Into The Wild Bushcraft — Local services in Great Britain

This was my second visit to In the Wild in Altrincham. The woodland setting is genuinely beautiful and makes for a very pleasant outing. Unfortunately, both of my visits have been let down by an odd experience at the coffee shack.

During my most recent visit, I followed the signs advising customers to use the vending machines when the shack is busy. After paying, I was vended warm water instead of coffee. When I brought this to the shack, the response was baffling. The man working there simply said, “Yeah, I’m not sure why it did that,” and then just stood in silence. I had to prompt him by asking what I should do and whether the machine was operated by them. He vaguely pointed me towards a Ring doorbell to speak to someone.

Thankfully, a younger member of staff stepped in. He tracked me down, understood the situation straight away, and sorted it out by replacing the drinks with proper coffees from the shack. Without his intervention, this would’ve been a one-star review. Credit to him for using common sense and showing initiative. As for the other staff member — perhaps a role within the council would suit better.

The woods are great, but unless there’s a change in how the shack is managed, I won’t be rushing back.

Response to owner: Thank you for your response. I appreciate you taking the time to clarify the situation.

That said, I’d like to offer some perspective from a customer experience point of view. When a machine fails to deliver a hot drink, a response like “I’m not sure why it did that” followed by silence, without any offer of help or reassurance, doesn’t inspire confidence — especially when a hot drink is what you bought.

Yes, I now understand the Ring doorbell is part of your process. But from a customer’s point of view, having to ask what to do next after something goes wrong, only to be vaguely pointed at a doorbell, doesn’t feel very helpful. Thankfully, a younger staff member showed initiative, located me, and resolved the issue with a positive attitude — which made a real difference.

I’m not expecting perfection, but a bit of empathy or a simple “Let me help you with that” would’ve gone a long way. Hopefully this feedback helps highlight the value of proactive and customer-friendly communication, especially in a lovely place like yours where people...

We visited into the wild bushcraft today for a day out with the children (aged 4-7 years). The adventure playground is good for these ages and they enjoyed playing for a couple of hours. There are climbing frames and slides, swings, as well as obstacle courses and zip wires built in the trees. Tickets for the adventure playground can be bought online beforehand. If you arrive without a ticket you will be asked to buy a ticket online via your mobile device. There was no way to get a ticket or pay for the adventure playground on site. There was also an “arts and crafts” area, that was a part of the paid ticket. Today there were just colouring books and stories in the arts and crafts tent - so this was a little disappointing as there are so many nature based crafts that could have been set up in the space.

There are signs that state that picnics are not allowed on site, please note you can only eat food that has been bought onsite from the pizza oven hut or the coffee shack (and check the opening times for these on the website) The card payment is intermittent due to the poor signal in the woods, so I think cash is preferred.

The FAQ needs updating on the website as the Children’s play area is now a paid for area only.

We would visit again, as we enjoyed being out in the woods and being in nature. I will be sure to check the website for opening times food availability beforehand and also to book tickets for the playground - as this was a little stressful to manage with an intermittent phone signal and kids that...

This place looks amazing BUT is ran by a inexperienced and rude man who has no experience with children, food, drink and neither hygiene.

There pizzas are burnt or undercooked and there beer dispensers are full of flies. We managed to take a look at the food storage and holding area and it was terrible. There's no thought of hygiene whatsoever. We asked the pizza guy if we could wash our hands somewhere and he said his pizza shack doesn't have a sink. What makes it worse is the pizza is hand stretched... So they're hand stretching pizzas without washing their hands. Awful.

I brought a group of children for a birthday Bushcraft experience and they were treated like adults. They were fed alsorts of lies about a "wildcat" that lives on a bush right in front of the kids play area. It was shocking to see hey have a speaker setup in the woods to play sound effects to pretend it's something that it's not. During the Bushcraft experience I heard the owner (Adam) swearing and muttering "f sake these guys are too much" and then during making hot dogs he said "come near this fire and you'll die". Now this was said to a bunch of 5 year old children. Not professional at all. He didn't do anything anyone couldn't do at home. Nothing out of the box. So I don't know what the hypes about.

Save yourself some money and take your kids somewhere safe, fun, real, hygienic and most of all child...