Tag: review

This review of Tower House originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Reasonable conveniently-central hotel with good access to Oxford amenities at an acceptable price. Rooms slightly small and floors excitingly “wonky”: not for those afraid of stairs or prone to seasickness!

This review of Snozone originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Having been skiing on ‘real’ snow for ~25 years, I was pleasantly surprised by the believability of this indoor artificial slope: slightly icy, crystalline snow but otherwise very much like the real thing. Better yet was the service: owing to an administrative mix up (slightly my fault, slightly their fault) I arrived anticipating an hour’s private snowboard tutoring – as I hadn’t snowboarded in 16 years – a full 24 hours ahead of when I was expected. Nonetheless, they sorted me out with an instructor and honoured the verbal agreement I claimed to have, despite what was written on my ticket!

Compared to an Alp, the slope is extremely short and the lifts painfully slow, but this gem of a site beats dry-sloping by a long, long way, and offer helpful friendly service to boot.

This review of McDonald's originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Just another McDonald’s. Generally fast service and not too busy, but limited parking space and access by car is made challenging by the narrow road – partially through a housing estate: no access from the dual carriageway any more – that provides access to it.

This review of Partyman World Of Play originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Moderately small but well-constructed soft play with plenty to do despite being smaller than some of its competitors. Clean and tidy. Good mixture of food options (and a licensed bar!), although the pizza we had was very salty. Our favourite local soft play area.

This review of Jacob's Inn originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

This review of Sainsbury's originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Perfectly reasonable supermarket. Car park sometimes challenging to leave at busy times, with tailbacks stretching into the lanes. Two convenient islands of self-service checkouts.

This review of St Margaret's Institute originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Simple, versatile space with lots of scheduled classes and groups.

This review of Bytemark originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Excellent Internet hosting services backed by knowledgeable customer service and “real people” you can talk to, all at great prices.

This review of Holland & Barrett originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Good, conveniently-placed health food shop frequently featuring buy-one-get-one-for-a-penny deals.

This review of Payphone originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Not just a regular payphone, this is an iconic K2 kiosk almost exactly to Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s original 1924 design, and in fact the only example of such a thing in Oxford (although this particular one wasn’t originally from here): the other ‘red telephone boxes’ in Oxford are all of the latter, smaller K6 design. This particular phone box is a piece of architectural history!

This review of The Tuck Shop originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Cheap drinks and sandwiches. Little space inside: becomes unnavigable when there’s a queue. Often run short or out of small denominations of coins (more often than you’d expect for a convenience store) and start accepting exact change only (although don’t expect to find that out until you reach the front of the queue).

This review of Oxford Print Centre originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

A range of print services and reasonable prices, but somewhat disorganised: for my largest order, I was given a collection time and arrived only to find that they hadn’t yet started on it!

This review of Barclays ATM originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

Three cash machines, although more often than not one is broken. Very often run out of £10 notes and often out of cash entirely or receipt paper. No sensible queuing space, so when there are queues they often send up on the road. A common target for card skimmer thieves: I’ve been caught out once here!

This review of St Aldate's Post Office originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.

This Post Office used to be plagued by long queues for its service desks. Now they’ve replaced half the service desks with a greater number of self-service machines, and yet it somehow seems to have even longer queues as a result. The new system is unfathomable (Do you need self service or not? If not, you need to take a ticket for which you first need to go to a different kind of self-service machine…) and so they’ve had to give somebody the job of standing at the entrance and trying to direct people to the right tool for them.

If you manage to accidentally get past this helper then you’ll find yourself lost, with no idea where you’re supposed to go or what you’re supposed to do.

Use a different post office or, better yet, do as much as you can online. For your sanity.