ABC Leisure Group - Trowbridge

David W.

Great team at ABC, like all the other marinas in the group it is staffed with super helpful and friendly folks. The boats are of a high standard and always clean. Ignore the negative reviews who expect a floating hotel, if you like canal holidays and you are looking to hire a boat, look no further than ABC.

Punit S.

I'd highly recommend a canal boat holiday! Just do yourself a favour and pick a different boat hire company.
On a 9 berth boat (the Marsh Owl) for a week, we seemed to face a different problem with the boat every day.

Here's a list of some of them:
- Seemed to be a constant problem with hot water on the boat. I had to take a cold shower every day.
- Noticed a horrible sewage smell coming from my wardrobe (which I'm guessing was directly above the waste tank). Made me reluctant to put my clothes in there. Should smells even be escaping from the waste tank?
- Our toilets got clogged in a couple of days!
I'm certain the waste tanks hadn't been emptied before we were given the boat. ABC were quite unhelpful when we called them about it, leading to much stress trying to get the tanks pumped out.
- Calling ABC for support while on the trip was extremely frustrating. Someone different answered the phone each time, and no knowledge about our issues was shared between them. Friendly staff, but very unhelpful and disorganised.
- Can anyone explain why the chopping board in the galley was made of glass?! Cooking anything that required chopping was a nightmare.
- We tried using the CD player. Big mistake, it was broken. Didn't play anything, and then refused to eject the CD!
At the end of the trip, they had to break open the CD player to get our CD out. It was taking a while, so they offered posting the CD to us when they got it out, but had the gall to try charging us £10 for the postage.

It's unclear if this was just a one-off bad experience, but I wouldn't risk going with ABC again.
In some ways, I'm glad we experienced all this - it's taught us a lot about what to avoid in the future!

Akanksha M.

Pros: got us from A-B, didn’t sink, and the marina has swan and duck food you can buy 🙂

Cons: The septic tank was not emptied properly and became full within 4 days (we were told they would easily last the full 8 days). When we went to get the tank pumped, the people who did it said it was clear the tanks had not been emptied as we were promised they would be.
The hot water was unreliable and we had to call them numerous times to troubleshoot. We had the engine on plenty, but ran out constantly and often took lukewarm and cold showers.
As the septic tanks filled the boat started to take on a tilt to the left, this made sitting and sleeping comfortably an annoyance.
The radio and CD player did not work, I know CDs are a bit of a relic but this boat ate a CD we put in and had to be dismantled to retrieve it.

Had a good trip regardless, but this added a lot of unnecessary stress and worth knowing for anyone planning to hire a boat from this company.

Dara J.

Would have had the best experience canal boating if it wasn't for the nightmare of this boat. Me and a group of friends hired out a boat for a week long canal trip. They gave us the Marsh Owl which, honestly, must have been their worst boat.
The biggest problem we had on our big pile of problems was that the Septic Tank didn't seem to be emptied before it was given to us. On emails prior to the trip they promised that the tank had room in it for two weeks and we would have 2 bathrooms, so we thought that if we balanced it out we wouldn't have a problem. It lasted 3 days for one of the toilets to fill up and the next day the second one was unusable too. Calling ABC was so unhelpful since we had to call again and again each time we had to explain our situation and repeat ourselves over and over again. In the end we were able to get a pump out service at Foxhangers, who explained didn't usually offer this service to other canal boats (because ABC didn't call ahead like they were supposed to) but helped us anyway. The workers at Foxhangers were so helpful and they even showed us one of their boats which was 10 times better than the crumby boat we had. We are absolutely booking with Foxhangers next time.
Another big problem we had from the start was that the heating just wasn't working properly. We had to have a lot of cold showers and cold nights. When we called them their advice was to disconnect the engine from the gearbox and rev it a few times so we could have more heat, and either that didn't work or it took hours to warm up. What's worse is that this method used up so much diesel they refused to give us our deposit back and charged us extra for over use. We're emailing them now to try to get a refund because we shouldn't have to pay for their broken heating and following their advice.
Some other smaller problems: their bathrooms and showers were so small, some of the beds were slanted towards the floor despite which way the boat was tilted, and their CD player was broken and ate our murder mystery CD and they again tried to charge us for postage to send it back!
They could, honestly, have better working boats but I'll never gamble on this company to give me a working boat again. I will be going to Foxhangers next time.

