Crazybeargroup Reviews 168

Wow.
I don't know where to start.
We completed the hot air balloon ride yesterday at the crazy bear hotel in oxford.

From the moment we arrived until the whoëe day was over, we had the best experience ever.

Everyone made the day special. The crew, the pilot, the driver, the staff at the hotel, absolutely everyone played a part.

This was a gift for my 50th and after a very tough few months we have quite literately, been lifted up.
Thank you all so much.
We would absolutely recommend this to everyone.
Please pass on our thanks to everyone

Hot air balloon experience should be avoided due to mass cancellations and no refunds

I booked two deluxe rooms for my daughter’s graduation. One for me & my husband & one for my daughter & her boyfriend. A week before, I noticed that check in was at 4pm which was no use to us as we needed to be in Oxford then. My own fault for not checking, but that is a very late check in when you are paying decent money for a room.
I tried ringing to see if we could pay for an early check in for one of the rooms. I rang so many times, never any answer, left messages asking to be called back, no one did. After two days of constant ringing, I finally got through. I was told in a very rude manner, that there was no way they could do it, I was about to ask if I could instead book my daughter’s room for an extra night so that she could get ready there, when I was either cut off or the phone put down on me.
I kept ringing back & eventually got through, only to be told that I was ringing the wrong number. I was through to Beaconsfield not Stadhampton. When I explained that it is the Beaconsfield number listed on the Stadhampton site for hotel bookings, I was told again, that no, it was the wrong number & they would put me through to Oxford. Guess what, no answer.
Loads more phone calls to Oxford, tried the Oxford number that Beaconsfield gave me, plus the events, wedding any number I could find. No answer on any of them.
Tried the Beaconsfield number countless times again, eventually got through to be told again it was the wrong number.
By this stage I was incandescent with anger and begged the lady to help me. Eventually she did & I managed to book another night for my daughter and her boyfriend, but only by upgrading both nights to a suite.
I then emailed the Stadhampton hotel (hoping they check emails better than they answer phones) to check that the booking had been made & that we definitely had the extra night. Also wanted to check that my credit card could be used for the £150 security deposit for them as they would be checking in a day before us. They are both poor students & can’t afford to have £150 unavailable for days in their accounts.
I was told that I would need to send my daughter a photo of my credit card for her to check in with, to prove identity? But that she would have to put the deposit on her card. I explained that she couldn’t afford to do that & could they just phone me when she checked in to take the payment from my card over the phone. I was told no. I then asked, if I had booked the original rooms on line on their website with my card, then booked the suite upgrade on my card over the phone, why couldn’t they take the deposit over the phone? They said it was impossible. I asked the question again and was told they would need to speak to their manager. I asked them to get the manager to email me directly.
I received an email from Nicci, who could see all the previous emails and she said from what she could gather all I had to do was send a picture of my credit card to my daughter.
I explained again that if she looked back through the emails, I had been told she would still have to put the deposit on her card & that she couldn’t afford to do that. Nicci said to send herself & my daughter a picture of the card & she would sort it. Relived, I did just that.
When we arrived at the hotel the day after my daughter, we found out that my daughter’s boyfriend had had to put the deposit on his card & it can take up to 5 days to clear again after checkout, depending on the bank. I was so cross after being promised by Nicci she would sort it out. 😡😡😡
I had sent my daughter some money so that her & her boyfriend could have a meal on the first night in the hotel. They booked the Thai restaurant.
The first two meals arrived cold & my daughter’s cocktail had a mouldy raspberry in it. She did point out the raspberry and they replaced the cocktail, but they were too timid to complain about the cold food.
On checkout day, I spoke to the acting General Manager Rob Wills about everything that had gone on. He apologised, but didn’t seem to really care, said he would speak to Nicci to find out why my daughter’s boyfriend had ended up paying the deposit and he would email me.
I have heard nothing.
This is not a budget hotel and for the prices you pay, the customer service levels should be way, way better than this. For us it was an absolutely appalling experience.
It turned what should have been a joyful occasion into a very disappointing and stressful one.
Our ‘deluxe’ room was pretty small, hate to think what the cheaper rooms are like. The decor is aged, threadbare carpets on the stairs.
There are no facilities to make a drink in the rooms, no fridge for cold drinks & they charge corkage if you have your own drinks in the room.
Absolutely wouldn’t contemplate staying here again.
Don’t waste your money.

