Experience Armenia - Day Trip from Tbilisi

I found Kartveli Tours website and contacted them for a private day tour from Tbilisi to Armenia in early May 2022. It was a smooth and clear booking process with quick response and information from the staff. I paid full amount via PayPal 2 days before the trip. On the day, it was perfect starting with a very polite and professional driver picking us up at the hotel in the morning. The car was nice and clean with smooth driving throughout the trip. A local guide joined us after crossing the Armenian border, she was extremely nice, joyful, professional and informative with perfect English. Lunch at a local guesthouse was also great. We visited 4 historical places with guided information and awesome stories from our local guide. The trip was such a life time experience. Way too good beyond I expected.

We booked a full day trip to Armenia with Kartveli Tours. Everything was going smooth and they seemed professional until we reached the Georgian-Armenian borders. The Georgian passport control officer claimed that we Lebanese require a VISA to cross the border. We were under the impression that Lebanese acquire VISA upon arrival as many of our friends have been to Armenia from Lebanon without facing any issue. The passport control at the borders were giving us a hard time, so they did not allow us to enter into Armenia. We called the company and explained the situation. The first thing they asked us was to pay the full amount of the trip's cost ($240). We refused at first as it appeared that they were taking advantage of the situation, ripping us off, and not trying to find any solutions. The amount of $240 is worth of one week spending on tourism in Georgia, but we opted for this price thinking that we were dealing with a professional company. It turned out that we weren't. We told the manager Irakli that we understand that you made some arrangements ahead of time for the trip, and we are ready to pay the amount of $120 as a compensation. They asked us to pay $190 without any negotiation, and threatened us with the police (see the screenshot of their email). Companies are rated based on how they treat their customers under uncommon circumstances and situations. In our case, they were unprofessional, aggressive, and hostile. Our advise is never to come close on dealing with Kartveli Tours.

We made three-day tours with this organization: Armenian day tour, Wine tour to Kakheti and Georgian heritage trip. We got before the trips excellent, complete, honest and quick information and response from the manager Beka. (Thank you Beka.) Each trip was perfectly organized with nice and sometimes surprising interesting visits like the varied and copious lunches at local families. Spacious cars with very friendly, helpful, flexible and perfect English speaking guides like Natia. (Thank you Natia.) Who gave us a lot of interesting information about the country, the history of the country, the local people, the religion and so many other things where we were interested in.