“Booking this red letter day back to back driving experience was so difficult, I had to pay to extend the voucher for another year , then tried to book but nothing was available.
Then I read all the other reviews about having to wait hours and the poor organisation of car chase heroes , paying extra for cdw and paying to park plus you will be sharing the track with 12 year olds who really can't drive !!!!. I at that point I thought forget it , its a shame as my kids bought me the voucher.
But it's such a relief to forget it !!!”
“The day was fantastic and my 10 year old loved driving the 4 cars and then I paid 60 to get all the photos and video on a memory card come home to check it and it's empty no pictures on it at all. 10 year old in tears”
“A bit of a let down really. I booked 3 laps (apparently, most customers only book 2) but after the 2nd lap, I was asked to return to the pit lane. When I mentioned I had booked 3 laps, the instructor apologised and took me out for the 3rd. However, this was really just another warm up lap as the momentum had gone (pit lane speed restrictions and all that).
We queued for possibly an hour to review the photos but very disappointed as the instructor was posing with his thumbs up (in a childish way - apparently they are told to do that) so didn't buy any photos at all.
All in all, I have had better race day experiences with other companies. Would not be my first choice for a driving experience.”
“Lots of additional costs. Bought from John Lewis for Christmas presents. Do not buy for kids as limited availability and if you want to go at the weekend another additional cost. Turned up - like a cattle market. Avoid!”
“I attended a castle Combe event
I was very disappointed with the experience and would expect a significant refund or another session free of charge.
There were several issues on the day, despite arriving on time:
- I did not get to drive any of the three cars I had selected!! (This appeared to be because of a time constraint). I paid extra to drive the 458 this was not there on the day. The GT40 had too many other drivers lined up to drive it. And the Atom which I was really excited to drive as it's very different was also too busy for to drive.
- I did not get the high speed passenger ride which I was really looking forward to.
- I waiting for 2hrs 30 for my first drive and was then rushed in any available car to finish up as fast as I could.
This was a 30th birthday present from my family and I was very annoyed with the overall experience.
The extra costs on top of the experience day I was gifted we also really frustrating +£50 for a 'premium track'+£25 for a 458 drive +£25 insurance”
“Do not book this experience, it is a total rip off!
After paying for the gift, you will also get stung with a £25 charge to book on a weekend then when you arrive on the day, an extra £2 for parking AND £29 waiver fee.
After the total £100+ cost you will then need to stand (unsheletered) for hours on end until they call out your name as there are hundreds of other people there in front of you even though you booked! No organisation at all. Can't comment on the cars as we gave up waiting!!”
“Where to start, 1st time car was broken which I can happen at any point(a mini)
2nd time arrive at the site to be told that one car was not there and no reason why, golf GTI, and also the other car was not working and handnt been for a while.
3rdtime they cancelled two weeks before and this took us months to get organised with the cars we wanted to drive. We had booked a hotel as this was my birthday weekend and other things were planned.
4th time we get an email to say it’s cancelled after booking early last year and now to be told the cars that are wanted to be driven are either off site for other things or can’t get at the same time. Also told that if we want a weekend when some are we have to pay extra for this, but this was there choice not ours.
Try to call the it takes over 20 mins to get through for them to say there is nothing they can do. Again we have a hotel booked and another experience at somewhere else the next day. Now looks like it will be next year maybe when they have the cars and will have to pay to extend which is a JOKE!
We did have a good time there and the people at the site were really nice, but this does not mean that excuse things”
“Last year I booked the Mini Cooper s experience but due to mechanical issues it got cancelled. I have had my experience gift end date extended as to date am still awaiting dates for this experience option. It’s disappointing when the mini option is not available on many of the locations offered. I have searched with the thought a 2hr drive would be acceptable to get to a location but to date have not been able to secure a booking for my chosen experience.”
“I recently had an unfortunate experience with Car Chase Heroes . The communication from their team was exceedingly poor. Despite reaching out multiple times, I often found myself waiting for days, if not weeks, to receive any form of reply regarding our booking. This lack of prompt communication significantly impacted our plans.
Adding to the frustration, they only notified us days before our scheduled date that the slot we had originally requested was already full. Without considering our availability, they automatically rescheduled us for a later time slot. This was particularly inconvenient as we had personal commitments, which we had previously communicated to them.
The biggest letdown was their inflexibility in handling the situation. Despite the oversight being on their end, they offered no option to reschedule free of charge. This lack of customer-centric solutions was disappointing, to say the least.
Given these circumstances, I regret to say that I cannot recommend Car Chase Heroes . The overall experience was marred by poor communication and a lack of accommodating customer service. This was not the experience we had hoped for, and it's unfortunate that it did not meet our expectations.”
