Christmas shopping at Dobbies Atherstone Garden Centre

Dobbies Garden Centre Atherstone
Christmas Shopping
(page 3)

Christmas at Dobbies Atherstone
When we arrived at Dobbies on a mid-November Saturday, the car park was full and cars were parking on the road.

One of the largest UK garden centres had attracted a huge amount of shoppers. We let you know to expect from a Christmas visit to Dobbies.

Christmas Trees

The display of Christmas trees was extremely small for a large garden centre. The trees were simply arranged in rows with uninspiring decoration on and around them.

If you want to buy a Christmas tree, our advice is to give Dobbies a miss.

Christmas Tree Decorations

Matching the display of Christmas trees, the range of Christmas decorations was small for a garden centre of this size. Not only that, the display was very uninspiring.

Give Dobbies a miss as far as Christmas decorations are concerned, much better is available elsewhere.

Father Christmas For Kids

Santa's Grotto had the the worst entrance we have ever seen! Two lonely strings of white lights leading to the information centre. Inside the information centre, the decorations were poor and minimal.

Inside the grotto, Santa was excellent though the toy received barely warranted the �5 entrance fee.

Christmas Spirit and Feel

In the middle of November the majority of the store conversion was obviously complete but it inspired no Christmas spirit at all.

There was one big XMAS display (see picture left) but the remainder of the store decorations were poor. The dejected young lady taking bookings for Santa's grotto summed up Dobbies at Christmas.

Christmas Prices

Prices at Dobbies, Atherstone, outside of Christmas are average for a large centre. This was also the case for Christmas goods.

But shop wisely and keep an eye on the prices of individual items. There are bargains and good prices to be had but there are also some very high prices. The four Christmas gift tags on offer (see picture left) at �2.50 shocked us.

Our Christmas price guide below uses a star system, the more stars the better the value.

	One star shows prices give extremely bad value for money.
	Five stars show prices give extremely good value for money.

Synthetic Christmas trees
Christmas decorations / wrapping
A visit to Father Christmas
Overall

Summary
We were looking forward to doing some Christmas shopping at Dobbies and hoped for a good experience from one of the largest garden centres in the UK. We were very disappointed. The range of gifts and Christmas goods was poor and presented very plainly.

We can't recommend Dobbies for Christmas shopping but, as the main article shows, it still remains a good garden centre otherwise.

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