Nutcase
18-11-2007, 13:47
Sorry, mostly a rant I'm afraid :(
Went on a day trip to london yesterday with a few friends as a birthday day out :)
Is it just me, or is London not what it used to be? A couple of bad experiences threatened to (but fortunately didn't) ruin the day.
Ordered lunch in the Yates on Leicester Square (yes I know, hardly a high class establishment!), it wasn't busy, yet two of the meals came out badly cooked (one with two barely cooked eggs, one with pretty much everything overcooked), and after 40 minutes two of us gave up waiting for their cups of tea (despite constant reassurances of they're "on the way". and had to wait another 10 minutes to get them refunded :angry: I've eaten in Several Yates before, they're normally cheap but edible food with reasonable service.
When we tried to complain, there was no manager available.
Then to kill some time we headed for the Science Museum. None of us had been for many years, and were all excited. What a waste of time :angry: Half of what we saw was just racks of aircraft/trains/space/etc. of which only a small amount was actually labelled with what it was and why it was important. The we went to the "hands on" areas, which whilst we're all adults, we're all big kids really, and were expecting to have a bit of fun. Nope. Half of it didn't work, and the bits that did were exceedingly dull. There were games that were a white table that a projector shone down onto, with a button and wheel for each player - except there was no instructions, the game was only very short and the drivvle in between about various subjects was presented in a thoroughly unexciting way (and unreadable anyway as the projection was so blurred). There were a lot of children in there, almost all of whom looked as bored as we were.
So we thought we'd try out the Imax in there. We had 2 for 1 vouchers so the price was ok (£3.75 each). We watched the Dinosaur 3D show. Started great, animated dinosaurs coming out at you etc. but then it went into a seriously overlong spiel about how dinosaur fossils were dug up and classified etc. Most interesting, except almost all of that footage was pointless being 3D, in fact much of it was ~1920's cine footage so wasn't 3D anyway... There were frequently people getting up and leaving mid-film.
I think the Science museum needs to seriously re-think it's methods. Even with free entry it's a ripoff. It needs to be an educational establishment, but it needs to do it in an interesting way. One of my friends with us is a year 5 teacher, and often organises school trips, but she said no way would she want to take her kids there.
Then we went back into theatreland as we'd got tickets for a show. We went with the hope of getting half price tickets for We will Rock you, but luck of the draw, none available. I'd seen the theatre showing Avenue Q a while back and wondered what it was. Looked it up on the net and it was basically described as sesame street for the adult generation. Sounded like my kind of thing, but my friends weren't convinced. Still, they (most kindly) decided as it was my do to give it a try. I was rather bricking it as the day hadn't exactly gone well so far...
When we were at the ticket booth, I had my hoooge "30" badge on, and I wonder if it helped as the lady rang somewhere asking for more Avenue Q tickets, hung up and said she had some 5th row, centre ones for us. So good or bad, we were going to have a good view :D
I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Absolutely brilliant show. Within the first couple of minutes we were all laughing our heads off. Really made the day for all of us. Fantastic acting and singing, spot on timing and even a little bit of audience participation. Well worth the £27 each we paid.
http://www.thestage.co.uk/images/pics/13088.jpg
Then we headed off to Ed's Diner for some food. I've been to one once before a few years back. Still great. Not the cheapest burgers, but they taste great, and the onion rings are still the best I've had :cool:
One last gripe - £4.20 for a pint of diet coke in a bar?!!!?! A pint of lager in the same place was £3.10 which is about the same as many Chelmsford places.
A busy day, and I am shattered today! Overall I really enjoyed it, just shame a couple of places showed how bad it can be :(
Went on a day trip to london yesterday with a few friends as a birthday day out :)
Is it just me, or is London not what it used to be? A couple of bad experiences threatened to (but fortunately didn't) ruin the day.
Ordered lunch in the Yates on Leicester Square (yes I know, hardly a high class establishment!), it wasn't busy, yet two of the meals came out badly cooked (one with two barely cooked eggs, one with pretty much everything overcooked), and after 40 minutes two of us gave up waiting for their cups of tea (despite constant reassurances of they're "on the way". and had to wait another 10 minutes to get them refunded :angry: I've eaten in Several Yates before, they're normally cheap but edible food with reasonable service.
When we tried to complain, there was no manager available.
Then to kill some time we headed for the Science Museum. None of us had been for many years, and were all excited. What a waste of time :angry: Half of what we saw was just racks of aircraft/trains/space/etc. of which only a small amount was actually labelled with what it was and why it was important. The we went to the "hands on" areas, which whilst we're all adults, we're all big kids really, and were expecting to have a bit of fun. Nope. Half of it didn't work, and the bits that did were exceedingly dull. There were games that were a white table that a projector shone down onto, with a button and wheel for each player - except there was no instructions, the game was only very short and the drivvle in between about various subjects was presented in a thoroughly unexciting way (and unreadable anyway as the projection was so blurred). There were a lot of children in there, almost all of whom looked as bored as we were.
So we thought we'd try out the Imax in there. We had 2 for 1 vouchers so the price was ok (£3.75 each). We watched the Dinosaur 3D show. Started great, animated dinosaurs coming out at you etc. but then it went into a seriously overlong spiel about how dinosaur fossils were dug up and classified etc. Most interesting, except almost all of that footage was pointless being 3D, in fact much of it was ~1920's cine footage so wasn't 3D anyway... There were frequently people getting up and leaving mid-film.
I think the Science museum needs to seriously re-think it's methods. Even with free entry it's a ripoff. It needs to be an educational establishment, but it needs to do it in an interesting way. One of my friends with us is a year 5 teacher, and often organises school trips, but she said no way would she want to take her kids there.
Then we went back into theatreland as we'd got tickets for a show. We went with the hope of getting half price tickets for We will Rock you, but luck of the draw, none available. I'd seen the theatre showing Avenue Q a while back and wondered what it was. Looked it up on the net and it was basically described as sesame street for the adult generation. Sounded like my kind of thing, but my friends weren't convinced. Still, they (most kindly) decided as it was my do to give it a try. I was rather bricking it as the day hadn't exactly gone well so far...
When we were at the ticket booth, I had my hoooge "30" badge on, and I wonder if it helped as the lady rang somewhere asking for more Avenue Q tickets, hung up and said she had some 5th row, centre ones for us. So good or bad, we were going to have a good view :D
I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Absolutely brilliant show. Within the first couple of minutes we were all laughing our heads off. Really made the day for all of us. Fantastic acting and singing, spot on timing and even a little bit of audience participation. Well worth the £27 each we paid.
http://www.thestage.co.uk/images/pics/13088.jpg
Then we headed off to Ed's Diner for some food. I've been to one once before a few years back. Still great. Not the cheapest burgers, but they taste great, and the onion rings are still the best I've had :cool:
One last gripe - £4.20 for a pint of diet coke in a bar?!!!?! A pint of lager in the same place was £3.10 which is about the same as many Chelmsford places.
A busy day, and I am shattered today! Overall I really enjoyed it, just shame a couple of places showed how bad it can be :(