Aibu Unapproiate places to take your DC with friends

[Stardust160]

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boutique-hotel-tells-mum-gave-8015817?ICID=FB_mirror_main

Mum and her friends ( 6 prams ) complain about being denied access to this boutique hotel lobby and post their annoyance on the hotels social media page. Hotel responses rarely abruptly. What are people's thoughts? Personally I have 3DC and would never think this is an approiate place to take my children to.

I don't think they're crunchy. I don't think a crunchy parent's response to this would be 'But you have to let me in, I'm loaded!'

What do you mean 'crunchy' ?!

"Crunchy" is American for natural parenting/attachment parenting/anything vaguely hippyish.

NC for this thread in case it outs me!
I live in Surbiton and know this hotel very well. Often have business meetings there as it's conveniently located (right by the train station) and where a lot of clients stay.
As many PP have said, coffee shops and cafes are abundant in the area. Plus the many lovely riverside family friendly pubs and restaurants.
Why anyone would choose this venue as an NCT meeting place is a headscratchingly strange decision! To reverse it would be like holding a business meeting in a soft play centre. Just bizarre

Just saw that PP's have already pointed out the soft play comparison. Having a slow day today

Why why why why why why why do people write "myself" when they mean "me". Just bloody why ?

No not the place to meet other mums unless without chn. Same goes for nice restaurants after 7pm.

I have friends who still live in Surbiton who have said that they wouldn't go there again, not because of any silly rules about babies being there or not, but because the serving staff are pretty awful and the food was decidedly average for the price, which is a shame.

I've got no issue with limiting the amount of Prams, unless by prior notice. 'We' (support workers), used to give prior notice when taking 3+ people out, who used wheelchairs.

But they've banned more than four children, so were does that leave an extended family, on a day out?

I also don't agree that she deserved the answer she got, different if they caused bother/destruction/mess, in the way a Stag/hen party do, but I bet the Hotel wouldn't have given that reply to them.

They've banned more than 4 babies, not more than 4 children.

Actually if you read the response, they've banned groups of more than 4 mothers with babies. There's no restriction on the number of children, just on numbers of mothers (or I assume fathers) with babies.

TBH not many cafes/venues would easily accommodate 6 prams unless they were kept outside.

NotYoda
Rorty, They probably taken some pic off her FB account where she's dressing up. So as to make her look as bonkers as possible

Well then they succeeded.

I think this woman needs to be told that pushing a pram doesn't give you the right to be a thoughtless knob, and that the price of one measly coffee doesn't allow you to dictate who a business can choose to accommodate.

Even if there were 'just' the six of them plus babies- at any one time at least one of those babies was likely to be making some sort of noise, the mum respective mum trying to sort it out, then the other four or five adults would be talking as a group trying to make themselves heard over the din. Can you imagine how annoying that must be for the guests who'd paid a premium to stay somewhere to suit their needs (quiet, caffeine and wifi)? I'd put money on the fact that the staff and management have been hoping they'd find somewhere else of their own accord for a good while before this kicked off.

It would be like going into Costa and telling everyone around you to STFU because you're in the middle of a Very Important email.

As I said, I don't do these kind of meets so its all academic to me, but I'm still confused by how hated as a group women with babies seem to be. Is there anywhere they are allowed to go in groups, or are they beyond the pale everywhere?
I mean, obviously businessmen are far more important than women with babies, but what about regular coffee shops? Restaurants? What about a less boutique hotel, a more downmarket one perhaps?

I live in the area and I think the reason some groups still go there is because it used to hold the 'official' NCT coffee mornings - guessing they don't anymore!

I walk past it pretty much daily and it's usually totally empty and I do wonder about how many important business meetings are held in a hotel bar in Surbiton

I personally wouldn't go there because the service is awful and it's definitely got ideas above its station - on weekend nights they set up a little roped area for queuing as if it's an exclusive hotspot. Might be a bit more believable if it wasn't next to a giant wetherspoons

There are loads of other cafes in the area but very few have space for multiple buggies - Bosco is probably the only one. There are other family friendly pubs but they're a bit more out of the centre (not far at all though, so I wouldn't get too het up about Bosco).

Penguin, how about Costa, Starbucks, Cafe Nero, soft play centres, local coffee shops, park cafes, museum cafes, leisure centre cafes...I could go on.

And I'm sure there are plenty of businesswomen staying in the hotel too.

It's purely a business decision. You don't pander to customers who don't make you any money if they're driving your bread and butter customers away.

"Is there anywhere they are allowed to go in groups, or are they beyond the pale everywhere?"

There are loads of places where they can go (not least as confirmed by SurbitonMummy as available right in the area of this incident).

There are lots of different types of cafes, bars and restaurants. Some are very family friendly, some are OK, some aren't, and some restrict their clientele.

Unless you want all kinds of eateries to be pretty much the same, then that sort of range is going to exist. I like the diversity; and went to (sometimes) noisy family friendly places when DC were small, very quiet places when I had a hangover, very grown up and plush places for an important date etc

Penguin Plenty of places to go. I'm all for babies and bfeeding in public but it's not fair in that sort of establishment. The bread and butter clientele clearly don't want it. Plenty of cafes and restaurants are baby friendly as well as any restaurant attached to a chain store. The possibilities are endless even if you don't want to meet at soft play. And it's got nothing to do with how important one or the other is. It's to do with bottom line figures - who makes them a profit?! A few short years ago and before the smoking ban this place would have been a no go anyway so it's not as if the place was designed with children in mind.

I'm not in the UK, I don't know about those things. But haven't there also been threads complaining about prams/babies in coffee shops/cafes? And you're hardly going to take young babies to soft play, considering they can't actually play.

I'm not disagreeing with the business decision at all, I'm just bemused by the language used and the apparent hatred for groups of women and babies, particularly in the demographic of this site. It's all a bit weird.

Loads of people take little babies to soft play centres. They have cafes and there is no problem with them being noisy and loads of facilities to make it child friendly.

Do they? Perhaps yours are not the seventh circle of screechy hell that are the ones I know of. I wouldn't go near one with my baby! I'd only go with a child who was old enough to actually get some enjoyment from the place.

So are women with babies only allowed to go to places that are specifically designed for children?

Good on the hotel I say!

If I walked into a boutique hotel for a business lunch and saw six buggies I would be turning around and going somewhere else. I'd also be very annoyed should I have booked a romantic get away to find it overrun with small children.

When having a nice glass of wine or a nice coffee I don't want someone's special snowflake ruining my much needed R&R time - and there is a reason play centres are screechy hell and that reason is because it is full of small children.

There are loads of places you can go with a baby/small children in a group, two people with a baby is very different than 6 women with six babies drinking one cup of coffee for three hours.

Thanks for the info 53rdandbird

Yes I think so. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Prams (which everyone has nowadays because of the FEAR of the travel system I realised recently) take up fuckloads of space. They're a bloody hazard.

So you have 5-6 people who will spend very little but be there for hours taking up loads of space.

Why on earth would any business want them?