“I must say the actual driving experience is amazing BUT everything else is downhill. Firstly my driving experience got changed to a different day. Secondly one day before we got an email saying the I (15 year old) couldn’t drive but when we got there after a couple hours drive and a awfully long queue wait we were greatly told that I could drive but for some reason the way they checked that I could drive is by my height but Im taller than my dad and there were no questions whether he could drive. Thirdly it’s a money grab, basically they tell you “you can drive 3 laps for £10 or 6 laps for £19” (these aren’t real figures) or something like “you can drive this car for £34 and then drive this car for £23” and you’ll spend the £23 for this other car because your told that your driving a super car but these next 2 complaints will prove to you that this extra £23 isn’t worth it. One the time between is huge my dad was to drive the Nissan GTR at around about 1pm but he never drove it because it broke down but, I was meant to drive the Nissan GTR, however I believe that around 2 hours is far to long for a driving experience. If your wondering my father ended up driving some sort of Lamborghini which in my honest opinion is far more worth it than the Nissan GTR. Secondly the cost of switching cars and drivers is equivalent to millions of pounds. So to switch drivers was £30, and to switch cars was another £30 so in total it was £60 for my dad to drive another car, even if I still wanted to drive the Nissan GTR it would have still costed us £30 to switch. The two final points are not very clear and you drive incredibly slow. Firstly there are no signs what so ever, none to direct you, none to say where you go to drive your car, nothing and when you drive it’s literally a ‘driving’ experience and not a ‘racing’ experience, so not much of a car chase after all is it.”
“Terribly organised - would never put anyone through this torturous wait. Also hidden costs too. would not thank anyone fir this ‘gift’. Had a time slot of 1:30 and still weren’t in the car by 4:30.”
“I was looking forward for my favourite car experience as I paid extra £40 for it but it turned out to be a total nightmare! As you arrive on site they charge you for parking, then a very long queue meanwhile some of staff trying to sell you insurance, until I get to their desk and told that the car has mechanical issue and cannot be driven. They offered no alternative and was told to re-book it but my voucher would pass it’s expiry date so my loss was cost of the expensive voucher plus £40 extra for the car I wanted to drive. It’s absolutely shocking that there is no compensation and they take no responsibility! I have never seen such a lack of care and customer satisfaction anywhere and staff couldn’t even careless! How could they operate as a business in such a fashion is beyond me and I guess with huge number of people who are willing to put up with this only to get their hands on their favourite car, could be the only reason to continue their business. But for me never again!”
“Awful experience from start to finish. Staff are only interested in getting more money out of you, then rush you through, making no effort to provide a good experience.
The number of cars on the track made it impossible to drive at speed and was just like being in a huge line of traffic.
Never again.”
“This would be zero stars if it was possible.
(Summary / tl;dr version: failed to provide experience, cancelling on several people after keeping them waiting for 3 hours, offered no recompense for lost travel money, ruined my blind fathers 80th birthday gift and were poor communicators who only refunded the payment when the company overseeing the experience got involved)
Full version:
Drive cancelled 3 hours after start of event in a manner that showed a total lack of true empathy for ruining my blind dad’s 80th birthday present from us. It is devastating to be turned away from such an event. We had travelled 200 miles to the experience (a 400 mile round trip in total). About 10 or 15 families suffered the same treatment at this event.
Poor communication followed at every front after that. CCH required attendees to make contact for recompense - rather than just refunding people as a matter of course (they had all our details to be able to do this). However, they hadn’t bothered to put maternity cover on for the Ablenet Account and so had no one available to speak to when we rang the number we’d been told to. They took a week to call and then swiftly stopped responding to emails / never called back despite having promised to do so on more than one occasion… showing how much Ablenet customers are valued by them – i.e. not at all.
There was continued failure to refund payment for the event / offer recompense for travel. Ablenet simply passed us onto CCH who never once offered to refund the money for an event they hadn’t provided.
Finally we managed to get a refund but ONLY by going through Track Days – who were absolutely great. With Track Days involved, CCH refunded the money within 2 working days.
So, CCH treated a pensioner terribly and didn’t care enough about it to communicate properly and, whilst the experience days are wonderful (if still chaotic) when they work properly, I would never book with them again, as it just causes too much heartache and unnecessary work. I would strongly recommend you avoid them.
If you want a blind driving experience, with more time spent behind the wheel, where you are not treated as a mere commodity, use ‘Driving Ambition, Brackley’ instead. No supercars, but an amazing day.”
“Was told the Optimus prime lorry that was booked wasn’t available so had a car transporter, the driving instructor was really good, but I wasn’t offered an alternative day to get the vehicle that was booked, lots of standing around, and had to pay to park, this should have been included.
I was told 3 times the time of my experience had changed.
I wouldn’t purchase this as a gift also had to pay for insurance of another £30.00”
“My son was booked to be passenger in a police car and was really looking forward to it. However when we returned from our holiday we out in the SD card we had paid £40 for but it came up that the card had an error and needed formatting so basically we have paid for a blank card , really not happy . no photos or video of what should have been a great day. We are all very disappointed”
“Well upon arrival get changed 2 pounds to park on a airfield in Perranporth !! Surely that should be included in the extreme cost drove a Doms Charger as one of the three cars Well it shouldn't be allowed to be driven at all drivers door didn't shut right stank of fumes shocking wouldn't want it as a gift let alone get charged to drive the crate, one of the people on the microphone she was very rude to people just a total sham really no great speed available as so many cars on the bumpy track small course hearded like cattle some nice cars though but in whole wouldn't do the Perranporth one again unfortunately”
“Where do I start🤔turned up to check in and was charged an additional £2 to park , checked in and was charged an additional £30 insurance 😡then queued for an hour in the pouring rain to get my first drive which to be fair was a great experience , but then had to wait an hour and a half for my next drive which never happened , we noticed tent’s being taken down and cars loaded onto transporters , no announcement nothing 😡absolute shambles , wouldn’t ever book with you again absolute joke , shocking 👎”
