Center Parcs Review
Wow! I haven't written on here since November 2013This is my review of our Center Parcs Holiday September 2015 (I have taken it from my TripAdvisor Reviews).
We stayed at Center Parcs as
a family of 2 adults and a 3 year old boy during the week beginning
7th September for a midweek break. We thought that since
this was the week that schools went back after the summer holiday
then maybe it would be on the quiet side. However, this wasn't the
case the park was completely full when we were there.
This was our third trip to
Center Parcs (please see my previous reviews) so we had every day,
activity and restaurant planned in advance. This time, to make the
most of the break and to effectively have a extra two days on site we
decided to travel up on the Sunday, stay at Premier Inn and then
arrive at 10am Monday morning. Then we stayed on site for the day on
the Friday and stayed in a Travelodge Friday night before going
Longleat Safari park on the Saturday.
Arrival
Even though you cannot
access your accommodation until 3pm you can arrive at Center Parcs
anytime from 10am on your arrival day. So like I said we planned to
arrive at 10am. We actually arrived at 9.56am and there wasn't a
single car in front of us, by 9.58am we were all checked in and we
allowed to go in. However, the girl at the arrival lodge said that
because it was before 10am she wasn't allowed to give us our
accommodation key so we had to collect it from guest services after
1pm. Initially we didn't see this as a problem but when we went to
collect our key around 1pm from guest services we discovered that the
girl from the arrival lodge had sent the wrong key to guest services,
so we had to wait another hour for it to be sent down. This wasn't
really that big of a deal but a bit of unnecessary hassle for the
sake of being 2 minutes early. There wasn't anyone in the queue
behind us when we arrived so next time we will just park the car
before the arrivals lodge for 2 minutes to make sure it is after 10am
when we arrive.
From our previous visits we
have noticed that the Plaza is always extremely busy on arrival days.
In the morning it is usually full of guest that are about to leave
buying souvenirs before they leave. Then in the afternoon it is full
of new guests just hanging around and waiting until 3pm when they can
access their accommodation. So because of this we usually avoid the
Plaza on arrival day. Instead we went to the children's play areas in
the morning and then to The Pancake House for lunch. On our last two
visits we have found that the Pancake House is almost empty on
arrival day because everyone is in the Plaza.
The Pancake House
We love eating at the
Pancake House. Each time we go in there with the aim of having a
savoury item and a pudding but it never happens because one course is
so filling. So this time we decided to have a savoury pancake for
lunch on the Monday and we went back on the Friday lunch time and had
a sweet waffle each. The Pancake House is usually the only restaurant
you can turn up to without booking and its the one where we were
served the quickest. Definitely my favourite place to eat, I can't
fault it. Just take note of the opening times because it isn't open
every evening.
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| The Pancake House |
Accommodation
Cars usually start queuing
at the barrier from just after 2pm waiting for it to open at 3pm to
allow access to the lodges so it can be a bit chaotic and when the
barrier opens people seem to act like the lodges are first come first
served.
This time when we went to
book Center Parcs had increased their prices by £50 from when I
checked the day before booking so my partner telephoned to book to
see if he could get the price back down to what it was the day
before. This didn't work but we thought it was worth a try. If you do
book by phone just beware that they will add items onto your booking
without telling you there is an extra charge. We never pay extra to
be in a particular location because we like trying out different ones
and think Center Parcs is expensive enough without paying extra. If
we did have a choice we would choose the Fir Area, this may be the
further away from everything but because of this it is quieter and
you see more wildlife. If you don't pay extra to be near the centre
then you will probably end up in the Fir Area anyway. When my partner
was making the booking on the telephone the advisor asked if we
preferred a particular location and my partner said Fir, he didn't
know that it cost an extra £29 to specific this area and the advisor
didn't tell him either. It was only when he told me the total price I
realised that she had added this extra £29 plus another £30 ish for
insurance without actually saying that she had done this. She had
initially allocated us lodge 635 and was going to charge us £29 for
doing so. I said that we didn't want to chose a particular location
we were happy to be allocated at random. To which she replied 'if you
don't pay extra then the computer will allocate you a villa out in
the sticks'. We had already told her that is where we wanted to be
anyway. The computer then randomly allocated us lodge 636! Next door
to the one she tried charging us £29 for. So just beware that if you
book on the phone they may add extra items to your booking without
telling you that there is a charge.
As usual we couldn't fault
the lodge. Well if we were on Four in a Bed and being extra picky
then we probably could have found something but nothing that bothered
us. The lodges in the Fir Area used to be Comfort Lodges but over the
last couple of years they have all been updated to Woodland Lodges so
everything in them is relatively new.
Activities
We booked activities in
advance for each day we were there. My partner did field archery
which he really enjoyed and had lots of fun.
We then all went on the
Teddy Bears Picnic. This involved meeting at the Activities Den at
1pm. A few people were late because you are sent a map in the post
before arriving and then you are given another map on arrival and the
Activities Den is shown in completely different places on each of the
map. It is in the middle of the park and not by the car park as shown
on one of the maps. The Teddy Bears Picnic cost £10 per child,
adults were free. The children were given a lunch box at the start
and then made to carry it for 20 minutes while we went hunting for
Rupert Bear with children complaining that they were hungry. When we
found Rupert the children were then made to play games and sing songs
so it was nearly 1.45 by the time they started eating. I just thought
that since this was an activity aimed at toddlers it could have been
organised a bit better so that they didn't have to wait so long
before eating. However, for the £10 the children had a packed lunch
provided, they got to meet Rupert individually, have their face
painted, got given hats and a really nice Center Parcs teddy to keep.
