It's a fair walk to the gondola (too far to be honest). It's a 5 minute walk into town. They have a taxi service that you can arrange to pick you up and take you anywhere. If memory serves me right it cost 5 lev per journey. So if there's a few of you its peanuts really. They have the number of the taxi company in the lobby of the apartment.
Yes I did. The transfer was fine. There was a bloke there with a River Lodge sign at the airport. He didn't speak much English, but got us from A to B safely enough.