I'm currently doing two jobs - looking after my two troublesome toddlers during the day (Matthew age...
I'm currently doing two jobs - looking after my two troublesome toddlers during the day (Matthew aged 3 and Amelia aged 1) and working as a Legal Secretary in the evening. Love reading, talking and spending!!
Member since:09.01.2004
Reviews:5
We've been to Centre Parcs once so far, but have two more holidays to come.
Our circumstances are that we have young children - both toddlers - and are lucky enough to be able to holiday out of the school holidays. The first thing I'll say, is if you're in the same circumstances - i.e. not tied to summer holidays - then take advantage because once you are, there's no way you could afford Centre Parcs. The price literally doubles!
We stayed in an executive, one bedroomed apartment (as we only had the one child at the time). This cost us approx £380 for Mon-Fri.
[[NB: If your child is under 2, you can include them in your villa without taking them into account when calculating occupancy (i.e. the one bedroom villa can only sleep 2 people, and if the child is under two you aren't forced to get a two bedroomed villa instead).]]
APARTMENT
Our executive apartment was great - clean, jacuzzi bath, lovely patio etc etc. The facilities for self catering are great. Cot and highchair available (although in the one bed apartments
you have to request them). The best part of having an executive is the fact that a maid will come and wash up for you - great when you've got young kids. Ducks, squirrels and rabbits came to the patio for nibbles - the ducks would peck on the window to get our attention!
One negative to getting an apartment (rather than a villa) is the banging of doors at night - our apartment was right next to the main entrace of the apartment block so there was a LOT of banging.
Looking out from our patio, all we could see was forest. The villas are well spaced out and you don't feel crowded.
THE FACILITIES
The park itself is great. Very spaced out which is good, although this also means lots of walking and/or cycling. Apart from unloading/loading your car on arrival/departure day, no cars are allowed on the village except for disabled. You park them in a big car park near the entrance (unless you have a posh executive villa, in which case you get to park your car next to it!)
We hired bikes (one with a trailer on the back for our son to ride in) - they cost approx £15 for the week. They were great at the cycle centre and even swapped seats for me when I complained it was uncomfortable (I was 5 months pregnant at the time!)
Swimming pool - great. My toddler loved it. Lovely temperature inside the dome and you can sit at a patio table in there and have lunch - bliss when its freezing outside!
We used the creche once, which seemed fantastically staffed and fantastic toys etc. Expensive (about £11 for 2 hours, £16 for 3 hours) but worth the money if you want a break! The creche is in next to the sports cafe, so we went for a meal literally a minute away from the creche to put our minds at rest!
In the Sports Cafe and Huckleberrys there are free soft play areas for the kids including toddler areas. There are also various playgrounds outside for the kiddies to play on, including one on the beach (to the lake) although I didn't personally see that one.
Lots of activities for toddlers - messy play, tinies playtime, parent and toddler funtime etc) which average at about £4-£5 per session. One thing to mention is that you should definitely take advantage of being able to pre-book activities - we tried to book an extra creche session when we were there and they were completely sold out.....!! PRE BOOK PRE BOOK PRE BOOK!
Lots of activities if you're into them (although with little children we personally didn't) - horse riding, dance classes, quad biking, windsurfing, crazy golf, bowling etc etc etc). All pre bookable.
SUPERMARKET
Parc Market is well stocked and, quite surprisingly, reasonable priced! At a lot of holiday parks I've been to they inflate the price as they know you probably can't be bothered to go elsewhere, but here they were all normal supermarket price - they also deliver your shopping if you spend over £40 so you don't need to worry about lugging shopping with you from home.
EATING OUT
Eating out is fun (because of the things for kiddies to do i.e. soft play). Some would say it's expensive but personally I think its about average. For a burger and chips it was about £7. The young babies get free jars and there are microwaves to warm milk/food etc. Lots of highchairs.
SPA
Finally, the bit for you - after all the running around, book yourself into a spa. Although Center Parcs do have babysitters available (£5.50 an hour) we prefer not to use them as our kids are so young, so we went separately. I know it may seem strange, but no one bats an eyelid if you are alone. I brought a book - sat on the deckchair reading in my bath robe....had a swim...back to reading.......foot bath.....back to reading etc. It was great.
As I was pregnant, there were only a couple of things I could do there - the foot spa, sensory showers, swimming and one of the rooms - but even so, still loved it!
For three hours it's about £35 although if you're pregnant it only costs you £5 (!!!!) because you can't do much. You get provided with a bath robe to loll about with, and you will feel completely revitalised and ready to deal with kids when you get back.
I recommend this holiday - very pricey in school holidays, but totally worth it out of season. We always prefer to go in the winter - march, november etc - much cheaper and quieter.
My next holiday is in four days (6 November) and I can't wait!!
great review. Did you know they are trying to build another UK park, near Warren Woods, in Beds. They have e-mailed past guests to ask for letters of support to be sent to their CEO Martin Dalby at the Notts HQ, or Beds CC, as the appeal is due soon. Initial appication refused.
If you love CP, and want a BRAND NEW park to add to your choices, write now to Mr Dalby in support TODAY - deadline due now
KELLYLOUJ 03.11.2006 19:04
Good review, bit more of your own experiences would maybe make the review a bit more helpful, either way a good right up
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Advantages: Great family holiday, perfect for kids, lovely natural setting, plenty to do Disadvantages: Lodges can be shabby, you will wear yourself out with all the activity!
fallen121 20.03.2006 (20.03.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: exceptional
Review of Center Parcs
Nov 1st, 2006
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