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Ann Marie Kowalski   

User's reviews

  • Simpson House Tea Room

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    Disney Princess Tea Party - 'Ariel-The Little Mermaid' - What a disappointment! It was heartbreaking to see over 5+ tables of little girls near tears when they found out an hour after the event started that 'Ariel' was not coming to tea. Despite the Tea House itself being charming, clean etc, the way that the owner/manager treated their customers questions was shocking to say the least. A lead woman introduced the tea and the 'Sea Witch' - a beautiful young woman (the waitress actually), dressed in a white skirt and tank top, with a large Shell necklace...not even close to the black 'gowned' octopus sea witch in the book/movie. I overhead a question from a mother asking if Ariel would also be featured...the answer, no, 'WE ARE NOT DISNEYWORLD'. That's fine, but as an owner/operator, you should then not even advertise in such a manner to lead on young children. On paying and leaving, I heard the same employee/owner/woman rant from the kitchen after she was listening to a different customer express politely her disappointment, 'we aren't going to do these anymore its just not worth it with the kids, wah wah wah'. How sad that someone took the time and effort to open such a lovely tea house and treat their customers with such disrespect and the tone of voice I heard today.

    Tearoom response:

    I'm really very sorry that some customers were disappointed in our Disney 'themed' teas. We've now learned the hard way why so many other tearooms do not do events for children. We don't claim to have the dressed title character and actually in this case....if you know your Disney movie....the sea witch DOES become Vanessa the sea witch in disquise before her marriage ceremony. Everything including the Little Mermaid bingo, the craft (Ariel treasure bags) and the music (the soundtrack)was based around Ariel. I am heartbroken that some parents expected an actual Ariel to show up. I guess my only comfort is that we have had many parents (& grandparents) come back two and three times over the course of the summer to bring back their very satisfied girls. Its a shame that we will have to disappoint many children next summer as we will not be doing this series again. Unlike this customer's claims, we do value our customers and strive to make everyone content and happy, but after dealing with a few unhappy moms and claims that we are 'overcharging' for this event, I guess we just reached the end of our ropes. In our defense, much time and effort comes into planning each event, preparing for that event and especially cleaning up after that event with all the debris, all our linens with crayon marks and sticky finger marks that unfortunately makes it just not worth trying to do something nice for children.