I was so excited for my brother and I to tour Waiheke with Waivino Wine Tours; however, it turned out to be the worst tour experience of my life. When we showed up to meet our guide, Grant, we had masks on. My brother works in healthcare, so we chose to be as Covid/Flu-safe as possible while visiting New Zealand. Grant - before even introducing himself - made a condescending comment along the lines of "You know you have to pull those masks down to taste wine?" Then when other guests approached us, he made a comment to them about how we had masks on because we were traveling by plane the next day (which was not true). He seemed embarrassed that we were wearing masks! Over the duration of the tour, he continued to make masks comments, which made both my brother and myself feel isolated and uncomfortable.
Beyond the mask-shaming, Grant complained the entire time about how nothing on the island was open on Tuesdays - which was the day of our tour. If nothing is open on Tuesdays - why take tours out? On top of being rushed through each location, the tour description also mentioned snack pairings with the wine. Because "nothing was open", there was no food available throughout the duration of the tour - not even for purchase. When it became clear that a few people were not happy about this, Grant stopped at a roadside pizza stand at the end of the tour.
I think one of things that I found most appalling was Grant's extensive complaining about Maori being one of the National Languages of New Zealand citing that less than 1% of the population is Maori. This comment was off-putting, bigoted, and just untrue. Overall, I found Grant rude, condescending, and unorganized. If I could give it a 0 on Tripadvisor - I would.
