Mondo Guide for private day tour to Cinque Terre from Livorno

Mondo Guides is recommended by Rick Steves so I thought it would be safe to use them for a quality private day tour to Cinque Terre from Livorno where our ship docked. Unfortunately they did not come through on our tour. We were picked up on time at the dock. That was the best part of the tour. The description of the tour included an English speaking guide, private car with driver, visiting four of the five cinque terre villages with mention that movement between the villages included a boat and a train. The cost was $950 for two people which indicated that the tour should be pretty special. Unfortunately, it was anything but that. The guide's English was marginal at best with frequent mispronunciations that left us scratching our heads as to what he had said. While in the car he spent most of his time talking in Italian to the driver rather than talking to us. The guide was not particularly knowledgeable nor organized. There were many questions that he simply could not answer. As to time management and organization, we ended up jumping onto a train without a ticket because he did not plan for enough time to purchase the ticket at the station prior to the train arriving. The trip we found out did not include the price for taking the boat from one village to another so we paid to travel on an overcrowded public boat. For the price of the tour, we were expecting a private boat. We paid to take the train between some of the villages and then back to the pick up point to meet the car which was quite close to the Livorno port. The guide told us that he usually escorts college exchange students on low cost tours. That is exactly what this tour felt like inspite of the fact that we paid $950 USD for it. We complained to the tour manager without results. I do not recommend using Mondo Guide.