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tall ships


hflynn
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I have to admit the tall ships looked stunning from what I seen on Saturday daytime ,I felt let down by the fact the kids area as in cadonas was rubbish ,come on I mean £5 for 4 mins talk about taking the piss here not all parents and kids are made of money ,there was not much choice for them at all .

 

Can some one please explain to me why a scarf would cost £50 when it don't cost that normally and a hand bag cost £40 and these are Shetland items ,we must all be fools to buy it .

 

 

The sweetie stall why such high charges for sweets .

 

The food stalls why charge an arm and a leg we are not all mugs who Have masses of money to spend on food when u have kids with you.

 

 

And the beer tent and 2 of the pubs why o why did u have to make it so dame expensive ppl would of payed ,pubs would of made the money why make it so ppl had to pay thro the nose ,do we all have mugs onournheads come on Shetland we don't need to take ppl for a ride

I like many others planned my summer holiday with the wife & kids around the Tall Ships. Mostly because wer'e only willing to pay the high prices to travel to Shetland once a year. Two weeks in the sun can be obtained for approximately the same price & breaks up the winter months very nicely.

May I add that we're not particularily loaded, not many people with a family & a mortgage to pay are nowadays, but we get by.

I'm just glad that we have family on the Island who we stay with meaning accomadation is free, apart from the extended family visit out to a local restraunt to show appreciation for our free beds to sleep in.

The Tall Ships were a wonderful sight to see, especially for the kids who were to young to remember anything about it last time & it did appear to be well organised apart from some of the stewards who I believe were not locally based & couldn't even supply us with some quite simple information.

Were there not suitably trained stewards available that already live on the island ? Could people in need of employment not have been given the offer of a few hours of paid work ? Anyway it was a very enjoyable week.

Saying that though I do agree with the post quoted above & think it will be remembered by most of the locals as being one of the biggest swindles around, it certainly seems to be the opinion of what many people are saying on their facebook pages. £4.50 for a hot-dog ! £18 for a bag of olives & of course the codonas fiasco. I'm sure that any parent would agree that to take your kids there to enjoy themselves then you have already commited yourself to letting them go on at least one ride, it would be cruel to deny them of it once they were there. Even though you as a parent can see how much of an absolute rip-off it was.

£5 for 4mins on what is essentially a trampoline!! I'm finding it hard not to use expletive language when reffering to those people involved in raking in the cash, & i've not even mentioned the prices of the sweeties which would cost us 1/5 of the price at our local pick n mix at Asda.

Maybe the next time an event such as this is put on in Shetland then there should be more opportunity for local catering companies / take-aways & restraunts to be able to have a tent on the pier ( possibly at a reduced rate ) at least that way you know the money is going straight back into the local economy. Luckily for most of our food eaten out through the day the kids wanted a chip supper, sold at a very reasonable price just across the road from the pier. Also companies that are coming to the island should maybe inform the committee involved in handing out these tenders what they will be charging for their products once here, if that is not already done (?)

If because the cost of them bringing their equipment/wares means that they have to charge ridiculous prices then maybe we should just tell them it's not worth their while.

As for the man selling the sweeties at codonas.... I hope that once he returns to Aberdeen he gets rushed daily by gangs of kids, filling their pockets & not paying him one single penny !

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Maybe the next time an event such as this is put on in Shetland then there should be more opportunity for local catering companies / take-aways & restraunts to be able to have a tent on the pier...

That is just what happened, didn't you notice?

 

It is also worth mentioning that not everyone upped their prices for the Tall Ships weekend. I know some were charging exactly the same as normal. Interestingly those were the places with the punters.

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Maybe the next time an event such as this is put on in Shetland then there should be more opportunity for local catering companies / take-aways & restraunts to be able to have a tent on the pier...

That is just what happened, didn't you notice?

 

It is also worth mentioning that not everyone upped their prices for the Tall Ships weekend. I know some were charging exactly the same as normal. Interestingly those were the places with the punters.

They were also the minoritiy as far as I could see.

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Why would anyone pay £4-50 for a hot dog?

The sweetie guy from Aberdeen must have been an even bigger rip off as you want him punished!

 

I hate rip off merchants! Its exensive enough going back home and then to be fleeced while you're there..............not a normal experience thankfully.

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Why would anyone pay £4-50 for a hot dog?

