RHS Reviews 259

I made a booking on the 8th February 2022 for 3 tickets, a show guide and car parking (total of £137.05) for the 2022 Hampton Court Flower Show as a gift for my parents 60th Wedding Anniversary but NEVER received a confirmation email. If I hadn't saved screen shots of the booking I would have nothing to prove I had actually made a booking - except for the hole in my credit card balance!
I contacted the RHS customer Services on 25/04/2022 to enquire about cancelling the tickets as my parents are both now suffering from ill health so will be unable to attend the flower show and was told that I cannot get a refund. I explained about the lack of booking confirmation, told the assistant 'Steve' my email address and he said he would resend the confirmation.
Again NOTHING has arrived in my Inbox!
I am now £137 out of pocket for tickets that I still have no proof of purchasing and that I cannot get a refund for.
I think that it is a poor reflection on the Royal Horticultural Society to not offer refunds for these tickets! I have managed to get refunds for a hotel reservation and a car hire in minutes just by sending emails and think that the service being offered by the RHS is appalling.
The only recourse that I have been offered by 'Steve' is to list these non-refundable tickets for sale on a different website. I work for the NHS, so my time and my money is precious to me and I did not think that I would be reduced to touting tickets on a dodgy website just because the RHS thinks they they are above the problems of the world and too superior to offer refunds in a world of pandemics and global crisis.
I am deeply disappointed in the attitude of the RHS and would never have considered buying any tickets from them if I had been aware of their Dickensian attitudes towards their customers. I will NEVER purchase tickets or attend any of their functions or properties again - they have lost a customer

Very disappointed last Sunday particularly the floral displays which had more soil than flowers.
Last time we went it was much better so we were looking forward to seeing how it had developed and expected to see a spectacular Spring display.
Like the woodland play area and plenty of picnic tables. We also thought the 2 men with the wheelbarrow decorated for Easter talking to the young children were excellent entertainment. However if you haven't got children with you and actually want to lookat the gardens it's a let down particularly if you want to know which plant is which as many of then don't have labels on.
I think RHS need to work on the gardens to make it worthwhile going again.

Avoid this website! I ordered a plant online and received a completely different plant which was half dead when arrived! I tried to discuss the problem on the phone but they asked me to email a photo of the plant that I got! I did (such a waste of time!) but they didn’t send me the right one and never returned my money back!

RHS Wisley - Great Easter Egg Hunt - really???? We paid £17.55 each hoping the grandchildren would have a magical time on the egg hunt.

Around the grounds they had plonked 6 or 7 three foot high plastic eggs, and expected kids to be impressed. Well ours certainly were not.

And their "prize" (which we had to queue up for) was 2 squares of chocolate and a 2 inch cardboard bunny.

What a complete and utter waste of time and money. Would definately not recommend this - especially as virtually none of the flowers/plants were in bloom, so nothing else to look at either.

And to top it all there were no gluten free sandwhiches or cakes, and the hot meals at £12.00 each were a rip-off.

Shocking!!!

Visited RHS Bridgewater in March on a beautiful day. All we saw was a brown, boring vista: not a daffodil or other Spring flower in sight - except on a small plants-for-sale table outside the restaurant. I know it's a newish garden but there has been plenty of time to plant bulbs last Autumn. Doesn't the garden art include colour year-round? Seeing the long food queue, we went to a local garden centre for lunch where colour blazed everywhere. I have photos but no means of adding them....

RHS Bridgewater
Lovely place to visit even in March. However please sort the cafe out. Queueing out the door on a relatively quiet day. If you visit I’d recommend bringing your own food.

Poor online and phone service.

My wife an rhs member tried to update her password online but was locked out. She then phoned and received very little help. I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.

Visited the cafe inattentive staff. Food poor gif the price.
Small Baked potato, Luke warm’ salt crystals seen on skin of potato. I hate salt!! Small portion of cheese and coleslaw. Not worth £6-50. Did not complain because I did not think I would get a good service. Would not recommend or visit again .

