Activity Superstore Review

Overall Rating

I purchased London Theatre & Dinner for two for my husband and me for our Ruby Wedding Anniversary as we had already booked a 4-nights stay in London from 24th -28th October. On phoning in September to activate the voucher for our chosen theatre I was told that no bookings were being taken until 23rd November. On being told by Activity Superstore that there was nothing that could be done about it I asked for details of their customer services dept and emailed my comments, expressing my concerns at having wasted £99. I was then told that I could exchange my voucher for another activity, but on searching their website there was nothing I wanted to exchange it for. Again I emailed them stating this. After numerous phone calls and further emails I eventually was told that the matter had been placed in the hands of a senior member of staff. Time was now getting short and all I had wanted them to do was find me 2 tickets for our desired show; not too difficult I thought.

Eventually, a week before our trip to London I received a phone call to say that they had managed to get 2 tickets "through another supplier" and as recompense they were upgrading my package to the De-Luxe version which entitled us to a 3 course meal with coffee in a restaurant instead of a pub. Because of an impending postal strike Activity Superstore promised to send out the tickets and meal vouchers by special delivery. To our relief they were received in time. At this point I was very pleased and relieved.

However (there's always a however!) our tickets were priced at £20, the seats were poor - "up with the Gods" and we needed to use the binoculars provided to see much of the show. The meal vouchers were "Bronze" vouchers and we were asked to state that fact on booking our preferred restaurant. On checking reviews for restaurants on the list provided we opted for an Indian Restaurant "Chor Bizarre on Albemarle Street. This looked good and was one of only a few that was open on a Sunday evening. In fact the restaurant had good reviews and the menu was excellent - for those ordering normally. The "Bronze" vouchers entitled us to a 3 course set meal, but not coffee as stated by Activity Superstore. Everyone else's meals looked sumptuous and well-presented but ours was quite plain (though tasty) i.e. a choice of 2 simple starters and 3 basic main courses with plain rice or naan bread. We could then choose from 2 simple desserts (one cottage cheese based and one rice and mango) or coffee, but not both. Though the food was tasty we felt like second-class citizens among the upper classes! Drink prices were very high and we ended up paying over £21 just for the lowest priced wine. It was our Ruby Wedding Anniversary so we were didn't want to feel totally let down!
In hind-sight I wish I had booked our theatre tickets by other means and we would not have been restricted to three or four restaurants. The package was certainly NOT VALUE FOR MONEY and I would advise anyone considering using Activity Superstore to think again. But it could have been worse - at least they did something about it even though it took quite some time and a lot of stress!

Members' Comments onjaybil's Review

• ImNotHappy on 15th Nov 2009

  I found this review very helpful because... I have had similar problems, however I did not get tickets and now I can not use the voucher before it expires. I have twice tried emailing customer services to try to extend the voucher but as yet have not had a reply. The voucher is worth £139 and expires on 1st Dec 09. The next stop will be trading standards.