Obby Reviews 12

Fantastic morning making bread boards with Richard at The River Shop.

My friend and I did the Kintsugi Class which was fantastic. Booking the class was really simple and communication about the class was very good. The class itself was in a great location, well run and really good fun. I highly recommend this Class.

Extremely unhappy with gift card experience. I received a £100 gift card right before the pandemic. Due to the pandemic, there were no in-person classes and even when things re-opened, the selection was poor. Now that things are back to normal, I've asked if I can redeem my gift card but have been told it's expired. A one year expiry policy for a gift card is draconian even in normal times! I understand "their house, their rules" but I would certainly never purchase a gift card for anyone else from there. What a huge waste of money :(

Amazing customer service. Really responsive and helpful. Made a mistake in my online ordering and they were able to cater for this mistake.

After recently being made redundant from a job i had been doing for 35 years & no longer enjoying, i decided it would be nice to do something that i would enjoy. After looking at images of river tables & finding them fascinating i booked myself on the river table course. It turned out to be a wise move as the course has left me with a confidence that i didn't have before attending. I have looked at many videos on this subject but nothing has given me the confidence to try & make a river table on my own. I would highly recommend taking this course if you are thinking of making one of these amazing tables.

I wanted to try using epoxy resin for my part time business so joined this course. Richard is very knowledgeable and answered the technical questions as well as making it fun. I have already recommended it to a friend who is interested in taking up resin working

Really enjoyed my course epoxy resin. Covered all my questions and the basics.
Richard was very knowledgeable and helpful.
I would definitely recommend this course.
Thank you for a good spent afternoon

Don't buy gifts using Obby.

I bought a gift order for my sister and mother to enjoy. Now that the government has closed gathering there's no gift to redeem and I've been told gifts are not refundable.

If I had bought the class on my own account, my sister and mum could have gone to the class any way. The gifting experience just makes it simpler for the recipient to use the service.

Obby have just taken this gift money for the class they can't provide. How many more people bought gifts that Obby have just taken for themselves during crisis?

Hopefully some money actually goes to the person who was organising the class. But I very much doubt that as there are no classes.

the workshops are either brilliant or terrible unfortunately no middle ground. Also I can’t leave feedback on workshops I have attended anymore. Particularly alarming as the last one I attended (jewellery stack ring) there was a mouse/rat running around the workshop & the event ended after 80 minutes instead of 120!

Postscript. After the help I got today directly from Obby I have revised my score from 2 to 4 stars

First time user and made a booking for a hen do ahead of time. Received all the confirmations but later found out when proactively messaging the teacher that the Booking wasn’t accepted on the teacher’s side.

Very let down with the platform and just want to forewarn others who may find themselves in the same boat.

Some obvious flaws with Obby: (1) no update when booking gets retrospectively cancelled - your booking will still show Confirmed with a Confirmation Number on the status page - which means you would have no idea your reservation has failed unless you can get in touch with your teacher directly; (2) but it is difficult to contact the teachers directly and quickly as no phone number is provided as you can only do it via email and in my case our teacher didn’t know how to access their email until two weeks later which means there was no advanced warning; (3) if you find issues with the booking, your only option is to message the Obby team and wait for the reply. As also no phone number for escalation; (4) unrelated to this event but when you search for date and activities, you will realise that the date screening doesn’t really work, ie Obby will still show you lots of sessions even though the sessions don’t exist on your desired date.

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Long story here:

I was tasked with organising a hen party with 8 people. After much consideration I decided to book a crafts session via Obby as thought the bride would love it.

I first messaged the chosen teacher on 28 April asking a couple of questions. Having received no reply in the corresponding days, I decided to book their session for May 11 anyway. I then received an automated response confirming booking.

Less than 2 days before the event (May 9 ) I received a very short cryptic message from the teacher saying “we are fully booked” and “sorry for the late response as I’m getting used to the new functionality”. Because he was replying to just one of my old 28 April messages rather than my confirmation email and because the Bookings page on my Obby account was still showing as confirmed, I assumed he was confusing my separate messages as thinking I was two distinct parties.

But the night before I decided to proactively check anyway given it was such an important event (May 10 at 10pm). I couldn’t find a contact number on Obby and was afraid it would take the teacher another two weeks to come back to me - so I had to Google the teacher to get his mobile number. Thankfully he replied quickly this time but saying he was double booked and he cancelled our reservation!!!! So here we were at 10pm the night before a Hen do with no afternoon activities for the bride. How ridiculous was this !!

At no point did my inbox say my booking was cancelled. In fact I still have the instructions on where to go and what to do from the teacher in my inbox. Worse still at no point did my Booking status change - so it’s still showing Confirmed on my Booking page with a confirmation number. The only reason i know this is not a bad joke is having called the teacher immediately on getting the text message and speaking to him, he has emphasised strongly that he cannot host us.

So disappointing as it required me to be proactive to double and triple check bookings and my Booking page still shows confirmed. If I didn’t do this the night before I would have just turned up and been rejected at the door.

Amazing experience! This year I've decided to learn something new and a friend recommended Obby. I went on their website and found an amazing pottery class (something I've always been fascinated about) and signed up straight away. The class was great, the teacher was really friendly and I got back home with a mug made by entirely by me 😃.

Now I've enrolled in a 12-week course and I can't wait to start!

I made a booking for a cooking class in London with Obby. I accidentally booked for the wrong date, but they had this little chat thing on the bottom of the page. I contacted them and was able to chat with someone straight away who sorted everything out for me. Really great customer service! Also, my class was amazing!