"The staff were very friendly, will definitely be returning."
"Love taking my elderly Nan here, staff are always so helpful and friendly treating my Nan so well."
"Always friendly staff and good food of course."
"Extremely friendly staff!"
"The staff are super friendly, attentive and helpful."
"They definitely make the experience a good one! A hard working, enthusiastic team!"
"Very helpful and friendly staff (some of which are I assume volunteers)."
Cons:
"The management is a bit slack though."
"Never again, went to this place for lunch today, only to be disrespected and spoken to by the most rudest horrible little woman."
"Only downfall was the rude car park attendant."
"Some volunteers need to remember manners."
"Just as we got out we got approached by the grumpy/nasty man working at the station saying we should not be parking in the car park if not going on the train in a very nasty way."
"Apart from the man handing out raffles tickets who was very rude and unwelcoming."
"It is unacceptable for a waitress to serve your table say 'for f*** sake' just because we didn't heard it the first time she shout for our order number."
Train Experience
Pros:
"6 miles ride in the railway."
"The train and carriages have been beautifully restored and the journey is wonderfully scenic."
"Enjoyed the train ride and seeing santa on the train."
"Really enjoyable couple of hours...boys n girls will love this delightful little Steam Train."
"Fantastic Christmas experience, good value for money and the kids loved it."
"Enjoyed an impromptu train ride here. The train doesn't actually stop anywhere to get off and walk around but it was very pleasant to go on a good old fashioned train."
"Great to be able to get on and off train to see it shunting. Stunning scenery. Exciting."
Cons:
"I have to be honest, it was a terrible experience. I doubt very much that I will ever go again and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone."
"We did the Santa ride during Christmas and was largely disappointed."
"Really underwhelming, wouldn't pay again... Definitely wouldn't recommend it for a rather extremely small time being taken by the train."
"The gift was supposed to be a Teddy Bear was intact a soft cheap Santa, very very disappointed 😞"
"We traveled in the train for only about 20 minutes of the 60 minutes of our trip, most of the trip was waiting around in the carriage."
"Went to the teddy bear picnic paid £33 what an absolute waste of a day."
"Very disappointed by the Santa train experience, there were many admin issues."
Cafe and Food
Pros:
"Good cafe on site with loads of seating both outside and in vintage carriages."
"Lovely cafe with lots of good tasty food available!"
"The cafe is not to be missed and is open every day(seating in a repurposed railway carriage or outdoor sunny patio overlooking station), serving delicious breakfast lunches and teas/snacks...very affordable, generous and delicious food."
"The food at the station cafe was great."
"Nice food in the cafe though we were a bit late in the day so not a huge selection but what we had was tasty."
"Food is lovely."
"Great for lunch with station cafe serving good food at very reasonable prices."
Cons:
"The Buffet café was pretty grim."
"Food is very basic and unhealthy, not exciting. Not great for people with food intolerances."
"No soup of the day at 12:30 in the afternoon and ’luxury’ hot chocolate was luke warm, if that and was by no stretch of the imagination a luxury item."
"Says that the panini’s are made fresh for the customer but they are actually pre-made and sit getting sweaty and soggy in a display oven."
"Coffee was undrinkable, staff didn't seem to be able to work the coffee machine."
"Unfortunately the food fell well below expectation."
"The food is excellent, the people running the kitchen and cafe are doing a great job, but the carriages are filthy discussing place to eat."
Facilities and Accessibility
Pros:
"Clean toilet facilities including baby change."
"Plenty of space, including on the carriages, with outside seating including a covered area."
"The place is fully accessible and they even have spare wheelchairs."
"Great cafe, outside seating but we sat indoors in a converted rail coach. Very nice."
"Santa Train, paid £130 for 5 adults and 3 children, no toilets working on Train, cold and 50 mins Train journey was realistically 20 mins, other 30 mins was Train turning."
"Website mentioned nothing about it having engineering works ongoing. Ride was only 10 minutes long."
"Very disappointed to find half the track was out of use."
"The carriages can get quite hot even with the windows open."
"When we stopped half way up the line we were alongside what looked like a scrap yard with rusting hulks of engines and carriages."
"Only drawback is that they don't do family tickets anymore so it can be an expensive day out."
"Santa felt rushed and not up to standard for an £80 'experience'."
Overall Experience
Pros:
"Fantastic experience today 😊"
"The place is beautiful and the atmosphere is perfect."
"A very English summer scene. This is a must do thing."
"Face painting and magic show was cherry on the top."
"A great Sunday experience. Especially for children."
"What a wonderful place to visit."
"A lovely day out, very reasonably priced."
Cons:
"Really underwhelming, wouldn't pay again."
"This place is sooo expensive and the staff, food and prices are the worst I've seen in years...Don't bring your children here, it's not a very nice experience."
"The experience was spoilt by the persistent rain lashing down, so the views from the train were sadly obscured by steamed up windows."
"Cyclists beware. Unfriendly staff wouldn’t let us into the car park with our bikes."
"Visited April 2023. The worst steam railway I've ever visited. Done many. Too short a line, cafe barely worth opening, staff grumpy, very expensive."
"Disappointing. We took our two year old son to see Santa on Christmas eve. The people who worked on the train were very rude and unpleasant."
"We were really disappointed with the Santa steam train."