So, last month we got the message ; we’ve made it! 5 years on the trot of TripAdvisor’s Certificate of Excellence meant we’re now in their Hall Of Fame !

A-mazing!

I didn’t even know this Hall Of Fame existed!

The first award came in 2015

We have been going since 2011, and then in 2015 we got our very first Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor. An accolade completely new to us.

When we set out, TripAdvisor was an important part of marketing ourselves. The genuine feedback, the positive reviews, the honesty, and how much weighting it has for other potential customers here. Then getting awards from achieving high stars, was a huge bonus!

I can’t personally remember if TripAdvisor just started out as restaurant & location reviews, and then started being more specific to “Things To Do” later on. Either way, it was important for TripAdvisor to create this area of their reviewing process, as people like to pose their thoughts and feedback on all areas of what we do in life!

So I thought I’d get a little nostalgic and I’ve been having a look back at some of our reviews over the years. Obviously I thought I’d look at the first ever review we got – in 2013 :

An AMAZING day was had by our Hen Party…. Such a brilliant experience with lots of laughs …. The staff made it special for us all and would like to thank Laura for organising it and Jess and Rob for guiding us through it… (Chezza’s team to VICTORY :-))) heehee). We will definitely be RETURNING and have reccomended it to all our friends!!! Downside… I can still FEEL the experience hahahahaha thanks so much guys … Cheryl xx

Given that especially when we started, Farm Adventure was really a lifestyle business, the review process made it much more personal and important for us. We connected with all of our guests and made it our job to make sure they ALL had an amazing experience.

The activities were originally thought up by Rob, and tested out on a group of his friends – you’ll be glad to know this “ducking stool” was considered for the losing team 😉

Thinking about it, over the years, we have tweaked slightly, but generally kept to the original format of The Ultimate Farmer activity package, and then went on to create the newer Farmer Warrior activities. Only slightly different, but a bit more physical for those groups who are happy to really compete “gladiator style” against each other!!

The reviews have flooded in over the years, and have been fabulous! We did always have 5* reviews, plus a couple of 4* ones, and even the day we got our 3* – we had to learn to take the real positives that were there! Farm Adventure Yorkshire on TripAdvisor definitely provides for some hilarious reading if anything else!

OMG it’s been huge fun, and now we’ve created our next TripAdvisor listing, in Shropshire! Eeeek! This is like starting all over again! We literally have a brand new site just outside Whitchurch in Shropshire, which is just over the border into Wales.

Improving, developing, changing, tweaking – they’re all words we are constantly using for Farm Adventure! Nothing ever stays the same!

That’s the beauty of it being our own company – we work with the clients, the team produces the end result, delivers, and then the client has the opportunity to give their thoughts on TripAdvisor.

So TripAdvisor, despite there being other places to put a review now too such as Facebook, still is just as important, and they know how to help spur us on, reminding us how well we really do year-on-year, and then on reflection, over several years!

Thank you TripAdvisor, and more importantly, THANK YOU to everyone who provides a review! 🙂

Laura xx