Here’s how we work: We personalize every tour we’ve done for past 15 years and no two have ever been the same since everyone answers the survey differently!
Step 1 – We email you our proprietary “Wine Lover’s Personalization Survey” which tells us your general as well as specific tastes in wine, food, travel interests, cultural and historical interests (if any), accommodation preferences and budget range.
Step 2 – After we review your responses, our Tour Master Peter Smith who lives in France or David who lives in the US will call you (your travel agent, if you have one, is welcome on the call so everyone is aware of what your wine country expectations actually are after a brief interview by Peter or by David. We then confirm or adjust and finalize your specific wine, food and accommodation tastes and preferences as well as your budget range.
Step 3 – Satisfied with this, we then we require a $250 deposit or as typical travel agents call it, a Creative Planning Fee where we create your personalized custom tour. This deposit covers our work planning and pricing the various elements of the tour. The Planning Fee will be applied to the final cost of the tour. However it is NOT refundable if you cancel after the key “ingredients and schedule” of your tour is created.
A final payment schedule is arranged based on the amount of time between your approval of your custom tour and your date of departure. It is usually broken down into 1/3’s of final cost unless your departure is less than 90 days. Then payments would be scheduled at 50% upon approval of your “tour” and 50% within 45 days of departure.