Plas y Brenin Omdömen 328

Third visit. Great staff. Great facilities. Great location. I'll be back again sometime for sure.

Overall a really well rounded experienced, thoroughly enjoyed my climbing instruction course.

I participated in the moving out 2 day course. The instructors were very friendly but also very focused on safety, which is important. The included accommodation was clean, provided meals were hearty and it was set in the beautiful welsh countryside. I highly recommend checking pyb out if you want to improve your climbing knowledge!

Staff, hotel and the food were superb. Only niggle was the poor equipment for the Kayak rolling course, but the instructor was way and beyond instructors I've had before

Great location, wonderful staff at the centre - helpful and informative
Canoe coach needs to develop a more positive and supportive style to compliment strong technical skills

Fantastic accommodation and top-class instruction! Always look forward to my next visit.

A fantastic place to train or to just go for a holiday..loved it

Never dissapoints, great experience always

It’s got a lot more expensive this year yet quality seems to have suffered. The high ropes trip was poor and the food wasn’t nearly as good as normal (non summer camp courses). However the climbing was great and that’s what you go there for.

Brilliant place with amazing instructors and superb courses.

Friendly, professional people. Nice food and beer. Love the famous cakes at the end of the day. Always a pleasure to attend training courses at Plas y Brenin. I smile as soon as I walk through the door :)

Fantastic experience! I will be back for my next course.

I have had the pleasure of experiencing the unique atmosphere of the Brenin on 6 occasions on their 5 day climbing courses.
Following those I have also been on a mock student day on almost 40 times!
I have met people there who I keep in touch with still and attend the courses with
This time I did rock the rock improver course.Great course perfect for myself. Never a leader (well almost never) but I am a safe experienced second having learnt this from attending the Brenin
I arrived at the Brenin on Sunday evening and the car park was near empty! Most unusual I thought
I checked into find I wasn't rooming with the person I was meeting and buddying up with on my course. I was with another person. I went downstairs to be told there were only 12 people staying on courses this week and my friend was in a single room.
As I am fortunate enough to have a well paid occupation I paid another £100 for a single room for the 5 nights
I felt really that maybe it should have been offered anyway due to how empty the Brenin was.
The staff were as welcoming as usual especially the cleaners and kitchen and bar team.
But where were the Centre Assistants,those keen interesting outgoing hard working young people working at the brenin doing routine work but tagging along on courses to help and learn.Back at the brenin in the evening they always mixed with the residents and listened to our experiences of our adventures. They were the beating heart of the Brenin! I would ask the Senior management team to look carefully at reintroducing them again.
Bar and sunday evening bar meal excellent. Lager nice too!
Slept well 1st night.
Next morning breakfast very quiet. Choice not like it used to be or the quantities.
Packed lunches were hidden away until the last minute as apparently these have been taken in the past by people on non residential course!

A little point to note is the absence of the packed lunch for the mock student, some of whom travel hundreds of miles and camp out the night before and some of us who have turned out on torrential rain soaked and freezing days climbing in the moelwyns or tremadoc to allow the MIA candidates to have their essential assessments without the examiners pretending to be students!

Anyway back to the course

First morning nice hello from the lead tutor and then ny friend Chris and myself were introduced to our tutor Will Nicholls.we were surprised but so lucky to be the only two people on the course!
We have been tutored by Will before and had a great time and I knew Will before his MIA many years ago. We were so chuffed!
What a great week we had ,we could climb anywhere.in 5 days we did 19 pitches of climbing!
I ticked off climbs that were in my logbook for the past 2 years. Sea cliffs where my Achilles started to fail again to fantastic slate and honeysuckle corner in the moelwyns and jingling wall in betws y coed
Will was fantastic and it was like 3 guys going out cragging,I learnt some movement techniques and also to get my head committed on certain key moves.
As the week went on my Achilles got worse and my mates angina played up but Will led us at a pace which suited us,with a little medical advice from myself to my climbing partner at times!
There used to be a sports massage/therapist one could book in the evening to help with any muscle problems but not now.i would have booked and paid for them.Is there scope to offer this again?
We found time for ice creams and cafes!
Will also arranged for sunshine on everyday!

In the evening I enjoyed the food but the choice is less and the quantity but the quality is still very high as are the staff
Enjoyed the bar chats with people. As it was so quiet this wasn't as much as usual. Please can the TV have the news on it with subtitles, having watched the advert loop regarding the Brenin repeatedly go round it does become a bit tiresome, after all you are advertising to people who are already there!

The advertised talk didn't happen at 8pm on the Monday which upset a few of the advanced scrambler course attendees who waited for it.

All in all our course with Will was perfect and we are coming back for a 5 day holiday climb next year at the Brenin Achilles permitting!

Tuition is excellent but the overall feel of the Brenin is different and I think the executive should look at it again as I am sure they do regularly

The prices are high and young people will struggle to pay them.The competition in the industry is intense,indeed the Brenin trains and assesses the people who then are in competitive business with them.
The Brenin should consider a loyalty scheme and be able to store customer information, obviously ensuring GDPR compliance so that offers can be sent out and people kept informed.
The old fashioned snazzy booklet should be reconsidered. I loved reading this, The website I find hard to use!
Also the course reviews were missing although whoever reads this is probably not going to add this!

I am a "Breninite" and feel comfortable there and have had some of the most enjoyable days in my life there achieving things i never thought i would in carefully risk managed situations but it just doesn't have the old feel about it.
I am sure the mission statement of the Brenin is often looked at alongside ensuring the corporate appearance does not impact on it too much.

After all the Brenin is a centre of outdoor excellence and the National Mountain Centre for England albeit in beautiful Wales!

Having said that I am still coming back and I would encourage anyone who can afford the 5 day climbing courses to go on them
Kind regards to all at the Brenin.

Good accommodation clean and tidy. Good food and an excellent course both the equipment and tuition.

Excellent tuition and staff : participants ratio (1:4) for scrambling course. Location fantastic, accommodation comfortable and food plentiful and tasty! Would definitely recommend to others.

Excellent experience

I did the Moving Out 2 Day course; the instructors were excellent - they customized the content of the course to meet our goals, were very knowledgeable, and they managed to find us dry climbing spots despite the weather forecast calling for rain the whole weekend our course was running.

Provided food and accommodation were good (breakfast was great). They picked us up/dropped us off at Llandudno Junction, so getting there from London was a breeze.

Overall, I'm super pleased with whole course experience, and would definitely do other courses here in the future when I'm looking to pick up new skills.

Great time - good facilities but what makes it is the location and instructors. Amazing trip learning to climb outdoors. Have already booked another trip.

I first attended a training course at Plas Y Brenin about 15 years ago and thoroughly enjoyed refreshing my first aid course recently. I would highly rate everything, from the quality of the instruction to the quality of the accommodation. I plan to pick up a few more courses to complete over the next 12 months. Strongly recommended.

PYB provides excellent professional outdoor activity training, good accommodation and food.

Let donw by poorly functioning and navigable website.

White water canoeing course.
Lovely venue in a beautiful setting, enjoyed our stay and our course.
Would definitely recommend to other.