Millets Wildside — Attraction in Vale of White Horse

Where to start, this was booked for two adults for an owl experience for 1 hour, using a gift card from my workplace for 10 years' service. We phoned in advance to inform them we would be late due to an incident on the M40, which slowed traffic and is out of my hands. The receptionist said, "That's fine, no problem, I'll let them know". When we arrived we were told by the same person, "Oh, you're too late now, but you can walk around and have a look at the birds for free", (which is already included in the package that we booked). By this point my mood was very low, a lot like the large birds sitting in small cages, which look sad and have nothing to do but sit on one large stick. The cages look so small they can't even have a small flight to stretch their wings. The skunks' enclosure had no skunks; raccoons again, no raccoons. The bird display by the birds of prey was great, but the man banging on about someone from the USA writing about him in a book? Who really cares? Shame, as the large site with other shops is somewhere I might have gone back to, but will avoid going forward. I'm now chasing for a partial refund from the booking agency that gave me the voucher.

Update reference reply: You appear to be confused, as we told you we were stuck on the M42 due to an accident (which no one can ever predict) and would be 10 mins late, we arrived at 10:15am, not 10:30am. You had said "once you have the H&S talk you will be to late for the owl experience" you did not even try to offer any solution, and just brushed it aside, without a care in the world. As stated this was a voucher for 10 years service of hard work, which you took happily pocketed and didn't give a damn about, god help it if this was a birthday present for somone's child. You also mentioned and I quote "we did not give a reason", but you have then gone on to say we were delayed in traffic, but you also said we apparently didn't give a reason, which one was it? As for the birds which are amazing, I clearly said they look depressed within their enclosures, also if you have 9 works, volunteers and students they didn't look busy, just standing around, surely someone can spare 30 mins to help paying customers, not stand around chatting. The skunks, as I mentioned were not there, as their pen was empty, even other guests who were not LATE even mentioned the pen was empty and the birds were looking sad, as per my photos. Yes I did tick a box that IF YOU'RE LATE THEN YOU FORFEIT YOUR experience, but SHOCK if a customer does not agree with a companies T&Cs then they cannot use that company. Why don't you try booking an experience and try NOT ticking a box to a companies T&Cs and see what happens, surprisingly you'll find you won't be able to book with that company etc.. If I could give 0 stars then I would, If I wasn't so sad when you said NO etc.. then I would of given you a piece of my mind, as not only did it take 2 hrs due to the accident, your customer service sucked.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!* DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY, THEY ARE AWFUL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ****************** DO NOT BOOK! ***********************!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY, THEY ARE AWFUL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! * DO NOT BOOK! !!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY, THEY ARE AWFUL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ****************** DO NOT BOOK! *****************!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY, THEY ARE AWFUL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ** DO NOT BOOK! !!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY, THEY ARE AWFUL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ******************...

Myself and my husband had a gift card in which we purchased a private owl experience for two, but unfortunately, due to incompetence from staff the experience didn't go ahead. (Since this review the staff have stated that we arrived at 10:30am, which is incorrect, as it was 10:15am, and they have also claimed that I did not provide a reason.)

On the day of our experience, there was an accident on the motorway which delayed us by 15 minutes. I rang ahead and spoke to a member of staff at Millets Wildside who reassured me that this would be fine, and to just come along to the desk to check-in on arrival. We did this, and when we got there the woman told us it was too late for the experience. We were very disappointed about this and this person offered us no other time or date for our experience which we thought was extremely unprofessional, especially as we had been told that being a bit late wasn't an issue. She then told us we could go and look around the animal enclosures for FREE, except that already came as a given with our gift voucher. (Again, staff have replied stating that they did not say this, but they did, and they were acting like they had done us a favour.)

On entering the bird areas we spotted staff just literally standing around, not doing anything with the birds therefore not doing very much at all, which we found very surprising because we were under the impression it was due to staff being super busy that our experience didn't go ahead, and as I have mentioned already, we were just 15 minutes late, so honestly, there wasn't any excuse. (Also, I don't think it takes all staff/volunteers and work placement students for one show)

Whilst there was some beautiful birds here along with an interesting bird show, we thought some of the enclosures looked small with a lack of foliage and appeared to be somewhat tired. They were ll clearly not fit to house some of the larger birds, and to be honest, they looked rather depressed in those cages. It seems like the place could do with an update, noting that many of the animals couldn't even be seen, despite us only running late by 15 minutes.

Despite our major disappointment with this money-guzzling company, we managed to have a good day together, and we made the best of it.

Note: Myself and my husband always like to leave reviews in order to notify others of our experiences, especially when we feel like a place has either exceeded our expectations, or unfortunately, in the case of Millets Wildside, have failed miserably. We tend to write one each as we are individuals and we truly adore writing.

I wouldn't recommend Millets Wildside, purely due to how we have been treated, the loss of monies and the tiredness of...

We was booked onto your feed the meerkats today Sunday 24th April, with a voucher for 2 people and we then purchased a further one so our son could come with us. Upon us being really happy and finding yourself’s after travelling an hour and half from where we live, we went into the reception to be met by Sam. We told her we had an experience booked, she then replied and told us we had only booked two people. I explained that one of our tickets was for 2 people and we purchased another. Sam then told us no we had booked it wrong, and hadn’t booked enough people on your website. I explained that I booked it for what I thought as one voucher covers two people, as this is what the voucher states - one voucher for two people experience, and I had brought another one, so total for 3 people. She then still told us we was wrong, and quite frankly her attitude when doing so was appalling. She wouldn’t let us speak, and also just shutting us down telling us we hadn’t booked it correctly. Even if I told her it wasn’t very clear as we thought the one voucher clearly stated 2 people! Your website should make this more clear. Sam checked to see if we could go in but apparently it was fully booked. She then offered just 2 of us to go in, but our son wanted both his parents to enjoy it with him, so he did get upset at this. She then told us we can re-book but there would be a £20 charge!! Which we thought was totally unfair.

We was so excited and looking forward to this with it being our first time here and first time feeding meerkats, and have had to take our 7 year old son home crying, as he was upset as he wanted us all to do it together not just 2 of us like Sam said.

We did ask who the manager was, and she said it was yourself, and her that was the most senior person there. He attitude and demeanour was completely unacceptable, and quite frankly awful customer service, I would look into how she treats her customers, and maybe instead of just telling them they are wrong, she could offer some compassion and this situation could have been avoided.

We travel to a lot of zoo’s and wildlife parks to across the country, to show our support and love for the animals, however coming away from your’s today, after not even stepping foot inside the centre, has been the worst experience to date. And we really don’t like saying things like that!

We got a reply from James the owner who showed no compassion and just couldn’t see our point of view!

DONT WAISTE YOUR MONEY HERE! GO SUPPORT ONE OF THE MANY OTHER ESTABLISHMENTS THAT CARE ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS WHO...