"We had a replacement tour guide who wasn't the one we booked with. We used someone named [anon]. Despite being just 2 tourists he did the tour anyhow which you can't expect to happen, which I appreciated. We came a few minutes late and he was even later, but not by so long. The guy was enthusiastic, but his English wasn't so great, he didn't talk so clearly and many things I didn't understand and he didn't understand many of my questions.
He brought us to some things but for the most part suggested that we read the signs there instead of actually teaching about the place. For many stops along the way he told us what something was called and then said you can find out more by Googling it. I haven't been on a tour before that told us to read signs instead of explaining the things themselves. Most of what he actually showed us were different style buildings, from the time of the Ottomans, Imperial Russian stuff, Communist Russia stuff, and modern stuff.
I can't say I learned so much about Batumi from my tour. Maybe because it isn't the oldest city (turns out it actually has been around for over 1000 years), but even so it convinced me that I'm canceling my next tour in Georgia, and will just read the signs and Google things instead of paying someone to tell me names and Google it. (Google Lens helps with this because I can snap pictures and then identify them via Google image search.)I ended up paying him 50 GEL [$18] for the two of us, because he works on just tips and did give us two hours of his time, and I felt bad to have him work for less than 25 GEL an hour, and Google was telling me that 10-30 was the standard tip for free tours in Georgia. (Though Googling what the average salary an hour in Georgia shows me that I paid him quite a nice sum, more than many people earn in a full day.) I probably should have paid him 20."
One of the few things he actually told us about was that the boardwalk we walked along, at 7 kilometers, is among the longest boardwalks in Europe, with plans to expand it all the way to the Turkish border, 21 kilometers away.
He showed us this statue of Ali and Nino, the Georgian version of Romeo and Juliet...
...and the statue rotates so that every 5 minutes the two statues combine into one.
The sports drink that I made to bring along with me... well, turns out I didn't translate well enough on my shopping trip, because what I thought was lemon juice was citrus flavored vinegar, and the drink tasted really yucky. So even though it was expensive, when we walked along the promenade we bought freshly squeezed orange pomegranate juice for 20 GEL ($7).
The tour usually ends with a wine tasting, but since we didn't want to drink wine, he took us to a Georgian coffee shop where they make coffee Batumi style, on hot sand, where we enjoyed it before ending our tour. It was 6 GEL($2) for the coffee.
On the way back from our tour, we went to the promenade and saw people fishing.
One of the fisherman let me try fishing with his pole for a few minutes, so that was cute, but when I tried bringing in the line there was no fish on it, so either it got away or I lost the fish.
As we walked along the promenade, there were many boat operators trying to tempt us with rides on their boats, but they were asking for 150 GEL ($50) for the ride, which was more than I felt it was worth so I turned them down.
When a boat owner offered us a ride for 100 ($35)I tried bargaining him down to 80 but he said that for an hour he couldn't do less than 100, but he could do 80 ($29) for 40 minutes.
Deal. It was a really nice and enjoyable ride. I found I learned more about Batumi and Georgia as a whole from the boat driver during that 40 minute ride than I did in the previous 2 hour tour.
...which is one of the easiest and cheaper ways to see Batumi from high up, at 10 GEL per person, so 20 ($7) for the two of us instead of 20 per person at the nearby alphabet tower with an observation deck.
This was sweet.
We walked back along the promenade...
...until we got to the Dolphinarium. I was debating about going to the dolphin show, because of moral reasons, because dolphins should be kept in the wild, but I figured that the dolphin show would be going on anyhow whether or not we attended, so my not going wouldn't help the dolphins not live in captivity... and if the dolphins anyhow are living in captivity, these shows with the tricks they do are important parts of their mental enrichment. So we went.
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It was 40 GEL ($14) for the two of us. We met a lot of interesting people in the audience. The show was fun and interactive, and we got to play catch with the dolphins. By the end of the trip, even after everything we did, my son said that this was his favorite part of the trip.
After the dolphin show, we went to the nearby "aquarium" and I use the term aquarium very, very loosely. It was only 4 GEL ($1.40) and I'm not even sure it was worth that.
The place was dark, dingy, and dirty. There were barely any signs, making it unclear what was what. The giant tank in the middle with many windows was so dirty that we couldn't see through it at all in most places, and in one or two we could faintly see through it, but I can't even tell you what was being kept in there. It felt like the place hadn't been updated since the 1970s and I have no idea the last time it was cleaned. It was the first time I felt like I was really in a third world country.
We walked around for a little bit, and then went back to our AirBnB for an earlier night... but ended up having lots of drama with our AirBnB host which was not resolved, and their customer service ended up giving us a partial refund off our stay.
Final cost for the day? 220 GEL or $71.
Was this the cheapest day? Definitely not. It actually was the most expensive day of our trip. But each thing we did was frugal and worth the price (other than the tour).
The next day- driving!