Should it be free to see Santa. What do you think?
For things to do and what’s on in November 2010 click things to do in London in November.
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Before doing this post, if anyone had asked me where would be the must go to place to go with children at Christmas in London. I’d have said Hamleys.
Hamleys is the best known toy shop in England and kids love it. Christmas is just round the corner and kids love that too. So Hamleys, Christmas and kids has to be the perfect match.
However I’ve got a problem now, Hamleys don’t have a Santa’s Grotto and the Santa they do have, they’re ripping you off to meet him.
Now I might be wrong here but how can a toy shop as big has Hamleys not have a Grotto. There must be a mistake. So I looked on their site, nothing about Santa. I had to email them, this couldn’t be right.
A reply came back to say they don’t do a Grotto but they do have an event called Breakfast or Tea with Santa. That’s OK then. That is if you don’t mind paying £45 per child for the privilege. But don’t worry if that’s a bit steep, they will have Santa walking around the store and you can have your photo taken with him for £10.
While writing this I still can’t believe it. Hamleys, no Grotto and a rip off price for a photo with Santa or to meet him. With an attitude like this Hamleys will be out of business within 10 years. Christmas is their busiest time and you go there with your children for the whole Christmas experience. Hamleys seem to have forgotten this.
What I’d say now is, if you’ve got children you might as well buy your toys on the Internet and like I said in my post yesterday, go to the Winter Wonderland Santa Grotto. There’s no charge to meet Santa, you can take your own photos and the whole Winter Wonderland experience is fantastic.
It’s a sad day for a once great shop.
You see the EPok London Pack doesn’t just give you 2 for 1 offers on meals and tell you things to do it also has a tips and tricks sheet. One of the aims of the sheet is make sure you don’t get ripped off. Warnings about Hamleys would be on the Christmas sheet. Visit epok.com for more details.
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