Hello Fresh, a review — Ramble & Rove

Written by Callie

I should start this post off by saying that this is in no way sponsored by Hello Fresh. They did not send me this box for free in return for a review. I got it all on my own so you know this is a real true review. With that being said let’s continue…

The Ordering Process

I had been wanting to try a meal subscription service for quite some time now. I loved the idea of making home cooking easy and even did a semester long college project on the feasibility of this idea. And once I got married I wanted to start cooking meals for me and Jason, because we ate out a lot in college. So when our wedding rolled around I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to ask for a box to try out, and put a gift card to Hello Fresh on our gift registry.

A family friend was kind enough to gift us one Classic Box. This included three meals for two people. I was so excited! But with moving to Fort Worth and Rachael’s wedding in Peru so soon after my own I put off ordering the box until about a month after our wedding. And this was when things took a turn for the worst.

The first time I tried to order the box online it would not let me put in my card information. I tried the four credit cards I own and none worked. So I waited a week and then tried again. This time it said that I had nothing in my cart, even though I had clearly selected my Classic Box and it was in the cart. So I hopped onto the chat feature on the website and told a customer service rep my issues. They suggested I try a different web browser and immediately asked if there was anything else they could help with, when I said no, they disconnected the session before I could even try their one suggestion to the issue. I tried a different web browser and of course it didn’t work.

I tried for a third time another week later and ran into the same issue. Again, I reached out to the oh-so-helpful customer service chat feature and they gave me the same response to use a different browser. I said I had already tried that and it didn’t work. They told me they didn’t know what was wrong then and I would have to call the customer support line to order the box.

Now if you’re anything like me you hate talking with people over the phone (though living an adult life is quickly making me overcome this fear) so I needed a day or two to prepare myself for this call. When I finally did call the rep I explained my issues and he said they had the IT department working on the issues with the website and that I should try again in a few days. Mind you this “issue” has now been ongoing for two months so I didn’t really trust that the IT department was going to have it completed so soon. When I asked, “can’t I just place the order with you right now?” he seemed very taken aback, as if no one had ever asked this question before, and I was told I “technically” could but that it would be a long process and I might as well just do it online. Like, what?? I have you on the phone right now, you should be trying to fix all the problems now and that could be done by simply fulfilling the order. But I was so over the whole situation that I just said okay and hung up.

A few days later I tried again. And oh my gosh it worked! I ordered my gifted Classic Box! I set the delivery date for the first week of the new month because I knew Jason and I would both be home all week which meant we would need these meals. I get the confirmation emails and wait.

The box doesn’t show up. I email customer support and tell them my box was not delivered. They say sometimes it takes an extra day. I wait. Still doesn’t show up. So this time I pick up the phone and call because I’m an adult and I’m mad. They say, “Your box isn’t scheduled to arrive until next Monday” I say no, it was supposed to arrive two days ago. So I log back into my account to show the rep and my delivery date had been changed! Without my approval and they didn’t even bother letting me know that it had been changed. So at that point I was so upset and angry that I just gave up.

The Box

The box arrived the next Monday (on a week that Jason was traveling for work so I had to cook and eat the meals by myself when I wanted this to be a fun experience for the both of us).

Look at my cute little plant over there!

The whole layout of the box was quite neat. it was wrapped in insulation so the box wouldn’t get wet from condensation and the items that needed to be kept cold were wrapped closest to the ice packs with the other items on top. Each bag was labeled with the meal that it would be needed for.

I liked the meal recipe cards and the easy to follow instructions. Most meals included a little extra of the ingredients you would need. I had hoped that the meals would provide at least two meals each for me and Jason (or even if we could stretch the two servings into three would be cool too), but unfortunately they followed a strict two serving formula, we never had leftovers.

Of the three meals I really only liked the flatbread pizza meal. Which was disappointing. I also apparently suck at being a blogger because I didn’t take any photos of the cooking process and just completely forgot to photograph one entire meal. Oops.

Round Up Thoughts

Would I order (and pay) for another box from Hello Fresh?

Absolutely not. Their customer service was some of the worst I have had to deal with and the meals themselves left much to be desired.

Will I try another meal subscription service?

I don’t think I will. All these recipes are so easily accessible online and the only difference between a meal subscription and the old way is the going to the store part and actually buying the items. And I can easily get around that with Walmart Pick Up, which is seriously the best thing ever and you should totally try it out!

Will I be a better blogger and take more photos for my next review post?

I will try. No promises though.