The Boat House — Restaurant in England

I booked 2 booths in the pub area at The Boat House in person on Wednesday 1st Dec for a little celebration for my son’s 18th the following Saturday 4th Dec. The person who I booked with seemed really accommodating, telling me he would be working on the day of my booking and everything I needed would be no problem on the day, even said we could play our own Spotify playlists on their computer and that we could eat at our tables. I then arranged for friends and family to celebrate there with us.

We arrived on Saturday to be told we don’t have a booking and that all tables were booked to others and there was a private ‘surprise’ party for the manager.

We were treated with total contempt after being virtually told that we are liars and that we had not made a booking by a member of staff who seemed to take joy in telling us we had no place at the venue. I could have chosen a myriad of venues, but chose this one as it looked nice, was very local and had great reviews, so I have zero reason to lie about making a booking and then put effort into arranging our night with family and friends. We have since been told we were lying about our booking by the manager and friends of the venue. I even went to the effort to have a hamper and balloons brought in for our tables, therefore lying about making a booking is not conducive to any of this. The place isn’t so spectacularly wonderful that we just “had” to be there at any cost. But our plans were made and changing them/finding a new venue last minute would have been a nightmare given a Christmas festival going on that same day/night locally. And it also would have taken the shine off my son’s 18th, something he was really excited about.

There was no acceptance of responsibility and the actual person that took my booking made a wry and sarcastic apology, totally belittling our situation at his incompetence. We were practically laughed out of the building. I was clearly enraged, unacceptable behaviour on my part given the circumstances, but fuelled by staff who should have the customer service know how to diffuse and accommodate their error. Instead they were totally defensive and obstinate.

Apparently there is a booking process, none of which was explained to me when I went in person to book some space for our celebration, which was perhaps the first error from an inept representative of this business. If I had been told that bookings for the pub had a process, naturally I would have followed that, after all my intention was to secure a venue for something special. There was no misunderstanding on my part. I made a booking in person and was not advised, guided, instructed to do anything else to secure it. No deposit was taken, no deposit was requested. I would have gladly paid anything that needed paying. In fact I did ask if I could pay in advance to have bottles of Prosecco waiting on our tables, I was told there was no need, it could all be sorted on the day. There was no indication given of other bookings or events at this venue on the day.

Since my post on social media about our experience (which is totally within my rights to do), we (members of my party) have since been bullied by an army of keyboard soldiers with some kind of misguided loyalty to the venue. None of whom were there on the night (including the manager). They may well love the place and have had great experiences there, we did not; so I’m going to make that public knowledge, especially given the venue made no effort to accommodate us after their error.

A staff member at this venue made a clear and obvious error of judgement when initially dealing with me. The ramifications of which have now become personal, so it doesn’t stop here until some accountability is made clear and a sincere apology is made. Ball is in your court Boat House...

Update as I can’t reply to your reply !

Thank you for your sentiments about my lovely brother John, it’s been a terrible and traumatic time for all of us. The reason I was so upset is because no one tested compatibility at all, of anything, I was just told no I couldn’t show the slides period ! I wasn’t even shown where the equipment was, so no help, no testing of compatibility or anything was offered or done - I was with 3 other people who can all attest to that fact. I am an IT professional who has worked in the industry for over 30 years, developing content and showing it over a myriad of devices and locations all over Europe and North America, I came prepared with cables, adaptors, flash drives and a MacBook to make sure I could share some lovely memories of John with his friends and family, as a good friend of John’s I’m sure you can appreciate that I was only trying to do one last thing for my lovely brother and would have thought that in the circumstances I would have been offered every bit of help possible to make that happen.

I do agree that some of the words used in the heat of the moment in the original review were inappropriate and have changed them to reflect this but the facts remains the same!

Lastly, I did not appreciate your DM to my public review, I do not know you and am perfectly within my rights to bring this to your attention. I don’t think I deserve your ‘MASSIVE shame on you’ comment in this message for just trying to do something nice in memory of my brother. As a business manager I would have thought that you would review all feedback and put a plan in place to ensure this never happens again! So I think the shame is actually on you.

Disappointed with this place. I attended a celebration of life last night for my brother, had called the pub on at least 4 occasions to check whether it was possible to show a slide show of photographs depicting his life, I was assured it would be and discussed technical options I.e hdmi, flashdrive etc. Spent at least 2 days pulling the content together - when I arrived at the pub was told that the equipment was too old and it was not possible to show it! I couldn’t previously visit to check as I live on the south coast. Please check they have the capability if you want a wedding or celebration venue where you want to show any...

I don’t normally take the time to post a review but the service we received for our work Christmas party was terrible. Portions were so small, the prawn stater was a joke there was no prawn meat. When the main came it was missing the swede mash, when I asked the lady said they’ve ran out… we had pre-ordered this 2months prior, how could you run out?! We wasn’t told on arrival either and didn’t substitute anything until we asked if we could maybe get some more potatoes then. There was ONE very small parsnip. No cranberry sauce either and when it came to desserts they told us they didn’t have us down for dessert… we ordered this 2months ago! Half of the desserts we ordered they had ran out AGAIN! 3 peoples desserts didnt even come out until we all had finished ours. Atmosphere was terrible, could barely hear any music, was drown out by a huge party next to us that was doing a quiz?! Shouting out answers. Was a complete buzz kill. 100% don’t recommend of your planning a big group party/outing here

Just seen your reply and definitely think you’ve got yourself confused with another party, you saying that you offered us the swede mash when you absolutely didn’t! As you bought out some extra roast potatoes only after we asked if we could have something else. Also not quite sure when you say other people in MY party said there was no complaints is rubbish as we all discussed that it wasn’t very good and the fact we pre ordered everything way ahead of time. One person of my party said the brownie was rock hard and couldn’t eat it and that’s only because you ran out of what she previously had pre ordered. So please don’t reply saying you have to bring up some inaccuracies in my review as I don’t think...