The sweetie guy from Aberdeen must have been an even bigger rip off as you want him punished!

 

I hate rip off merchants! Its exensive enough going back home and then to be fleeced while you're there..............not a normal experience thankfully.

The only reason we paid £4.50 for a hot dog was because we'd waited in line for long enough & it was the easiest way of diffusing a possible melt-down by our youngest, who had been very well behaved even after waiting so long for her promised hotdog !

As for the sweetie-dealer, who seemed to fleece quite a few people buy shock tactics alone. The shock being the price, I have read many a comment on facebook written by parents who just handed over the money possibly thinking they had mis-heard the man. I was all for taking them back & trying to return them to the fellow where the sun doesn't shine, but was advised by the misses not to do so as it wouldn't set a good example to the kids. £15 for what we would pay about £3-4 from the local Asda pick n mix :!: he deserves to be put in stocks at the market cross & have all manner of nasties thrown at him. :lol:

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1x3 hour stint at da tall ships bairns amusement rides "codonas"(ahem...)cost me £50! i agree dat to many i spent waaay!! to much on my 2 bairns an i agree wi dat! it was an absolute RIP-OFF!...how muckle did it cost ta fund da Tall ships? £1 million?(o wis shetlanders money!)...and still wi haed ta pay maer at da "codonas" WTF! it shood o been free rides for one an all!!....i left feelin caald! bit happy in da towt my bairns wir happy! bit disgusted at haen my pockets violated!....onybody hear da story o' a £30 bag o pick an mix!!....upshot is dae refused ta pay fur it!!...am gaen awa ta buy cheap as... sweeties fae Tescos an see if i cin flog dem upo da street fur 10x dir value!.....

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Ohhh, Shut up o u face!

We had this whole diatribe on overcharging 12 years ago back in 1999.

The big difference between now and then, was that we got ripped-off while it was a bloody heatwave....

Oh, we all looked younger and still hadna got used to havn a white Wine instead of a beer T and smoking whar you wanted tae..... :lol:

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^As above, plus the 99 tall ships fast food was supplied 100% by a south firm - think it was Buchan foods, they went into liquidation a few years later.

The prices being charged were consistent with festivals and similar events on the mainland. The German sausages are sold at the International markets (Aberdeen 4 times a year) and they're about the same price - I'll check next time.

 

From memory all the prices were clearly advertised?

 

Maybe next time there should be no fast food, bar tents, craft stalls or fairground rides, then all that folk can whinge about is the weather and the ships.

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I am totally against being "ripped off" as much as anyone else hence I brought my own flask and sandwiches with me and we had our lunch without queueing or paying silly prices.

Being a Shetland resident, if I hadn't done that, I would have gone to the shops in town (or as far back as Tesco) and bought my lunch and any snacks plus drinks at normal prices. Such options were available to all of us and those locals complaining at rip-off prices really have only themselves to blame if they didn't use their local knowledge on the day to best effect.

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I was at a WWII Bygone days type thing at Ramsgate on Sunday and the carvans selling hot dogs etc there charged £3-00 each, which is a bit more reasonable than what you were charged.

 

I think I would have told the pick and mix guy to poke it no matter what!!!

 

I'm a Shetlander, but there's enough Scots blood in me to say "How much" which has proved an embarressment to my wife on the odd occassion!

 

Do your own stall next time, charge a reasonable price and you will get all of the trade and the sooth moother will have to go back broke!

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Flashback to last time round, as in this time grub cost what I took with me and I paid three quid for a programme but can sympathise with anyone with hungry youngsters. :-

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb479/beenister/Scan3.jpg

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb479/beenister/Scan13.jpg

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb479/beenister/Scan7.jpg

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I don't know if it's been mentioned already so forgive me, but having a disabled family member, what aggrieved mr the most was the sturdy hale and heart folk taking up all the disabled parking at all the venues. I feel there should have been some of the security checking for disabled badges on cars and turning folk away. Easy enough done, and it would have saved my family member a significant walk, as we had travelled too far to turn back and disappoint everyone otherwise. I saw business vans, young families, local and visiting tradesmen and others all blithely driving in and parking in these spaces, with nowhere near enough spaces for the genuinely disabled as well as those "unable" (unwilling) to walk a distance in to the venues.

 

Very disappointing and I have to admit the air was blue at one or two points (but not where the bairns could hear).

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