China Blue Shop Reviews 3

We went to their pre-Christmas sale this evening and left very disappointed. They offered free mulled wine and only got a third of a cup, we decided to eat there as we had come straight from work and despite displaying lots of lovely pies etc were told that they had to serve it cold due to no staff in the kitchen. They put on a sort of rock choir from Dawlish, they sounded ok but the majority of them looked so miserable with faces like a slapped arse! It was making us miserable to watch so left half our tea due to it being inedible being cold. Then we shopped…….we’ve been coming to China Blue as our Christmas vigil for the last 20 years and sadly, whilst they have made some improvements, we saw this year quite a decline in number of the products they sell. This is due to them extending the ceramics side and the cafe, the shop is dwindling in size. On top of which this evening they must have been short staffed as they only had one person on the till, the queue to pay snaked around the shop in the aisles making it difficult for people to shop. There is another till on the ceramics side of the shop. You would think for a special event they would ensure they were fully staffed and had at least 2 tills open, and extra staff in the kitchen to heat food. Sadly, I doubt we will be back for a special event soon.

We are a specialised holiday company for adults with learning difficulties based in south Cerney. We have several holidays to Devon annually and this is the 2nd year we have spent a day in this fantastic place. Our clients absolutely love the pottery and painting sessions and the lady that runs it, (Debbie)is really helpful and welcoming to us all. Staff are really friendly too. We also have lunch there, and the food is fantastic and extremely tasty, I believe it’s home made. Parking good, easy access to toilets, and all on one level . We ate our lunch in the pretty garden again this year. I would highly recommend China Blue for a thoroughly good experience, day out, a meet up or a treat. We arrived at 10.30 and left, very happy after pottery painting, lunch and shopping, around 3.30ish. We will definately be coming back, just wish there was a place like this near me.

I have never written a negative report before but I need to let people what I found here. We live in Devon, not very far from China Blue. My daughter and her friend were visiting last week and we arranged to meet there. We thought we would do some ceramic painting while we were there.
My daughter treated us to a scone and tea before before we carried on to do the painting. It was only later in the week that she told us it had cost her 26.00 for the four of us we were not happy about that. The only reason I have given three stars is the fact that at least they were nice scones and the place was clean and tidy.
However, when we got in to do the painting what a rip off! To start with you need to pick out what you wanted to paint, which is obvious. However, the prices were not. The cheapest thing we could find was a tiny pixie that was 1.50, the next up was a gnome that was not a proper garden gnome it was about 2-3 inches high and that was 7.50. I found a fairy that I would have liked to paint, that was 25.00! On top of this you then have to pay for the paint you are going to use (fair enough) but that was 6.00 each, then, if you couldn’t get back to collect your work of art, it will cost another 6.50 to post. So, if you had even one small gnome and it’s posted it’s going to cost you 14.00!even if you can collect it it’s going to cost7.50! So beware. Luckily we hadn’t started anything and we left.
One other thing there is no lift so if you have problems with walking etc you are not going to be able to look at the items to paint upstairs either.
With peoples finances the way they are, it is not going to be cheap place to go with the kids on a wet holiday day.