Awful. Just awful. Booked an afternoon tea at Beaconsfield Crazy Bear, which I had swapped my voucher with as I’m recently pregnant and couldn’t do the other option for extreme sports with another company. Thought it would be nice to book here as it seems to be a very popular place and looks incredible. Wow was I wrong!! Firstly the options for me were limited as all the sandwiches I could eat (I don’t eat meat) were made with mayonnaise apart from the vegan cheese… by the way, they had no normal cheese sandwiches. So I had to go with the vegan, which I might add was disgusting. I was looking forward to the teardrop sandwich but I was served normal ones for some reason and they looked poor… my husband specifically asked for no fish sandwiches and to replace them with the ham but he was served the salmon sandwich anyway which made him heave, and my vegan cheese sandwich was dry as a bone, I took one bite and was nearly sick. I called a waiter over and nicely requested my sandwich to be made fresh as it was really dry, and as I’m pregnant it doesn’t take me much to be sick. The manager came over and she was unbelievably rude to me as if I’d done something wrong, she was talking to me like crap on her shoe, “which sandwich is dry, tell me and I’ll replace it” I said “all of them, try them” she tutted and swiped the plate away and said she would replace them all. She came back with fresh sandwiches and non dry bread, she said “all the bread is fresh here this morning” so why was I served stale bread and scolded for asking for fresh bread?! My husband don’t even bother asking about his salmon sandwich. The rest of the food was basically really mediocre, I could have made it better myself. We payed £60 for about £5 worth of food!! Awful. Awful food awful service and not to mention the serious amount of dead zoo animals sticking out of the walls which apparently ‘died from natural causes’ at London zoo and sold to the crazy bear. Disgusting! To this day my stomach turns when I think about that afternoon tea, I physically feel sick. It was vile. The whole thing was vile. Oh and we didn’t get a warm welcome when we arrived, the staff on the door looked down their noses at us. AVOID THIS PLACE. SHUT IT DOWN! The worst restaurant experience of my life.

Had a champagne afternoon tea in Stadhampton, present from my children, it was very nice, service was good, we were asked if we want water which we had but was not told it was a seperate charge of £4.95 along with a service charge of £8.75, I was quite disgusted that they can do this without informing the customer, there is nothing on the form from Virgin Experience to say this, it seems they get as much out of customers as they can get so be aware if you buy this you will be charged, I will not be returning.

Attended for a Thai massage today. Upon arrival I was ignored and left standing Unhelped even though there were 5 staff in reception. Eventually an abrupt women gave me a form to complete saying “sit down fill this in”. I explained I was hard of seeing and had left my glasses in the car and asked for help she snapped at me saying “ I haven’t got time for this I’m busy” I explained I just needed help or I couldn’t complete it. She stormed up to me and snatched it out of my hand and slammed it on the table saying “I’ve got better things to be doing” such was the force that she snatched it with, the patrons at the table close by looked mortified! I challenged her behaviour and she rudely said “ well I’m busy”. Absolutely disgusting behaviour and vile attitude. Disabled patrons word of warning ⛔️ they have no interest in helping you.

AVOID! AVOID! AVOID! Before you regret!

Avoid this company at all cost. Booked for hot air balloon for special occasion back in May its been cancelled 4 times and not givebthe refund. Its now end of July, the flight was cancelled again. They would not give you enough notice. Can cancel on the day when you arrived. Don't waste booking here. Terrible customer service from staff, pilot and general manager. Would not give refund at all cost due to there policy. I only found out that it was non refundable after I paid the booking last May. Coming up to 3 months booking always been cancelled.

