We flew into London a day early prior to joining a guided tour and my sons wanted to do something…read moreactive. My wife found this facility where the kayak competition was held for the London Olympics. We pre-booked which I think is required. You have to be above the age of 14 to white water raft. It was an awesome experience. You go through a loop and we were on the water for an hour or so. We went around 6 or 7 times. Tom was our guide and you could tell he was very experienced. The facility serves lunch and beers for after your adventure. It is approximately an hour outside of town and I recommend as a must do for anyone to take a break from the sightseeing. They also have kayaks and tubes.

I visited this place four months ago and I would therefore like to thank the instructors and the…read morewhole team for making the day special for us all. We were a big group of around 60 people and we all managed to have fun. Although it can be seen as quite daunting at the beginning my instructor Tony made sure that we were all constantly happy and safe. Tony helped me overcome my fears and made sure I was smiling and was happy for being there! His words of encouragement made us all think clear, stay focused and enjoy our day out at the same time. Even now, four months later, we all look at the pictures and think of what a wonderful time we had!! I would highly recommend it to people that want to spend the day in the water with there friends and families. The activities will keep everyone busy for a long time and you can also enjoy a nice coffee and croissant at their lovely coffee shop based on the first floor! Tip: Safety comes first so make sure you always keep the safety equipment with you whilst in water!!

As I visit family in London once a year, I am always looking for something off the beaten path to…read moredo. I have only visited London twice during the summer in the past decade and know how beautiful the city can be during this season and how activities can be limited in the winter months. I was lucky to stumble upon this ongoing activity of having a guided kayak tour of the Thames and jumped on it as soon as I could. I was not apprehensive, but really did not know what to expect. I was in store for something fun, informative, and active. Harry Whelan was our charming and funny host for the tour. Even before we got there Harry helped me through scheduling online to organize my tour. When we arrived he helped us by providing clothing less.....touristy. During the tour he gave us an education about everything we were looking at on the river. He took pictures for us and later provided them for us via the web. The overall experience was great! I would recommend it to anyone. We did the Big Ben and back tour which took just over two hours. The kayaks themselves were extremely stable and I think anyone with paddling power could do it. Seeing the world from this angle was extremely different and intriguing. Seeing structures and landmarks that I had seen many times before with a new set of eyes. What was even more gratifying was finding out that this tourist attraction is something like a non profit. The money we paid (very inexpensive) went back into the costs of the program, as well as into teaching kids to kayak. We had one of those kids with us as we took our tour. Other than me having a Zoolander moment (I couldn't turn left) :D The whole experience was flawless! I will be back next year for the four hour tour......and I'm bringing more friends! DT!

Excellent youth club for kids in the Camden area. They've been teaching boating skills on the canal…read morehere for 40 years! As a kid you can go down and learn how to sail kayaks, coracles, rowing boats, canoes, rescue boats and narrowboats, and as an adult you can volunteer and do the same... The building is particularly good as it does actually look like a castle.

A youth club i once attended although it has vastly improved since thne but they teach kids about…read morethe canal aswell as how to survive and boat on the canal, the Pirate castle looks like a castle but you would never think that they would teach boating skills as i thought the didnt but it is a fun and safe way for kids to learn and it gets them off the streets so i recommend it

This is a fantastic place to head if you are a water-sports nut! Everything is catered for here;…read morecanoeing, dinghy sailing, wind-surfing and much more. My wife and I completed our RYA level 1 and 2 sailing here as the instructors are so patient and the surroundings are so much nicer than a lot of the local Brighton destinations. The Ardingly Resovoir is a huge place to start off learning and once you've progressed, they have a program at Chichester Harbour so you can start navigating the open seas!

I am keen to introduce my three young children to outdoor water based activities, so I phoned the…read moreArdingly Activity Centre for advice to work out what was possible given their ages. I had no fixed ideas about when or how, just sooner rather than later was my preference. We have just purchased a camper van so it was about trying out new compatible activities. The centre was not available when I called so I left a message. I eventually received a call back from the owner, who was very cold and blunt, and seemingly annoyed that I was seeking advice rather than using the online booking facility. I was told firmly that they had migrated to an online system as they were sick of having two people man the phones answering queries daily (hopefully those two people are employed elsewhere). I am absolutely fine with things that are not possible but I had to work very hard to try and work out a suitable plan of attack. I asked if anyone was available for private hire and got a stark "no" followed by silence - no follow on to suggest there may in the future or that group lessons may be available etc. In the interests of politeness I let that go and then moved onto talk logistics in the absence of a tutor, given the ages of the children, to try and work out whether my wife and I could hire one kayak or two and how many kids were allowed on board. Again, very negative... started with can't be done with the youngest of the three kids... no problem, so I tried to usher the conversation to what was possible with the older two.. suggesting my wife staying on the side-lines with the baby whilst I rotate with the two older children. The first response was only myself and one child were allowed in a kayak and if I were to swap between the two, it would be a pain to get the children in and out of the life jackets on rotation. I suggested we just put them both in life jackets at the outset (they are different sizes given age gaps anyway). I was rather rudely told that would result in one of my children hogging a life jacket. Eventually the owner recognised his own dismissiveness and conceded that having both the older two children in life jackets from the get go and then rotating could work. Phew. Separately, I also suggested that my wife would be fine on the side-lines with the baby as she has not got any experience and got a very blunt "well, it's not that difficult". That was literally the tone and extent of the response on that. By that point I started laughing out of embarrassment and when he asked why I explained that I had phoned to motivate my children in a new venture and had ended up becoming demotivated myself. I wish I hadn't said anything. The fault was, apparently, my subjective feelings rather than his attitude. In fact the owner had self-justified his approach as legitimate expectation management, and my dislike being linked to being unrealistic on a bank holiday weekend. I tried to explain, politely, I had no expectations of when or how, I was just trying to work out a plan to introduce my kids to this ... instead I was receiving an "its all too difficult", dead-end and unhelpful dialogue. I said a little helpfulness, optimism and realism were not mutually exclusive. Despite this, I was met with non-sequiturs about being "unrealistic" and a defensive "I have done this job for thirty five years" and had lots of happy customers, we should agree to disagree etc. It was my feelings that were at fault and his subjective interpretation meant there was no objective truth in the feedback he had requested. Some owners cannot do enough to engage new custom/enthuse potential recruits - this owner couldn't do any less, isn't interested in feedback he requests, however well put, and will default to self-justificatory non-sequiturs and years served. You would have thought the owner would have developed some degree of self-awareness/desire to pass on skills to the next generation. Unfortunately not if it requires anything non-standard or outside of the online booking system. Hopefully the owner's customers will find the review he requested more useful that he did.