BookCulinaryVacations Reviews 18

I booked a cooking vacation for 9 of us for Come Cook in France through Book Culinary Vacations for June 2020. Due to Covid, we were unable to go and as a gesture of good will decided to defer our holiday deposit to 2021 rather than a refund. On making enquiries in March 2021 I found out that Come Cook in France was no longer in business and they had informed Book Culinary Vacations in August 2020. Come Cook in France also returned their fee back to Book Culinary Vacations. Our original holiday is no longer available by Book Culinary Vacations and they are not prepared to offer a monetary refund either! This is even when I have an email from one of their colleague's saying we 'are eligible for a monetary refund'. They will only offer a credit to be used against another holiday. Not good company ethics or service.

I booked a Tuscan cooking vacation through BookCulinarVacations - to be the vacation of a lifetime for my 60th birthday. I paid a massive deposit. When Covid-19 made it impossible for that vacation to be offered, the company refused to refund my deposit - merely offering to schedule me for a future date. This is not a trustworthy organization. I would never use them, or any other organization requiring a deposit again. Bitterly disappointed. Beware.

I booked a 3 day French cooking class at Mercersburg, Penn for July and cancel it due to the Coronvirus the last part of March. The customer service department for the “Book Culinary Vacations” took my deposit which was guaranteed return if I canceled the retreat before 30 of the class. However, what I am upset with this because this deposit was a guarantee return. After canceling the retreat/class over 4 weeks ago I am still waiting for my money to be return. So far I have contacted them 3 times now looking for my refund to be given back to me, and still no return. If I could give this company a NO star rating I would, with this Coronvirus isolating everyone and keeping people in their home, this is not a time to be playing with someone’s money.

Went on one trip with them, which was good, but after covid happened, and as such the culinary vacations were cancelled by lockdowns across the world, they told me they no longer needed my business and they were going to keep my money in exchange for a voucher that would be good for a year. Awful.

Customer service is subpar. It took 4 days and conversations with 3 different people until I could get questions answered. The navigation for listing a site is cumbersome but worse is the lack of follow up. I am still waiting for a response from a question that was raised during a conversation and I was promised that it would be answered. I followed up with an email sent direct to the person I spoke with. I am still waiting and that was over 1 week ago. This is not the kind of company that I would want to give 14% for booking a tour .

False Advertisement.
This beautiful area of Italy that we were looking forward to was disappointing, not because the area was terrible, on the contrary. The area is beautiful and the Palazzo has a real interesting history. What is disappointing and a terrible experience was, we were there on a culinary vacation and it was not a great experience. The advertising posted on Culinary Vacations did not live up to what we received. The person who was to do the cooking demo was pregnant and after we paid were told she would not be available and a local women was hired. Although this person was lovely, she did not speak English and we did not get involved in any preparations. We just observed. The kitchen was not well equipped with proper utensils and the oven did not work. Also, some of the ingredients were pre-packaged and the ragu made was missing ingredients because the owner said the butcher was not open on that day. Also, we were to go see fresh cheese being made by local women. We went to the location, we stood at the door and she did not let us in and we were told no demonstration would happen because the sheep were over the mountain. We thought this was a joke. It was not…we walked to her house to watch the owner of Palazzo buy cheese. That was all we did that day. The bread used for bruschetta was days old and hard. The wine tasting was two bottles of wine from another region and what was mostly offered was the owner’s own red wine which we paid a cost per bottle. Also, the pool was not functioning for the whole week we were there and the grounds were littered with nuts, which were falling from the trees. You had to be careful one did not hit you on the head or trip you up when you entered the premises. Also, one of showers in the large apartment was fixed on the last day after being told each day he was waiting for a plummer to come. Also for the whole week were not offered clean towels. I would not suggest this place to anyone and the only memory we have is how we were duped out of good money for bad service. We suggest Culinary Vacations do their homework before they let companies like this advertise on their site.

I am very happy to work with Book culinary vacations. Its a lovely concept and well executed. I have just finished with my first booking.
and I hope to host more guests through the website.
Thanks for all your support.
Payal

I,on behalf of the management of VM Travel in Vietnam, we want you to know that we really value your dedication towards work - Book Culinary team help us accomplish the goals in 2015. We sincerely appreciate your role in the success and hope that you will keep up the good work in the future also.
So, I thank your team for all time that they have put in. I would like to convey my appreciation to all of you.

My Clients have used this company to book their cooking vacations, very professional team,always on hand to answer questions in a timely fashon

This is a great website, as you get a wide choice of vacations, and very reliable too. I think their rates are also very honest as well.
They are helpful and can answer all your questions straigh away.
Do not hesitate to book your vacation with them. Furthermore they have the most interesting vacations I have never seen, with all kind of activities.

I have advertised with their company for almost three months and have received more enquiries than other travel and culinary sites. First booking went smoothly and payment of commission to them was straightforward. Good response time on emails I have sent.

This is the second year we have our food & wine tours in Umbria on the website of BookCulinaryVacations and it is always a pleasure working with their staff. They are professional, precise and answer very quickly to our emails. Also their clients, who came in Umbria, were very enthousiastic about their organization. We hope it will be a great 2016 season !

Great company to work with , hopping a great season 2016 better than last year.
perhaps need a more incisive advertising campaign to get more visibility
Thanks for all you assitance

Chef Fabrizio Merli

The staff at Booking Culinary Vacations have been very helpful, I was very impressed by their ability to answer all my questions. They are also extremely professional and respond promptly- which I appreciated.
I would recommend this company and thank them again for all their help.

The BookCulinaryVacations are always a good support even for just a small concern

We have listed a few trips with BookCulinaryVacations.com. We have had a decent flow of leads given our very niche product, all of which were qualified. That's the marketing side of things. Operationally, their system is very intuitive and easy to work with. And they were very kind to post our products for us, by the way. And finally, In terms of responsiveness, I would rate their service is excellent as any questions or concerns from our team are handled swiftly, with care and professionalism.
Overall I would recommend any tour operator offering culinary trips to work with BookCulinaryVacations.

We are the Mercersburg Inn - we started advertising on this site about a week ago and within that week we have had 3 guests sign up for our French cooking class. It may not sound like a lot but we limit the class to 14 participant s. BookCulinary set us up on their website, did a beautiful job of showing off classes and prices. This week we just added our cheese making and wine and food weekends. All the people at the web site are great to work with and respond quickly to your questions. I highly recommend them.

is very simple to book a culinary vacation with this company , staff is very nice and professional