AVOID AVOID AVOID

I booked a 2 nights stay at The Crazy Bear Hotel in Beaconsfield which was meant to be a surprise for my partner as I had heard amazing things about it. On the day that we were meant to go my disabled son had fall extremely unwell and at that point i informed Crazy Bear that we would not be able to the booking and explained the circumstances to them to see if I could get a refund back or even change the dates so we could go on another date as my disabled son was my priority him being unwell. They were very unhelpful and didn’t give me any option but instead told me the only option was for me to still come even though children aren’t allowed or send someone to take my place. I explained to them that I was stressed and my priority is my son and this was not possible and they still took £748.00 from my account even though we wasn’t able to go and stay at the hotel for the 2 nights we booked. I also emailed them asking if they could please make an exception on this occasion due to the circumstances and they showed no sense of care for my circumstances, they didn’t want to help or even care. I will never again book a stay at The Crazy Bear Hotel in Beaconsfield and anyone booking please be aware.

Booked here for the night of our wedding as it a local business to our home and wanted something special, it was far from special. Completely underwhelming experience. Booked the suite which I advised staff we was staying here for our wedding night and wanted to be special.
On arrival the room was nice but nothing to show it was our wedding e.g. a congratulations card or a bottle of wine, I’ve stayed in basic hotels for birthdays before and had a box of chocs or some kind of celebration gift in the room. We rang reception as was hungary who said they only have peanuts available.
We went to sleep, bed wasn’t that comfortable and I had hardly any sleep due to the window above the bed having no blinds so as soon as sunrise came the whole room was lit up.
Breakfast was very basic for such an expensive hotel, me and my husband went for a smoke and told the waitress this, when we got back they had cleared our table, not 1 staff member congratulated us either.
I complained to staff by email twice saying how unhappy we were but no one has even bothered to reply.
Really disappointed, terrible customer service

Avoid Crazy Bear Stadhampton AT ALL costs!!!!. It was me and my wife's worst getaway experience ever! I decided to surprise my wife with a visit to this establishment to celebrate our anniversary; however, by midnight she was in floods of tears and we had to leave due to a variety of unacceptable issues.

My wife returned from her massage around 5:30pm and was feeling hungry as we had traveled from London and yet to eat while our booking for the restaurant was not until 9:30pm. We attempted numerous times to call room service, to which no one was answering. This resulted in me having to go look for someone downstairs, which I eventually did. I kindly requested two coffees and a food menu so we could order some food. The gentlemen then brought up the menus and coffees; however, once again when we decided what we wanted and called down again, no one was answering. Again, I had to get up and go down in search of someone. I couldn't find anyone available, so I just called it quits and went back to the room and we just held our hunger in until dinner. When we came back from dinner, we still felt a little hungry, so we decided to call down for dessert. Surprise surprise, no one was available again, so again I went downstairs to look for someone to order dessert, which I finally did. At this point, I was beyond frustrated because I was spending more time searching for staff to help me than actually enjoying my anniversary.

The final straw was the heating in the room went up to full blast. We tried to put the air conditioning on, but this was not working. We were becoming overcome by the heat and no one was answering our calls for assistance. I once again went down in search of assistance and some water, but I couldn't find anyone. I had to go to my car to find used bottles of water to bring back to the room for my wife and I, as she has extreme asthma and the heat was triggering this. I tried to reassure her that it would be fine; however, the heat became unbearable for us to deal with, and with no water for us to drink except that from the tap, my wife, after being in floods of tears, decided she couldn't deal with it anymore. She was worried as she had already used her inhaler multiple times, so we reluctantly jumped into the car at 2:00am extremely tired and drove back to London.

Our anniversary was ruined when it started so beautifully, and I am gutted. I spent £499.00 hoping it would be a brilliant experience, and in the end, I didn't even get to spend the night due to circumstances that had nothing to do with me.

I telephoned the reception first thing in the morning and was told that "Tom" the manager would call me which never came. I also emailed and sent a follow up email but again no answer. I have also tried to call again today and reception are just putting the phone down after two rings.

Please save yourself the money and visit somewhere else because you will be left hugely disappointed (and out of pocket!!) by this place so again do yourself a favor and avoid at all costs!!

