Cambridge - Shared Punting Tour

Excellent, informative tour! No wait, no line with pre-booking. Family friendly, our 3 year old had a wonderful time as did we!

I had pre booked a shared punting tour for 3pm on Good Friday (7th April 2023). Whilst I understand that this is a particularly busy day for punting, we were left disappointed with our experience. When we arrived we queued to 'check in'. Upon providing our details, we were told that we were not on the booking system and that there had been a glitch on the website. The member of staff at the 'check in' area was very apologetic and told us that we could either book on to a boat a few hours later or get a refund from his manager at the quayside. He called his 'manager' and told us to go down to see him. We were told he would be wearing the same uniform as his colleague. We understood that it was not his fault so we agreed to walk down to get the refund. I felt as if the 'check in' member of staff was quite overwhelmed! Upon arriving at the quayside, we could not find a man dressed in the same uniform as the 'check in' member of staff. It was busy so I understand that it is quite hard to find one particular person but there were no people dressed the same down there. I asked another company whether they knew where he was. They pointed me in his direction and I approached the Rutherfords member of staff. As I approached, the man walked away from me at some speed in the opposite direction. This happened twice until I managed to get close enough to him to discuss our situation. He appeared to act as if he was going to do us a favour by refunding us even though it was a mistake made by the company. I was not satisfied that he was going to ensure we received a refund as he simply just took a photo of an email on my phone and said he would do it later. This is not the service that I would expect when a mistake was made by the company which was not our fault. I contacted the email address that was on the bottom of my confirmation email. I was impressed with the speed of response from your customer service member of staff (Georgia) and she was very helpful and apologetic for the situation. I have now received my refund and this was received in a timely manner. Overall, we had a very disappointing experience with Rutherfords. The only thing keeping this from being a 1 star review is the customer service I received via email. I feel that if your staff on the day had provided a similar level of customer care and consideration, then we would have been disappointed that we had this cancelled but could have accepted that it was a mistake. The 'manager' made the overall experience an unhappy one. To add - The group who were in front of us in the queue also had the same problem and were visibly annoyed that this had occurred. Although the 'check in' member of staff was apologetic and was trying to diffuse the situation, when he called his manager it was evident that his manager was adamant that he tried to upsell a private tour to them. This appeared to be quite inappropriate and initially gave customers around the impression that the main motivation was to get them to pay more.

Not enough chat, had to ask about what certain buildings were. Got more info from other boats and their guides as they passed