TDLR; they didn't empty our septic tank before giving it to us and it only lasted 3 days despite saying it would last 2 weeks. Their heating didn't work and the method they gave us to fix it used so much diesel that they charged us for it. Bathrooms are small, the beds are uncomfortable, and most of their appliances on our boat were broken and unusable. Foxhangers is better.

Haris S.

Though the boat trip itself was lovely, that was only thanks to the people I was with. The boat and the company was not so delightful. The heating of the water was not working, within the first morning there was no longer any water leaving the hot water tap. Calling the company they showed a valve we had to omrotate to allow hot water into that hot water tank, unclear why this wasn't turned before handing to us. Now we have water coming out of the hot water tap, it was still cold. Being informed to turn the heater and the engine on to heat up the water more, provided lukewarm water at best and cold on average. I called them about this for 4 days to find solutions and their solution was the following, leave the heater on, disconnect the gear box and leave the engine on reverse to help heat up.

3 days in, the first septictank was filled, assured it would last us a week. On arranging for a pump service, ABC suggested driving back to their closest Marina which, after speaking to people in the canal trust we found a closer one. Called ABC to ask for them to arrange for us to stop there. ABC informed that they will call their manager and arrange it and we will receive a call within 20 minute. 1 hour later I call the pump service directly asking if they received the heads up, they did not. Tried to arranged with them directly as ABC shows how useless they are, after sorting out this stressful experience myself, ABC informed that they will reimburse us for this.

Once arriving back to their marina, they charged us extra for the use of diesel even when there are phone recording showing they told us to keep the engine running for the sake of the water.

A canal boat trip is amazing but please find a better service provider. I do highly recommend the FoxHanger as they were able to help us through our troubles when ABC failed us

Mikey M.

Travelled from Sydney Australia to experience a week long adventure on the Avon-Kennet Canal.

My wife and I were complete novices to handling a Narrow Boat, however after watching the Canal Trust Instructional DVD on uTube (more than once) - I felt confident I'd learnt the basics. On meeting Nicholas at ABC Leisure Boat Hire and spending 40 minutes learning the technical side of the boat operation (toilet, heating, water, fuel etc) we were satisfied we'd instilled some confidence in him that we could handle the boat responsibly.

The weather was glorious, the boat went without a hitch and I spent one of the most memorable experiences in my life.

The only negative was toilet flushing which needs to be treated delicately - ie - don't over-fill the toilet with toilet tissue ):

Although small living quarters - which is to be expected - the cleanliness and comfort of the boat on delivery was more than adequate.

I recommend my experience and opportunity given to me by ABC Boat Hire highly.

Mike

David H.

Hired a day boat from ABC at Hilperton. This was our first experience in narrowboating and it was a super day. For the price, the boat was everything we wanted. The handover, friendliness and overall experience was top notch.

Although to date this is my only experience of narrowboating, I think this is a great place to start if you wish to start with a day boat. Many day boat hirers advertise the fact that the boat can be cruised along a quiet lock-free stretch, for me that is a downside. Hiring a boat from Hilperton allows the boater to experience swingbridges and locks, which for us, was great fun.

I recommend ABC and the Hilperton Marina.

The only one thing that is a pain on this canal (which may be an issue on other canals too) is the huge number of moored boats. If you want a high adrenaline boat ride, narrowboating isn't for you, and we never expected it. But it felt like a large chunk of our cruising was spent on tickover passing myriads of boats inefficiently moored.

プラント朋子

Very well organised and they made my first experience of canal boat weekend enjoyable and comfortable. Even lost properties were kindly delivered only next day after my request with honest P&P! Thank you!