My wife and I and a few friends went to Doc Waters last fall and loved it. The cider was great, the ambiance was beautiful, and we loved the idea of renting a fire pit there. So much so that when my wife's birthday rolled around this year, she wanted to host her birthday gathering there. Everyone I spoke to on the phone was lovely, and we were super excited. We booked a Sunday firepit session from 1-4 and everyone agreed to make the trek out. This time, we were disappointed.
Cons:
-Reservation for our firepit was from 1-4. My wife and I hit some traffic, but our friends arrived a few minutes after 1 and checked in. The woman at the check-in station assured them that someone would be around soon to start the fire (they provide equipment and you are not allowed to start it yourself. When we arrived around 1:20, the fire had still not been started, which was fine, and I was assured it would be started soon. Our fire was not started until ~2:20, over an hour into the reservation we paid for.
-About 45 minutes after me and my wife and the rest of our party arrived, I went to inquire about the fire as we were a bit chilly. I had noticed the man starting the fire was tending to other lit fires whereas ours hadn't been lit, so I just wanted to see if they had forgotten. Another man was supervising the guy starting the fires, so I went up and politely asked about our fire. The guy snapped at me before I could even get a word out and was really rude, saying they were working on it and he'd get to it when he got to it. Even a simple "Sorry we're running behind, it will be awhile" would have been fine, but the guy was super condescending and abrupt for absolutely no reason.
-No one came back to tend to our fire despite them saying several times that they would.
-The ciders just...weren't good. I say this having loved them last year. Everyone in the party got different ciders, we all have different tastes, and we all didn't care for any of them. They lacked flavor, some were weirdly bitter or overly sweet, and they just weren't drinkable. The hot cider was fine, though it didn't taste like much, and my friend who got a full-size pour of the pumpkin liked it, but all of us who got a small pour as part of the tasting flight didn't care for it. I tasted hers, and it was completely different from the tasting flight pour, which seems like a pretty big consistency issue to me.
-We spent the majority of our time waiting in line for ciders or food. I fully expected to wait on a beautiful fall day, but the wait times exceeded all expectations, and we all left feeling like we had wasted a lot of our time. It wasn't busy enough to justify the amount of time waiting. Things were disorganized and slow, and even the simplest online ordering system could have helped.
-This last con isn't entirely the fault of Doc Waters directly, but my friends who hadn't eaten waited in line at their booked outside food truck, a place called DMV Sliders, for 1.5 hours for a few sliders and some fries. That's not an exaggeration. The line was super long, moved at a snail's pace, and the food they received at the end was ice cold.
Pros:
-Really nice ambiance, and we love the ability to book a fire pit for the day.
-The guy who actually started the fire was nice and clearly just overworked. They need about 10X the staff to help the staff members who are trying to help.
-You can bring your own outside food, and some of us did. If we return, we will certainly all be bringing our own food and not relying on the trucks.
I am willing to believe the ciders could be good again. Perhaps this year was a bad harvest. However, I doubt we will be back anytime soon. read more