delivered, was something of an attempt at an apology).

But really, if that's your worst travel experience ever, I think you're pretty lucky! Believe me, I've had much worse travel experiences (salmonella in Egypt and several missed connections and plane flights from hell come to mind) but I still have some memorable times from what happened, and got to see aspects of real life in a foreign land I'd otherwise have missed.

For example, last summer I was in a train derailment in Ecuador and "wasted" hours sitting by the tracks, watching local people and wildlife while waiting for the train crew to jack the engine up and move it back on the tracks (3-man crew did it by themselves). Luckily nobody was hurt so it ended up giving me some of my best travel stories and photos ever!

You know the adage: when life gives you lemons, make limoncello.

OK a train derailment has me totally beat LOL. Actually in four trips to Italy this has been the only serious problem--- ok I did get hit by a bus in Rome last year but somehow walked away unscathed.

We were lucky in that this wasn't our first trip to Siena and we'll probably be spending six months there next year. I'd just like to save some fellow traveller, perhaps one with more limited time or resources, that same bad experience. When I researched the company before we left I found very little about them -- a few slightly negative reviews but nothing serious. I'd actually ruled them out, but when we saw the brochure at the hotel and found out that there was no public transportation to the abbey we decided to give it a go.

The offer of the partial refund was at my request and of course promised but not delivered LOL--- not much of an apology.