ABC Leisure Group Ltd. Reviews 7

Booked a day hire at Goytre Wharf on the Brecon/Monmouth canal - the staff were very helpful, made us very welcome and the experience was superb.
Highly recommend it.

I have a time share with a company that use ABC Leisure as the management for their fleet of narrow boats. Since they introduced the new boats approx 5 years ago I have continually reported the need for a non-stick shower mat as the trays get treacherous once wet. Today I have finally got an answer from them to say as shower mats are not washable they would have to be changed for each booking due to possible contamination by bodily fluids. Whilst I accept this on some level it now brings into question if they can't trust their cleaners to wash them with an antibacterial disinfectant, how clean can the shower trays be? Machine washable mats are available if they only looked.
I have been told to pack my own mat in future. If this was a hotel they would not pass inspection and if this can't be done then they need to replace the shower trays fitted with non slip ones. After all these are marketed as 'luxury' boats!

We booked a narrow boat from Gailey Marina for 4 nights in July. The Pacific Gull was in excellent condition, beautifully clean and the instruction received from Dave was spot on for us first timers. All the staff were friendly and helpful. We comfortably managed to reach Stone in 2 days, overnighted in some beautiful and peaceful places and 5 of us had plenty of room on this 6 berth boat. We look forward to hiring again. P.S. We all appreciated the delightful shop in Gailey Roundhouse.

First of all if your are booking 7nts Edinburgh & Glasgow - there is no way you can do this even with the recommended sailing times, adhering to the rules of the water way that’s if you want to leave the boat & sight see! Even the Scottish canal staff say so.
The Scottish canal staff at Falkirk are fantastic and couldn’t do enough to help. This review in no way reflects them.
We had a great time at the Falkirk Wheel, Linlithgow and Harrison park Edinburgh. HOWEVER As all year around motorhomers for at least 15 years we rarely plug in & know how to shower efficiently to conserve water & power etc. On arrival at Falkirk we were advised that our boat the desert lark had broken down & the engineer had had to go to a&e, we were sorry to hear of this & didn’t make a fuss. However the technicians were trying to fix it. We were allowed to board with our luggage including fridge items. The only items that were working were the toilets and the gas cooker. One of the other passengers is an engineer in the RAF & my husband a qualified electrician so they were talking to the technician but he was unable to locate the problem. In the morning thankfully the engineer was better & returned to fix the boat we sailed 24 hours later. We were advised by the local staff to choose which city to visit - we chose Edinburgh.
The leisure batteries on our boat were clearly faulty as even after 7 hours sailing they did not hold their charge & keep the fridge cold never mind charge the phones etc. Bear in mind it’s mid May, light nights & there was a heatwave bar one day. They were failing after 8 hours never mind 2 days! We were also having to shower when the engine was running.
In addition to this the mattresses are appalling, you can feel every spring, you can hear every movement & the bed sheets / protector do not fit / elastic gone. They are certainly not memory foam as claimed! Two passengers have severe back issues & none of us got a full nights sleep the whole holiday. On the final night returning to Falkirk we handed the keys back early as we needed a full nights sleep before departing for a 5 hour drive home. Once again the staff in Falkirk were brilliant & even refunded the fuel without request. In Heindsight we should have called them to get them fixed but did we want to be waiting around & loosing more time? No! We made the best of it.
The dessert lark though a little dated was internally well appointed & you wanted for nothing except a quiet comfy mattress. The cleanliness was superb. I might add that the dessert lark achieved 3.4mph top speed and not the 4mph as the speed limit is. Doesn’t sound much but makes a vast difference!
This boat is not fit for purpose & all matters considered has ruined what should have been a relaxing enjoyable week. On writing to ABC on our return, they picked holes in our letter, insulted our intelligence which we corrected them on. We requested a substantial refund to which we were minimally satisfied with. We requested debit card refund as our credit card has been cloned on holiday - they said it had to be the card we paid on. When we re explained this we were advised we would only receive a cheque which we were happy with. A week later nothing. Only to find the refund on our credit card. So now to refund members of our party we will incur more charges!
Had they have handled things better at head office this review would have been much different or wouldn’t exist. In summary - the local staff were brilliant. The boat in that state is not fit for purpose. ABC are overselling their itinerary’s. They have some serious customer service issues to address internally. You shouldn’t come back early from a weeks holiday needing another holiday! In fact we wish we just cancelled it there and then when we were told it had broken down. Choose another company to book your barge with!

Recommended. The company prepared the 'crew' well, with instruction on how to operate locks, etc. The only shred of concern was that, should even a team of four heavy tea-drinkers require two pumpouts in one week, where we were all often off the boat? We had the Happy Wren from Ellesmere.
Great experience otherwise!

I have nothing but praise for ABC leisure group. They have given me good honest service and have been reasonably priced, for the work they've done and the parts they've supplied. And I can't say that for all the marina's I've dealt with over the years. I purchased a boat and had a mooring at ABC Leisure groups Ellesmere - Blackwater Meadow marina. Then last year sold the boat at their New Mills marina. And I've just had my Webasto diesel heater repaired at very short notice at their Nantwich Canal Centre. They have all been a pleasure to deal with. Striding Edge narrow boat and Bumble B narrow boat.

We had a booking cancelled (Llangollen canal) the day before we were due to travel as they had allocated the incorrect boat for the number in our party. They offered us a bigger boat on a not as good location/route, but refused to offer it cheaper, even though I had screen shots of the exact package being advertised on their website for considerably less. Staff at the time were all apologies and talking compensation to appease the situation, but after the event when I contacted them they turned rude and tried to make out the mistake was on our part. They simply couldn’t care less that they ruined our holiday, my advice would be book with a company that puts customers first, not this shambles of a company that only cares for profit. Shame there isn’t a zero star rating.