![]() It's your child's birthday, it's your anniversary, it's your once in a lifetime visit to our country, it's your dad's special birthday, it's your honeymoon. A special event occasions a special experience; taking a dino mad kid to a natural history exhibition, taking the missus on a guided tour of a stately home. But if you get in touch with a venue a couple of days before you plan to visit, find out that what you want to do or see is fully booked out or unavailable (and advertised as such for months in advance) and then play an emotional blackmail card, the odds are that staff will feel for you - but not be able to do a darn thing about it. Really, we'll want to help, we'll make suggestions for alternatives, we'll add your name to waiting lists. But if that guided tour is fully booked, we have good (insurance often) reasons why we can't "just squeeze two more on" and if that exhibition is closed we probably can't "let you have a peek" because it'll be covered in dust cloths, hoardings and workmen/curatorial staff, with most of the exhibits missing or not even on display. I hate saying no to people (I know, I whine a lot here, so that may be a shock) but it hurts knowing there is a disappointed kid whose parents have already said "Yeah! we can do that!" or a new spouse whose ideal honeymoon will be less ideal. So a plea, if you will, to plan ahead a bit - because at the very least, birthdays happen the same time each year - and the more warning you give your chosen museum, gallery, historic house, castle... the more likely the staff will be able to pull out the stops and make your day awesome. We want you to be happy, and we want to be the people who make that happen. So plan a little, and we can plan a lot.
1 Comment
Where do your feelings lie?
We offer visitors a facility they can reserve in advance, and during some weekends and peak periods it is fully booked out.
"Fully booked!? Well surely you can fit our group in? There's only 8 of them and I did promise him he could visit for his birthday. He's been showing his friends your website and talking about what he'll do there, he's even asked his dad if he'll bring the camera so he can video their visit..." "We have some space the following day?" "Well that's not really good enough. That's not on his birthday." Well perhaps you should have thought about checking with us first before you promised your son something you can't fulfill. Oh, and checking more than about four days in advance helps as well. Having previously had foreign tourists complain that our venue should be in London because "Why wouldn't your visitor centre be where the visitors are?” There have now been three UK based customers debating our position in the UK, with various degrees of understanding.
A: It’s a shame you’re in the North. You should be roughly in the middle of England. B: It is roughly in the middle of England, it’s in the East Mid-lands A: That just means it’s in the middle of the UK. C: Speaking as someone who lives in Aberdeen, I can assure you, that is not the middle of the UK. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what A's mental map of the UK looks like. A customer phones up:
Customer: How do we get to you? Staff: Where are you to start with? In the city centre? Customer: Pretty much, we're still at the hotel and we're staying at Liverpool Street Travelodge. Staff: Uhm, bear with me while I work out where... ah, is that actually in Nottingham? Customer: No, London. Staff: Ok, so you'll need the train to get to us then, and your best route will be to talk to the hotel concierge about times and prices, they may be able to book it for you. It usually takes about two hours on the train, it's not a bad journey. Customer: TWO HOURS? Where are you? Staff: Nottingham, north of London, in the midlands area. Customer: What?! Why aren't you in London? Why wouldn't your visitor centre be where the visitors are? |
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February 2023
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