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| Teddy Bears Picnic |
We also booked Tots Mini
Moves but my little boy is autistic and was extremely upset prior to
the activity so we decided to give it a miss. We phoned guest
services 10 minutes before the activity was due to start to let them
know we weren't able to make it and they gave us a full refund, which
was nice and totally unexpected.
We also booked the new
electric boats which were £18 for 30 minutes. They didn't go very
fast but it was nice not having to row. 30 minutes was plenty of
time, we went around the lake a number of times and in different
directions. Since the lake isn't very big I wouldn't have wanted to
spend longer than 30 minutes on the boat.
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| Electric Boats |
The next activity we did was
An Outing with Owls. We all really enjoyed it. It cost £10 per adult
and £8 per child for 45 minutes and we all had big owls and small
owls fly to us. The two women who were doing the activity were really
good and we learnt a lot and had a laugh. Would definitely recommend
it.
We booked children's
entertainment because when we were looking through the list of
activities online we saw an hour of children's entertainment for £1
each but it didn't say what it was. Since usually you can't get
anything at Center Parcs for £1 each we thought we would give it a
go. Oh my god, I have never seen anything like it, no wonder it only
cost £1 Center Parcs were probably too embarrassed to charge
anymore. It was one guy who claimed to be a professional actor and
children's entertainer, well I have never seen anything so bad, all
of the adults were embarrassed by how bad it was and even the
children didn't know how to react. He spent the whole time acting
like someone who had some kind of learning disability and from
talking to him before the show started he wasn't someone who had a
learning disability so why he decided to act like one and make
himself look so stupid is beyond me. Definitely give it a miss.
The final activity we did
was 10 pin bowling. We did this on departure day at 11.30 because it
is cheaper to do it on arrival or departure day. It was £18 instead
of £24 for 45 mins. It was also very quiet. You get exactly 45 mins
on the lane and during that time the 3 of us managed to play one
whole game and then one go short of a whole second game.
Restaurants
Each restaurant we booked
for 6pm however, this wasn't an appropriate time because when we got
there we found out that the land train arrived at the Plaza at 5.40pm
or 6pm so we either got there too early or we were late. So take the
times of the train into account when booking restaurants. It arrives
at the Plaza on the hour, 20 past each hour and 20 to each hour.
All the restaurants do
children's meal deals for £8.99 (I think!) and for that they get two
courses and a drink so a reasonable price. However, regardless of
what restaurant we were in the children's meal deal menu was the
same. We were always able to get my son's dessert to go which was
extremely helpful however, this did confuse almost every staff member
we asked.
Rajinda Pradesh
The food here was really
nice, I couldn't fault it. However, it was an extremely long wait
especially since there was only one other table besides us. The main
criticism I have with this restaurant is when they brought out my 3
year old son's meal they put it down in front of him and the plate
and food was so hot I burnt myself on the plate when I moved it away
from him. I would expect staff to be a bit more aware of the
temperature of children's meals and plates.
The Grand Cafe
We went for the Wednesday
night carvery and it was my favourite meal of the week. Also we saw
the waitress checking the temperature of my son's plate and food
before bringing it out so that was extremely good! Because my son is
autistic and can be a very fussy eater we looked at all the menus
online before we went to see if there would be food suitable for him
before we booked. On the menu for the grand cafe it said that
children had the option of either a carvery or the standard
children's meal deal. My son wouldn't have ate the carvery so we
decided on the meal deal again. However, what it didn't say on the
online menu is that the only option from the meal deal menu that they
do on a Wednesday night is the pasta. If we knew that in advance then
we wouldn't have order the pasta the night before in Rajinda Pradesh
but my son still ate it.
Hucks
I think the only problem
with Hucks is that the menu is too big! (Over 30 pages online). There
were lots of different things I wanted to try. On the Hucks menu they
advertise a children's buffet which says that children can eat as
soon as you sit down. We thought that this was a brilliant idea but
it isn't actually the case. By the time the waitress took our order,
then got us a plate for the children's buffet it was 20 minutes after
we sat down before I was able to go up to the children's buffet. My
partner had to send his steak back twice because it wasn't cooked
properly but my meal was really nice.
Hawtons
We were disappointed that
the tapas restaurant had been replaced with Hawtons because the food
that Hawtons offers you can get anywhere and we felt that the tapas
restaurant was something different, but we decided to give it a go.
We were initially booked in for 6pm on departure day but asked if we
could change our booking to 5pm. This wasn't possible but we were
able to change to 4.30pm and because we were then eating before 5pm
we had the lunchtime menu instead of the dinner time menu. The food
that we ordered from the lunchtime menu was extremely nice, very
filling and half the price of the dinner menu options. We will
definitely eat here again for lunch.
Land Train
Like other people have
mentioned sometimes the land train was full. However, the whole time
we were there a number of mini buses were driving around picking up
people who were waiting at the land train stops. We were even able to
wave down the minibuses and they would take us anywhere we wanted so
it was never a problem.
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| The Land Train |
We love Center Parcs and
even though some times we find things to complain about they aren't
actually major complaints just little 'niggles' if we are being extra
picking. As soon as we got home we started saving and planning for
the next trip and we are going again in May! Can't wait really
looking forward to it!
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| First Time on a Bike |
Like most people, we spent a
lot of money over the 5 days. However, this didn't come as a shock.
The prices for all of the activities are on the website and all of
the menus for all of the restaurants are also on the website so we
knew how much spending money we would need.
Sorry I have gone on so
much! Hopefully some people will find this helpful.