Visited Rosemoor and ended up with membership from an enthusiastic ambassador.
Subsequently bought a sculpture at £1750 and was advised the sculptor would be assembling and installing in our garden at a charge of £80. We then via email got a receipt giving zero value and advising when we could pick up.
With this confusing information I asked via email for clarity, 7 working days later no reply.
Phoned first call goes to messaging service message left.Phoned membership who put me through to reception at Rosemoor, 50 mins later and still waiting with those magic words...please continue to hold.
Looks like Ill will have the 1 1/2hr journey to Rosemoor to sort. What a totally unsatisfactory customer service experience. Chris Turner_Robson

Just visited winter light show 'Glow' at Bridgewater. Underwhelmed, just spotlights on trees and plants finished in less than an hour for £11 each. Not worth.the.money. much better shows around

Attended Glow at Wisley over the weekend. Not overly impressed at all. Lacked atmosphere throughout a lot of the areas, whilst some displays with the added background music were amazing. Couple of members of staff were quite rude, especially the young female in one of the outside coffee stalls, didn't seem to know what she was doing in the slightest. To be fair, did interact with a couple of great staff members too.
We had booked evening tickets (after 7pm) but were not told that we would have to be totally finished and out of centre as they were closed dead on 9pm, we were basically ushered out of the shop without a chance to buy anything and god forbid if you wanted another hot drink or snack ..... tough. Would have been nice to have been advised when we arrived of the strict time constraints

RHS Bridgewater. Went early September. Very disappointed,in my view needs at least another couple of years before charging the public full price for entry. As a gardener I know in the future it will look fabulous.

I wrote to the RHS gardening advice service for some insights as to the demise of my apricot tree. The reply came back next day and was incredibly helpful and thorough from Dr. Matthew Cromey (plant pathologist). Just amazing service - thank you

Attended the Chelsea flower show September 2021.
We were very disappointed. The BBC make it look as something it's not.
First of all there isn't that many gardens, about half a dozen in total.
You can't walk around them, they are too small to walk around anyway.
The displays inside are good, but nothing that you couldn't see in a good garden centre.
The main thrust of the show is the rows and rows and even more rows of vendors trying to interest you in their overpriced wares and others accosting you in an attempt to sign up with a wildlife charity with the added embarrassment of having to say 'no'.
Travelled a long way to visit the show and paid a very high parking fee.
Certainly not worth the effort and certainly not worth the ticket price. In fact when you take all into consideration, the ticket price, the parking and the cost to eat and drink at the venue, it is in my opinion a real rip-off.

It is with regret that we are going to write this review. Earlier in the year we booked tickets for the Tatton park flower show in July. However as we are care workers and being loyal to the company and the people within the home we were unable to go to the flower show. We have contacted ticket master and the RHS to get a refund on several occasions to get a refund without success. We are aware that we may not have been the only ones who were unable to go. Therefore the RHS have accrued a lot of free money. We paid £60. In this current climate of covid etc RHS needs to review their policy and provide refunds after all we paid a lot of money for Lifetime Membership. We saved this £60 over a couple of months so we could have a rare treat.

Sheer complacency across the board

Booked and paid In advance as advised , received email confirmation

Went to check the date and time slot closer to the booked date , to discover the email confirmation didn’t contain the date or time only a confirmation that a booking had been made. Now I could have made a note of it so not complaining at this point just found it a little odd to send a confirmation of booking containing no info.

I tried to call , many times , phone never answered , tried to email , took two weeks for a reply which informed me id contacted head office and they passed it to Bridgewater .. I’m still waiting for a reply and am confident the booked date had passed and I’ve lost my money …. Starting to understand why there was a huge protest against this place opening , waste of time and money all round

Sold me a £500 water feature , small print not frost free! Advice take in over cold months, not bothered or helpful at all. I cant move it, woould need a contractor to unistall move the re-instate. Very surprised by RHS to wash their habds of their "not fit for purpsoe" product.

Visited Tatton like we do every year this being the worst experience.I had a wheel chair to push around and couldn’t move for the shear volume of people. No COVID rules they must have missed the memo , toilets constantly being closed for 30mins at a time forcing people to walk to other end of the venue just because they did nott have enough tankers cost cutting again but then they charge you £25 for 3 crap salads. Water machines were a COVID spreader no one cleaning and 0ne hand sanitizer for each tent to deal with thousands of people it was a joke. Cash machines ran out after 2hrs. Got a good deal on the plants and felt sorry that the traders lost so much revunue because RHS couldn’t sort out the WIFi….come on RHS you can do better than this 🙈

this feedback is about the poor quality of the catering service.
The staff was no interested or showed engagement whatsoever.
I purchased 1 Cappuccino and 1 Mocha and we couldn't drink it. The taste of the coffee was terrible and the texture of the milk was like water.
I hope this helps.

I was booked on a workshop at Hyde Hall which had to be cancelled due to the leader being pinged (no issue). However it is proving a very arduous task to get a refund. It appears the RHS course organiser cannot resolve how to get this done and now according to her Out of Office message is away for the rest of the year. I am concerned the RHS may have cashflow problems and I will not get the refund after all. I cannot trust the RHS to be act honorably and will not book any further workshops with them.