An upmarket Santa's Grotto experience has left children in tears due to the fake appearance of its stand-in Father Christmas, aggrieved parents have claimed.

Visitors have slammed the festive event at the historic Great Hall in Winchester and accused it of 'ruining the magic of Christmas'.

Citing a 'blatantly fake beard' and 'cheap red suit', parents said that the event's new replacement Santa fell far short of expectations.

The once 'magical' Grotto trip usually costs a family of five almost £70, but this year was dubbed a 'shambles' as families also had to sit through a 'haphazard' reading of The Night Before Christmas under a bare tree.

The Santa's Grotto Experience has been a long-standing festive tradition in the cathedral city but was this year taken over by the Hampshire Cultural Trust.

A change in management of the 13th century building also resulted in a reshuffling of their grotto line-up, with the original Father Christmas and Grand Elf duo being replaced.

On the experience's website, visitors are promised a 'memory-making adventure that your family will treasure for years to come', but for many families the trip to the Great Hall was some way off meeting that expectation.

Father-of-three Matthew Fernandez visited the grotto with his children and was not impressed with what he found compared to previous years.

'It was nothing like the last one. This was just a guy dressed up in a cheap red suit with a blatantly fake beard and he wasn't very talkative at all - he didn't seem very jovial', Mr Fernandez remarked. 

Drawing comparisons to previous trips to the grotto, Mr Fernandez recalled how 'special' the experiences had been for his three children.

However, on this occasion, his children were left in no doubt as to the fakeness of the grotto's Father Christmas.

'My children were polite but as soon as we left they were in tears regarding the situation and said they knew he was a fake', he said.

Other complaints levelled at the experience included an increase in ticket prices on previous years alongside the introduction of a fee for accompanying adults.

Tickets for children were priced at £18.50, whilst parents were forced to fork out an additional £6 to join them.

The event proved to be such a disappointing experience for some families that they even considered taking up a complaint with Trading Standards.

Lisa Catherine was another who visited the grotto with her newly born granddaughter.

Describing the man in the red suit, she wrote online: 'Santa.. honestly I wanted to laugh, I've seen better Santas rolling around town on their way to Christmas parties, it was a very, very cheap suit, with maybe a cushion tucked into it, a lady dressed again in a Christmas sweater, but with glitter on her face.

'Santa sang jingle bells I think, whilst ringing a bell and holding for some reason a carrot,' she added.

Ms Catherine said the organisers ought to 'close this shambles down' or at least issue a refund for those have been left 'so bitterly disappointed by your version of a cut price, shambolic non candy lane Santa experience'. 

Laura Garrett slammed the 'awful changes' made by organisers and said: 'The Santa asked my children what their favourite song was then, forgot the words to 'rudolf the red nose reindeer'.

Responding to the barrage of complaints, a spokesperson for the Great Hall said that 'teething' problems were experienced on the weekend the grotto opened and that refunds have been offered to those who booked tickets on 'the assumption that the experience would be the same as previous years'.