La Belle & La Boeuf - Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec J7V 0M8 (Les Avenues Vaudreuil )

Bad experience | by Veronica  on Nov 06, 2017

Despite warnings from many people I decided to go to the Vegan fest on Sunday and let's just say my experience was less than 1 star. I went with my mother and 1 1/2 year old daughter who was in a stroller. Upon entering there were no signs telling us where the start of the show was or where to go. We approached a young volunteer and asked her if we could go upstairs to the show, she informed us that we had to go to the bottom level since that is where the show starts and that we could take the elevator. I am claustrophobic, as is my mother, so I am not comfortable in crowded elevators. I asked her if there was another way to get to the bottom level, another set of stairs or another entrance and she informed us that unfortunately there was not. I said okay and we headed towards the elevator, when we got there there was 1 elevator and a huge line up, the people in front of us had been waiting 10 minutes just to get on. When the people in front of us were able to get into the elevator they had to squeeze and push their way in just to fit not only that but when the elevator stopped on the main floor again it was the same group of people as before, no one had gotten off. Seeing the line up behind me and the people already on the elevator I knew I wouldnt be able to get in without panicking. So we got out of the line and tried the fire escape stairs, we had seen a few people going there before, we were able to get into the stairwell but once we got to the bottom level the door was locked, so were the other doors. At this point we had already been in the building for 35 minutes and it was getting ridiculous. So I decided to go back to the front and explain my situation to one of the volunteers thinking they would understand and let me go into the basement by the main stairwell. Boy was I WRONG!!!! We walked back to the main entrance and I approached a volunteer with a green tshirt, she had short black hair, glasses a heavy french accent, about 5'6" and a few lbs over weight. I very politely in french explained my situation about being claustrophobic and not being able to take the elevator so if it would be possible to take the main staircase to the lower level. She did not smile once or even bother to say hello and when I explained my situation she laughed and said too bad either take the elevator or go around the building to the other entrance. At this point it was raining outside and I was with my 1 1/2 year old daughter who I was not going to drag out into the cold and rain. So I once again informed her that I could not physically take the elevator and it was raining and I had a young child that I did not want to take into the cold and rain. She then proceeded to look at my daughter then back at me and said thats not my problem its either the elevator or go around. I then informed her that I had never been to a "festival" that was so badly organized and had such rude volunteers and that I would be putting a complaint about her and the organization, she just laughed in my face and said go ahead your review wont do anything and if you don't like it then leave. After all that we still decided to go into the festival and see how it was and let my daughter enjoy some good vegan food. We walked outside since the rain had died down and walked into the bottom floor. It was not at all what I went there for, so not only did we have to walk in the cold and rain to get to the entrance but we also had to walk up about 10 flights of stairs with a toddler, a stroller, a diaper bag and a purse all while wearing our coats and scarves just so we could get to the top floor. Once at the top floor we started walking around and let me tell you I was not impressed. The set up was messy and looked like it had been thrown together last minute, we couldn't get to any of the booths to talk to the vendors because people were just standing around and eating all the samples, people were using their hands to pick up the samples and licking their fingers and going in for more, if there were toothpicks they were using the same one they had been licking off to get more and if they were in separate dishes then it was impossible to get one because people were standing there taking 4 or 5 samples and then waiting for new ones to be put out. On a more positive note I did like the choice of vendors that were there and I did discover some new brands of vegan food that I would never have known about.