RHS Reviews 253

I won’t be returning. The cafe food and drink prices are extortionate. £7 for a wrap. That was it .. just a wrap with 2 bite size pieces of chicken in each one. No salad on the side. Dreadful. Such a shame as I’d heard it was lovely. Pleasant surroundings…

Many years ago I went to a charming little cafe at Wisley Gardens and had a cream tea. I hoped to repeat the experience in my old age, but the cafes have become canteens and the prices are appalling: £10.50 for a slice of cake, a coffee and a can of pop. The jacket potatoes were tiny and cost over £7.00. Very disappointing. That's why my score is a 3. The gardens and the gift shop are lovely.

Felisha was more that helpful! I was having trouble purchasing gift memberships. She walked me through the process online as well as on the phone. She was patient and understanding and didn't make me feel like an idiot because I could not do it on my own. RHS is lucky to have Felisha!

RHS bridgewater 1st Aug 22. Very busy. Car park was full but too much wasted space between vehicles due to no markings. Male toilet within the main entrance is poor - too few cubicles and no way of identifying occupied cubicles if colourblind though wash basin area very good. Long queue at main cafe. Lovely gardens with plenty if seating and picnic space / lawns. Still developing the garden but very smart.

This was my first visit to an RHS flower show, and based on my experience today at Tatton Park Flower Show, it will be my last. The whole event seemed badly organised, there was at least a five-mile tailback to get into the car park, and once we were inside the event, there was a lack of seating and long queues for food and drink; the only restaurant we found required pre-booking, lunch was £50 each. The show gardens were limited; the floral display tents were better, but it was hard to see anything due to the crowds. There were a varied array of stalls selling all manner of things. We didn't buy anything as we were parked too far away to carry things back to the car. We stayed for under two hours and left very disappointed. Never again.

Truly beautiful Gardens & surroundings.
So well thought out & executed.
So many wild flowers & water features make it really special.
With lots of areas with seating to enjoy it all.
Our favourite was the stunning walled gardens.
An absolute must to visit!

Took my relatives to RHS Rosemore, the gardens were perfect & £13.95 for entry was expensive but worth it for the gardens. What let the whole visit down was the rude & ignorant cafe staff. You expect to pay inflated prices at tourist attractions but £5.50 for a tiny pasty & when a staff member was asked about sandwiches (very few on display), we were bluntly & rudely told "we will restock but not till later". How easy would it have been to ask what we wanted & we would have left happy customers. I expect more from the RHS, we support local attractions when possible & always take out relations to local places, but this left them angry & we will not return (we were looking at membership!). Very poor cafe service & I recommend taking a picnic or going somewhere else.

Outrageous waste of money. Nearly £45 to visit an overcrowedec and less than impressive flower festival with totally inadequate refreshments, queues at every, bar, ice-cream van and food seller whilst the garden displays were tired and inadequate. They would have been pushing heir luck to charge half the price.

Sadly this was a huge disappointment. I thought the whole point in selling tickets is to control numbers. The show was absolutely heaving - you could not move because of the crowds. And this is sheer greed from the organisers, you MUST control numbers. Presumably also due to greed, there was also a distinct lack of staff, particularly in the car park which resulted in utter chaos. It took us an 1.5 hours to get out.

The gardens would benefit from more labelling of plants like Bod Nant. I know it’s a work in process and I will go again when the Chinese pavilion is finished. It needs more tall vistas as much of it is a bit flat. I visited today:first June. Car park well organised.
Had a coffee to start with which hardly tasted of coffee. £9.50 for 2 coffees and a croissant. The coffee needs improvement definitely for the price.
The garden centre is very expensive for plants. A real put off.
The walled garden is the best bit but please label all plants: very hit and miss labelling.
A lot of “wilding” .

It was poetic justice when the ‘peoples choice’ garden at the recent RHS Chelsea show was the perennial garden ‘with love’. A traditional and well designed floriferous offering, surely a smack on the hand for the woke liberal elite metropolitan judges. Their ridiculous winner was not a garden and let’s see what happens when all those beavers multiply and cause havoc randomly in our overcrowded island, chewing down (quite large) trees willy nilly with attendant havoc and disrupting food production.

Yesterday we attended the Chelsea Flower Show for the 2nd time in 30 years . A bit smaller than I remember but very glamorous and quite an event.
Lots of food to be had and being in our 70s decided on Fish & Chips with Mushy Peas, cant go wrong? Waited 20 minutes in queue to order Paid £32 a bit pricey for fish & chips but it is Chelsea ,it has to be done. Order arrived asked for Tartar sauce & plastic cutlery to be told they had run out of cutlery? I asked how do you expect me to eat my mushy peas, the girl then asked me to not raise my voice and show respect? it was frustration!. I then asked for refund and girl did not know how? I asked for a manager who after another delay came up with some eating irons. Also run out of all kind of drinks! Not a great advert for the premier Gardening show. Brian Macnamara.

I was thinking of joining the RHS, but I'm so disappointed and frustrated with their website I have changed my mind. I could only get very limited information from the website because it just keeps going round in circles.

We are members of RHS. The website is a frustrating experience. Endlessly going round in circles being asked to link your membership and join now. Useless.

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.