Value for Money

Quality Experiences and Good Value

We completely understand the budget pressures you’re working within, so as a team we’ve reviewed every element of our services, in-depth to ensure we keep our prices as low as we can without reducing quality.

Any meaningful reduction would require us to lower our standards somewhere. That simply isn’t something we’re prepared to do. We would always rather compete on quality rather than price and deliver the very best experience for both participants and any visiting staff. We feel our prices represent fair value for high-quality outdoor provision. To give a bit more context to our pricing structure, I’ve provided some further details below.

Each event is delivered by highly qualified, friendly instructors with strong people skills. Instructors can make or break a day, and we work hard to ensure groups leave feeling inspired and well supported. You can see we keep our clients very happy by visiting our Trip Advisor page.

We regularly deliver multi-activity days for groups numbering in the hundreds. With groups of that size, delays, illness, poor weather or minor injuries can quickly disrupt timings, and experienced instructors who can adapt calmly and independently make a significant difference. In addition to this, we are accredited LOtC badge holders, AdventureMark and AALA licensed, with £10-million Public Liability insurance.

What this means in reality
Our sessions are delivered as two 3-hour blocks as standard unless otherwise stated, substantially longer than many alternatives. Instructors with big groups arrive in advance to prepare equipment and venues before client arrival. Some providers offer 2-hour sessions with instructors arriving at the same time as the group, which reduces actual activity time considerably. In practice, this can mean at least a third more activity time with us, totalling between two to three times more activity time when factoring group to instructor ratios as well. This means bigger abseils, longer climbs, more time enjoying the experiences, less time standing around and more excitement!

Climbing and abseiling: For climbing and abseiling with youth groups, we operate at a ratio of one instructor to ten participants. Many providers run at 1:12, meaning our groups receive around 20% more climbing time. For adult groups we run at a ratio of 1:6, so you’d get double the climbs and abseils!

With larger groups and shorter sessions, there is limited time for a decent experience, once kitting up, walking in and rigging are accounted for. Participants may only complete one climb each if the day runs perfectly and it would be more like a clip-and-climb experience.

When venues are busy with other climbers or timings shift, less experienced providers may spend valuable time relocating or substitute your climbing with activities such as weaselling or woodland walks. While enjoyable, they are not a substitute for a structured rock-climbing session, particularly for those expecting to develop specific skills, especially with some centres operating with junior, in-house trained younger staff.

Water sports: Less qualified instructors can’t work when it’s windy or be able to adapt the experience, some providers don’t provide changing facilities or wetsuits. Higher ratios mean standing around and when you’re wet you get cold if you’re not moving and without wetsuits. Our wetsuits are the warmest in the industry.

Our boats are kept waterside and will be ready when you arrive to just simply get into, rather than unloading and re-loading trailers during your activity time. You’ll not be going on much of a journey on short sessions and it won’t be much of an adventure.

Caving: We take you on really cool journeys on through-trip type experiences, we aim to complete a circuit rather than returning the same way, with less time, this would not possible. If you’re trying to get a large group through a small passageway, it can be quite claustrophobic, we take you to the best caves suitable for the size of group and the anxieties of the participants, regardless of cost, rather than the cave closest to our centre or with the cheapest access agreement.

On all trips
We could shorten sessions or increase ratios to lower the cost, but that would compromise the experience.

All of our instructors are fully qualified, highly experienced and trusted to work autonomously. Behind them is a fully staffed operations centre, open from early morning, with senior instructors available for support. We can deploy additional staff at short notice if required. Smaller operators with lower prices are rarely able to offer that level of resilience and backup.

You may well receive a good day from a lower-priced provider, but when things move slightly off plan, that additional safety net becomes invaluable. After investing a lot of your time to spend on an activity, we want you to return home, buzzing from a well delivered, memorable experience that your group thanks you for.

Hope to see you on an adventure together!