Adventure Playground — Attraction in North Island

The guiding young staff was unfriendly and failed to understand the beginner's perspective on horse riding. She was annoyed by my cautious attitude towards to the horse. When I stopped the horse from eating the grass while the other accompanying horses were eating the horse seemed upset. It was making a steaming and fuming sound from its nose and ran.

I felt guilty and scared at the same time while I was pulling the rein to prevent the horse from eating. Felt like a little torture to me.

I asked why is the horse making the sound and behaving this way and the answer I got was "I don't know".

I had to let the horse eat the grass a few times because I did not want to upset the horse and run again. The instructor shouted at me to pull the rein to stop it in an irritated tone and said the horse won't get angry. The riding was fun until horse was irritated. When the instructor shouted, the whole riding experience was ruined. I tried to talk about this after the riding was ended but she moved away cutting the conversation.

If she explained these kind of horse's behavior and told do not to be concerned about pulling the rein to stop the horse to eat before the start of the ride I wouldn't have worried so much its behavior and would not have hestitated to pull the rein.

I'm unsure if anyone who never rode a horse before, is used to forcefully stopping the horse to eat and after forcefully stopping it from eating, the horse is steaming and running. Wouldn't any inexperienced riders worried about this?

To the experienced rider its not of a big deal but for the first time rider the mindset is totally different and very cautious. The instructor failed to understand this, did not care about the inexperienced rider's feelings and just wanted to move on quickly.

Of course if I were to ride again I wouldn't have any issues pulling the rein to stop eating. The problem was I let the horse eat a few times in the beginning already and suddenly made the horse stopped from eating and that seemed to made the horse a little bit upset.

I still don't understand if any animal, not just horse, wouldn't get irritated if anyone forcefully and suddenly stop the animal from eating in the middle of the meal. The staff was keep saying its fine the horse won't get angry but horse was fuming and running after I pulled the rein to stop the horse from eating! And the staff shouts at me for letting the horse eat briefly while other accompanying horses are on break at the gate eating the grass because I don't want to upset the horse again? This is totally unacceptable behavior and very rude.

I wouldn't recommend this place for beginner riders due to the rude attitude this staff has and showing no emphathy at all to the warying...

Our guide (red-haired female staff) was really lovely, pleasant and helpful. Very opposite to her was the blond female employee who was so bad-mannered and looks like she doesn’t like her job at all. I thought she was just having a bad day until I read the reviews here who experienced the same treatment. She gave us 5-second instructions of what to do and that’s it, she failed to see the beginner’s perspective in horse riding. She didn’t even bother to ask if we are comfortable on the horse nor gave us a smile. We were all first timers in horse trekking, we’re all excited & nervous at the same time so we should have been treated better.

Halfway through the tour I fell off the horse coz my horse Evie decided to kick the other horse and I was off balanced. Our guide was really supportive and assured me that it’s okay to get back on the horse to get my confidence back and when we arrived at the paddock she even took her time to compliment me for having the courage to ride again. The blond employee asked us how our tour was (still no smile and with rude attitude, I think she just asked coz she has to) so I told her what happened & she just told me to come to the office and fill out the form – didn’t even ask if I was hurt or if I’m okay – no empathy at all!

To the management of Adventure Playground, make sure your staff are trained on how to treat customers properly or at least in a professional manner. Otherwise a pleasant activity will just be ruined by a discourteous staff who doesn’t seem to know what her job entails. Such a disappointment...

Do NOT go this place, we had been there only once and it was incredible disappointed journey in my entire life. This is the worst place and we had never ever had a bad experience with our kids and even the youngest kids feel uncomfortable as their staff treat people with different standard.

Not sure why people still give 5 star but they must be his friend. I would rate their service at -5 star.

3 staff, one of young staff was very nice to us, two of them (one must be owner or operational manager)kept us waiting for one hour and finally a big group of people turned up and they let them ride first and we been told they will have got not enough horse and our kids are too young not safe blabla and their didn't have enough time to do another run as the staff kept looked at their watch.

It's all your fault, terrible management, do not say beginner or safety about kids, you are using excuses to make more money, my son age and height are over any other beginner rider and you were trying to downgrade the ride to 10 mins just for putting other big group in.

You guys didn't really care about us, we booked from your website 2 weeks ago and you guys totally ruined the moment and I can 100% see it's all about MONEY, both you and us know you didn't want to pay your staff more after hour pay and you care the big group of people that make more money. You will lose your business if you keep doing one off business with people.

I will be spreading the message...