Dolphin Bathrooms

When we bought our house, one of the first rooms we wanted changing was the bathroom. I have always seen the adverts for Dolphin on the TV and love how the bathrooms look. In the Trafford Centre in Manchester there is a showroom. When we went into the showroom we were given the chance to enter a competition to win a fully fitted bathroom, we entered the competition and a few days later we had a call from Dolphin, not to say that we had one, but they were offering us a free design visit and told us they have some substansial savings. We accepted the offer as the range they have on offer in the showrooms is absolutely superb.

The designer turned up at our house at the agreed time, he was very polite and offered to take his shoes off which not many people do nowadays. We had a chit chat, which I didn't feel entirely comfortable with, it felt a bit too much like he was trying to befriend us.

After all that, it was time to take a look at the bathroom, a 12ft x 12ft square, the perfect room to work with he told us. After around two hours faffing around, we were shown all the brochures and chose three bathroom styles that we thought would look good in our house. Unfortunately, on the first visit we were not given any idea of price what so ever, as the bathroom would be taylor made to our specification, it is not something that they can just tell you there and then.

To cut a long story short, the designer told us he would return the following evening with some samples of the bathrooms we had chosen. e.g taps, tiles, draw finishes etc...

So again, the designer turned up dead on time, still very polite as he was the first time, but this time he had a suitcase full of bits and pieces. He showed us how good the quality was that they use, and to be honest I did believe him, I had seen it in the showrooms and the stuff they sell is lovely and seems very well made.

We chose the bathroom design we wanted, and he told us he needed to go and have a proper measure up. After around two hours of us sat downstairs, and him banging about upstairs, he came back down. He told us he had all the measurements and was ready to put together the price for us. He asked if he could use our dinning room table to draw out the plans which we agreed to.

Around THREE HOURS later, he knocked on the lounge door and said he had drawn out the plans, I asked him outright how much it would be, and he still didn't give me an answer, instead, we were told that he needed to subit these drawings back to the factory, so they could price up the units etc to fit in the bathroom. By this point this bloke had spent around five hours in total in our home, and still hadn't given the price.

Before he left, I asked for a rough estimate on the price, and the only answer I got was 'Nothing is expensive' if it fulfills the purpose it is intended to. He also told us that as our first home, it would be well worth kitting it out with a Dolphin bathroom as it would last the life of the house.

A couple of days later, he phoned to tell us he had the price and needed to come round and confirm a few more details. By this time all we wanted was the price, so I told him he is not welcome here unless he gave the price over the phone. After around ten minutes of justifying his price, he finally come out with it, £22,549. Luckily, we were eligible for some discount, nearly 50% to be precise, which bought the price down £11,710. This price did include all tiles, fittings and labour, but was still around £6000 over budget for us.

I explained to the designer that the price was way more than we ever wanted to pay, again he said that nothing is expensive and the bathroom would see the life of the house. In the end I told him that he had wasted two evenings of my life, which I will never get back, plus a few other choice words. We never heard from him again thankfully.

If you do go into a Dolphin showroom, unless you have £10k + to spend, don't even bother with the design visit, our bathroom isn't even that big so I dread to think what something bigger would cost. It is such a shame, I would happily pay around £5000 for one of their bathrooms, they are very nice, but just too over priced.

We have since had a new bathroom fitted for £3600, that even included underfloor heating and a waterproof TV, which Dolhpins didn't.

Avoid.