Excellent food, great friendly service from our waitress plus others. Dietary needs met and a pudding was replaced at no extra cost (we had 7 course set menu in English restaurant Beaconsfield) portions are small but for 7 courses worked perfectly. Service charge is high but I liked that at the end the man stated it could be removed if we wanted. We didn’t as had a great experience and 10/10 service for my daughters 19th Birthday. We will deffo come again. Cocktails were also amazing. Pricey overall but you get what you pay for and the surroundings are beautifully picture perfect.

Booked a table in the Thai Restaurant for my birthday with a group of girls. Getting through to someone on the phone was not always easy. There were so many times I could not get through.

I would rate the food 6/10. The vegetarian options are extremely limited and we did not enjoy everything. Not ideal when the price is high.

We were seated in a private area and it was lovely to be fair.

The only other positive thing was dealing with Alba who booked in my reservation and made that experience memorable. Great service overall, thank you.

Hard to find as not well advertised but found eventually... Staff at reception good but most rooms are opposite the Crazy Bear by crossing main road and then going into a quite modern building with no character... Rooms are soo dim and dark even with all lighting on and when using the shower it pours water all over the bathroom floor... Restaurant pretty good and food is great, especially breakfast... Would we visit again ? No, very overpriced lackluster accommodation which is quite worn and I would question cleanliness of rooms due to no way cleaners would be able to see what they were cleaning....

DO NOT GET A THAI MASSAGE AT CRAZY BEAR!

I am very disappointed with the massage I had yesterday. The massage was for 30 mins which I had paid for an hour.
The lady who gave me the massage was not good at all. The pressure was different in all areas throughout the massage I was not relaxed at all and felt as if she was rushing me. She even noticed I was NOT relaxed as she kept moving my arm and kept telling me to relax.

My lower back is still hurting with all the pressure, it is not massage pain. The therapist went too deeply and too quickly in to my muscles and surrounding tissues trying to rush the full massage. I was really looking forward to this massage for a very long time. I am highly disappointed with the service I received throughout the whole experience at crazy bear.

I then spoke to the manager on site and he advised there is a que of bookings. It this why you rush your customers for your bookings?

This was my worst experience at a massage place.

Went to the thai restaurant with my wife. Such a disappointing experience. Food is literally disgusting and service below average. The waitress had a character and not very nice. On top of that it's pricey

Very quirky Hotel with lots of unusual decor. Food and service all excellent as were the rooms (if a little dark) but guess thats all part of the experience.
However, what they don't tell you is that there is a service charge on all food and drink and although the bar area when we stayed was empty, you still have to be served at your table, so will always incur service charge on your drinks.
The other issue we found unreasonabel, was the continental breakfast is included in your room package valued at £13.95. However should you require a cooked breakfast, there is an additional charge of £16.95 and they DO NOT take into account the £13.95 inc in your package which we thought was unfair. Would highly reccommend a stay at the Hotel but BEWARE of add on's.

Awful food long waiting times,sandwiches too salty cakes to dry cold coffee
Middle of winter air conditioning on. Dark and dingy. Avoid don't waste your money

Sandwiches salty and cakes dry . For the price plus added service charge really disappointing for where it was and the reputation it has.

Would not recommend

My daughter stayed at the Beaconsfield hotel for 1 night her boyfriends 21st. An expensive present for a young person to pay for, but wanted it to be special.
She cut her toe really badly on the shower plug. She was scared about blood on the floor carpet as the hotel took a cleaning deposit in case of damages. Her aunt who is a nurse advised on what to do to clean and dress it. This happened late in the evening. At check out the next morning she shared this with the receptionist and asked for it to be passed to the manager. She heard nothing back. We then emailed the manager with photos that also show time and date and that it was in the hotel bedroom.
He has basically responded to say because they didnt tell them straight away there is nothing they will do about it. Dreadful customer service, no concern care or followup. We are taking this further.

Was gifted a large value voucher half way through lockdown- the voucher has now expired but called to ask if I could extend it (even happy to pay) like most companies have honoured (buy a gift, virgin experience etc). Was told unable to use it as expired- rude receptionist eventually gave me an email address for the lady who makes the decisions, again told cannot extend it as the owners have made that decision. Will not be visiting or recommending. Would cost the company nothing to show compassion. Greedy.