Terrapin Glassblowing Studio — Attraction in Jaffrey

Terrible Experience! This venture was a huge disappointment not worth the harassment , time or the money spent. I will not be recommending it to anyone! The Story: I saw their glassblowing friendship ball class advertised ON FACEBOOK and thought it would be a fun thing to do with my 7 yo granddaughter so I clicked that I was interested. I followed up with a call as I wasn’t sure being interested was sufficient to get into the class. Two days later I got a call back letting me know that yes I needed to sign up and to pay in advance, which I did. They charged me $10.00 EXTRA for my granddaughter, so $55.00 for her. The woman explained the “rules” and told me to be there at 10:45. The FACEBOOK page advertised the class for 11:00. So I had it in my head that the class was at 11:00 and I was to be there 15 minutes early, so 10:45. Unfortunately apparently she meant the class was at 10:45 so I was to be there at 10:30. The morning of the class I got a facebook reminder that I had a class that day at 11:00. When I arrived at 10:50 (so in my mind 10 minutes before class) three employees were in the store. When one asked if I was there to shop or for a class and I said "for a class" they began to berate me! They claimed I WAS LATE and that I KNEW the class was at 10:45 and that I had no respect for their schedule which I was now throwing into complete disarray. I was utterly stunned and quite shaken by their over the top harassment. When I explained things from my perspective (facebook is where I saw the advertisement and from where I got a reminder as to the day and time of the class) they claimed I should KNOW not to trust Facebook. I, the customer, was meant to understand in this vast and swirling world that their advertisement on facebook was inaccurate. They displayed truly stunning and enormously unprofessional behavior...and all in front of a seven year old excited to see the glass blowing. After wasting another five minutes berating me they finally relented and began the class. There were just the two of us so we weren’t holding anyone up by our apparent tardiness. We followed all their instructions and requirements. The actual glassblowing was pretty ho-hum. You essentially watch while the glassblower does all the work while ordering you to stand here, then stand there, then blow into a tube that no doubt countless others have also had their mouths on. Perhaps this is standard operating procedure or perhaps we were being punished, I don’t know. The whole thing took like 20 minutes so far short of the hour we paid for. Then we learned that we had to return the next day to get our balls. This is not mentioned ahead of time. Once back into the store one of the three women did apologize for the assault she and her colleagues had waged, but again reiterated that facebook ads cannot be trusted and all the shop owner know this. I am a customer, not a shop owner! We returned the next day to get our balls. My granddaughter was so excited to get hers and then So Disappointed to see it was nearly 100% clear glass with a tiny wisp of yellow and a tiny wisp of orange. It looked nothing like the friendship balls displayed on the wall of the shop. And then there was my ball, which had more color than my granddaughter’s but was flat on the bottom, so not a ball at all. I would think they could at least get the glass blowing part right if not the actual smooth running of the business. But no, even that was a bust. The artistic and educational aspects I was hoping for were just not there. A huge, and expensive...

My daughter gave me a gift certificate for Christmas for a mini ornament experience class. We traveled an hour and a half to Jaffrey with high hopes. From the minute we entered the studio I got the feeling that the instructor was completely bored. She rattled off the instructions with little to no enthusiasm. Along with the instructor there was an assistant. Even though there was a one on one ratio, we never quite knew which one of us either of them was talking to. Once we actually started making the mini ornaments there was not much guidance. When I blew through the tube it felt like no air was getting through. When I asked about it I was basically told, “when you’ve been doing it as long as I have you will be able to do it.” When adding color I asked how I could make the color more visible. I was told “well that would take all day!” After completing the first ornament we were just handed another piece to try again with no advice on how to improve on the last piece. The pieces we made were laughable, but there were no smiles or laughter for the whole hour we were there. I know that there were rules about safety but a smile hurts no one. I understand that it takes years of experience to creat perfect pieces. I was not looking for perfection but I was hoping for a fun experience. It was not. We felt like we were a burden and that the instructor couldn’t wait for it to end. At the end of the hour the instructor just left the room without a word. “Bye, thanks for coming” would have been...

If only your staff showed a modicum of compassion to grieving families. We were instead callously told things like “just pick from the catalog”, “no, you can’t talk to the glass artist”, and that customers “aren’t involved” when we called to ask about making memorial pieces in the days following my mother’s death. Given the timing and the utter lack of anything approaching sympathy or compassion, I might amend “callously” to “cruelly”. This was before Covid btw, so the business was fully open and there were zero concerns about distancing or such. I’ve tried to give them grace here, but really there was just no excuse.

Happily, we were able to find another local glass studio who was warm and showed empathy, and their glass artisan was happy to work with us on the custom piece that my grieving father wanted to make for his practically life-long wife.

I didn’t intend to leave a review about Terrapin. If someone wants to work with a callous commercial endeavor, more power to them. But for some unholy reason this business recently advertised their memorial offerings on Facebook and when I left a comment expressing my disappointment with their services they deleted it. Didn’t offer any apologies for their callous treatment of our grief. Didn’t contact me or reach out in any way. Just deleted the comment. Poor form, very poor marketing skills, and now has prompted me to write a full...