FAQs

Children and accompanying adults should be dressed appropriately for the weather outdoors and must wear closed shoes such as trainers or boots that they don’t mind getting muddy. Drivers will find trainers more comfortable and should not wear wellington boots which can inhibit their driving. There is no requirement to wear a helmet although on some occasions, it can be fun to dress up.

We encourage people to book through this website in order to guarantee a fixed time slot and ensure availability. We do accept walk in customers on the day, but only if there is a vacant space on the next available drive. Priority is always given to the booked drivers.

Birthday parties and other special events can be arranged separately and can be customised to your children’s needs.

Please note that we are closed on Mondays.

If you need to talk to somebody about booking a drive or an event, please feel free to call us on 01245 373648.

We do a special deal for larger groups and birthday parties. It really depends on your requirements.

In general, we provide the cars and the space, the parents provide the ice cream , catering and look after the children. The maximum party size will really depend on how you want to conduct the event, but we recommend no more than 8 children at a time.

A typical party could include use of the cars for up to one hour and then use of the facilities to exchange gifts and cake for another hour.

We will try and adapt to your needs.

We work very closely with Chelmsford Equestrian Centre and with enough notice, it may be possible to organise a car drive and pony ride at the same visit.

We do not offer this service. Offroadkids is a centre based business and operates exclusively at Chelmsford Equestrian Centre.

Offroadkids operates out of the field adjacent to the main car park at the riding school. If you cant see us in the field, please wait by the sign in the carpark. Our guides will come and fetch you at the starting time. Do not go to reception at the riding school as there is nobody there at this time that can help you.

Nobody can control the weather and what it may do to the fields. We don’t want to stand in the pouring rain anymore than you do. Activities will continue in light rain but if the weather is too severe to drive, we will contact you to cancel the drive and you will get a full refund. Obviously children will be disappointed, but we want this experience to be memorable for the right reasons.

We are no longer extending vouchers issued during Covid lockdowns.

All vouchers that expired during Covid shutdowns were extended by more than than our period of closure and a number of refunds were provided during the closure period.

We have been  fully open for sometime now and any vouchers extended because of Covid must be fully utilised before their extended expiry date.

Our ambition is to let as many children as possible drive our fantastic little cars.

We understand that sometimes things go wrong and that you may not be able to attend your booked drive event.

Whilst we don’t want to be inflexible with bookings, some cancellations cost us money because we are unable to sell the space you have booked to someone else before you confirm your cancellation. In addition, we also book staff in advance to attend for your event based upon confirmed bookings at least 1 week in advance which means that we may have to pay staff even if you dont attend.

Like other leisure based activities such as when you book a seat at the theatre, a sports event or even a plane ticket, if you do not attend for some last minute reason such as sickness or being stuck in traffic, you lose your booking.

In some cases of course the ticket is directly transferable to a third person who may be able to benefit from your purchase even if you cannot on that occassion. We do not make a charge to change attendee details on certificates but we do ask for as much notice as possible.

We want to be fair and reasonable and have updated our cancellation rules to reflect our trading experience.

In this regard, If you wish to cancel a prebooked drive or birthday party, the following rules apply to you.

Prebooked drives:

You may cancel a prebooked drive at anytime by giving us at least 7 days notice in writing by email of your intention to cancel your booking. You may request a full refund, a voucher code valid for 6 months or to move the drive to a different date on our calender (you may do this only once per booking reference.)

If you are giving us less than 7 days but more than 48 hours notice of a cancellation in writing by email, we may at our discretion accept or refuse the cancellation if we believe there is a reasonable chance that we will be able to resell that drive slot in which case we will issue you with a voucher code valid for 3 months or agree to move the drive to a differnt date on our calender (you may do this only once per booking reference.)

If you are giving us less than 48 hours notice of your non attendance for whatever reason, your booking may be lost. We will release your booking slot onto our system as soon as we are able and if we are successful in reselling the slot, we will issue you with a refund less our admin costs for the card transaction. If we are unable to resell your booking, your reservation and fees will be forfeited.

Birthday Parties and Special Events

Demand for bithday parties can be very high for certain dates in the year and parents usually book and reserve dates months in advance.

A non refundable deposit is required to confirm the booking of any special event in our schedule. The balance of the event fee is due seven days before the event date. If you cancel a confirmed event (ie you have paid the deposit), you will not recieve a refund of any monies paid prior to the cancellation.

If we cancel….

We  very rarely cancel any prebooked drive or special event. (The exceptions being Covid lockdowns and severe weather) These are outdoor experiences and we do drives in wind rain, and snow (that was by parental request – not personal choice). We make a decison usually in the morning of the day based upon the most accurate forcasts of local weather as to which if any drives we may need to cancel.

In the event that we make a cancellation, we offer the client either a full refund or if they wish an opportunity toi rearrange a booking.