"I attended an afternoon tea at the Abbey with some of my family, and a combination of 4 children. (2 with disabilities . Upon arrival, we were directed to an empty bar area, only to look round for a member of staff to book in. After a good long 5 minutes or so we were greeted by a lady who tried to find our booking, But was looking at the wrong piece of paper. We waited again for her to find the right paper for the day and show us to our table. The table arrangement itself was beautiful. But there was no ambience or any music in the back ground. It was extremely quiet. Felt like the children couldn't speak loudly. The lady that seated us, came back for our drinks order and was immediately confused when asked her to bring 3 milkshakes and 1 squash (drinks part of our afternoon tea she asked numerous times what we wanted. This was slightly frustrating to say the least. Next we had our order arrive, with a pot of tea, but had to wait 50 minutes before we got any milk to go with it! This meant the tea was already cold and had to order a second pot. When the afternoon tea had arrived, it wasn't even our order! A poor family of a mum and 3 children were looking at us as they had arrived well before we did and it was obvious that the afternoon tea was theirs!! I helped the waitress take there tea over to them and I apologised. Finally, when the children's afternoon tea came, there were 4 fingers of bread,a couple of cakes and 2 scones. This was supposed to go between 4 children.....at £11 each child. £44 for this was not acceptable. I spoke to a lady in charge and said this is not what I ordered when I booked and the staff argued with me that this is what you get! So this would work out at 1 jam finger sandwich, 1 ham finger sandwich, 1 jam tart, a babybel and a half a scone for each child. £44. Jokers. Not on. I again complained and spoke to a duty manager. Again, being argued with is not fun in front of your family! She asked me what I needed to put this right! I said another children's afternoon tea would be great, she went off to do this! (Being the ever friendly manager, She Said we didn't have to pay for this extra children's tea Ha! So already we had waited over an hour to be served a very expensive piece of cake. I also ordered a gluten free afternoon tea between 2 adults. 3 finger sandwiches came out. How do you share 3 finger sandwiches between 2 people? And a mince pie from Sainsbury's cut in half. By this point I couldn't be bothered to ask anyone where the food was for the price I was paying!! Ridiculous! As for the children. They were very hungry and the 2 disabled children who had to wait so long were very upset when we left. It was a very traumatic experience. As we left, it was obvious that the staff were unhappy about having to help us there was 3 families in the area for afternoon tea so wasn't busy at all. The duty manager could have at least apologised instead of arguing with me . It's not my fault that whomever booked us in and advised us of how much food we'd need is clearly in need of more training. If you want a decent afternoon tea for your money, go elsewhere. It was a complete rip off and not so much as a treat at all, more like how much??? Where's the food?!! Didn't realise making jam sandwiches were so expensive! Feel really let down by the Abbey. Won't be booking again and will make sure everyone knows to keep their money! Utter shambles."
