“It’s our 3rd time of booking with Barnes and they never disappoint. Lovely boat good layout. Kitchen well equipped and clean inside. Staff always helpful and pleasant. Definitely book again with them. Thank you.”
We're pleased you enjoyed your time on the water, Lesley. It's great to hear you found the boat clean, easy to handle, and up to the job when it came to some of the trickier moorings.
All the best,
The Team at Barnes Brinkcraft
“Great little Monday to Friday break!
Efficient staff and communication from start to finish! Used other boatyards b4 ! Location to start and end in wroxham is as good as it gets!
No problems with the boat ! Picked a boat with bow thrusters which is worth every penny!”
“Good welcome, boat wasn’t ready till 4pm which was difficult as we’re bought food and the weather was very hot and we weren’t allowed to leave the food in the fridge on boat which would have helped, the lady in the office said we could leave our food in their office which helped. Boat needs a new kettle as kettle handle kept fulling off and at one point the lid came of when pouring boiling water causing a burn, the boat says it accommodates 12 people we were a group of 7 adults 1 child which was tight at times so can’t see how it would accommodate 12 very easily, the holiday was good and the boat efficient for what we needed, although could do with a tidy up in a few places as quite run down.”
Thank you for your review and for sharing your experience.
We're pleased to hear that you enjoyed your holiday overall and found the boat suited your needs.
We're very sorry to hear about the issue with the kettle, particularly as it resulted in a burn. This is certainly not acceptable and we'd like to apologise for that. Had we been made aware during your holiday, we would have arranged for a replacement to be delivered straight away, wherever you were on the Broads.
We appreciate your comments regarding the boat not being ready until 4pm. Our boats are available between 2pm and 4pm depending on turnaround requirements, and unfortunately your holiday started on one of our busier changeover days. We're glad our team were able to help by storing your food while you waited.
With regard to accommodation, we agree that while the boat can sleep up to 12 people, some of the single berths are smaller and may not be suitable for all adult parties. We do try to highlight this in our boat description and encourage guests to discuss their party's requirements with us before booking so we can help them choose the most suitable boat.
This is one of the older, more traditional boats in our fleet and is designed to offer simple, comfortable accommodation at an affordable price point. That said, we appreciate your comments regarding areas that could benefit from some attention and will pass these on to our maintenance team.
Thank you again for your feedback, and we're delighted that despite these issues you were still able to enjoy your time on the Broads.
Kind regards,
The Barnes Brinkcraft Team
“Looks like a great range of craft to choose from that will suit budgets at all levels.
Booking was easy and looking forward to being back on the broads after an absense of 30 years!”
“We had a great time on the water once we had got used to the boat. We had the electric boat and was a great size for 2 of us. It took us a while to get used to the steering and the throttle . Although the young man that checked us in and showed us the ropes was lovely , we would have benefitted from a more detailed explanation / showing us how the boat worked and rules of the river eg what to do when coming out of a broad - this would have been very helpful and would have lead to a less stressful start to our trip, but overall, we had a fantastic time and would definitely recommend.”
“Due to traffic, and half term business, we started our hire 1 hr late, BUT this wasn’t their fault, they cut no corners and made sure we were safe and ready for our hire. They also accommodated extending our hire time by 1 hr so we didn’t miss out on any hire time. It was a fantastic experience for our anniversary and we enjoyed our selves entirely.”
“We as a family hired a boat on Tuesday afternoon,it wasnt planned a spur of the moment decision and able to book a boat in the afternoon for 2 hours.Great informative service throughout from booking,instruction talk before taking boat out and also on our return to boat yard.Will definately be using this company again in the future.”
“Very difficult to complete booking. I have a confirmed booking but when I log into my account I'm told I have no bookings. Also difficult to add more than one guest name.”
Thank you for your feedback, and we’re sorry to hear you found the booking process frustrating.
We were able to see your booking successfully in our system, but it’s clearly not ideal that it wasn’t visible when you logged into your account. We’ll be looking into this further with our booking software provider to see what may have caused the issue.
We also appreciate your comments regarding adding guest names. While this isn’t something we’ve had reported previously for day boat bookings, feedback like yours is really helpful as it allows us to review the customer experience and identify anything that may not be working as smoothly as it should.
Thank you again for taking the time to leave a review, and we do hope you enjoyed your time on the water.
“To book a boat and then to be told last minute when we arrived that it had broken down was extremely disappointing. Yes you gave a full refund which was to be expected.
You could have contacted us beforehand as you obviously knew it had broken down before our arrival time of 9.30am. We won't be booking through you again.”
We’re very sorry for the disappointment caused on the day of your booking.
Unfortunately, despite our engineers working on the boat prior to your arrival, it became clear that the issue could not be resolved safely in time for your hire. We completely understand how frustrating this was, particularly when you had made plans for the day.
We genuinely believed earlier that morning that the problem could be fixed and the boat made ready for you, which is why we had not cancelled in advance. In hindsight, we appreciate that better communication would have helped manage expectations, and we are sorry for the inconvenience caused.
While breakdowns are thankfully rare, boats are mechanical and unexpected faults can occasionally occur despite regular maintenance. We did, of course, issue a full refund immediately, but we appreciate this did not make up for the disappointment to your day.
Thank you for your feedback.
