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Member since:05.12.2005
Reviews:119
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What Haven claim to be like ……..
"Haven & British Holidays are part of the Bourne Leisure Group, who has been operating family holiday parks around the UK for more than four decades.
Haven & British Holidays own and operates 34 holiday Parks throughout England, Scotland and Wales - located close to some of Britain's most beautiful beaches and areas of natural beauty and within easy reach of some of our best-loved seaside resorts.
Regular investment in our Parks, facilities and accommodation, along with a commitment to training our Team Members ensures that we offer our guests the best possible UK family holidays."
My actual experience ….
°*°*° Booking °*°*° Our trip was booked online. We booked for three tents, each on a separate booking, but they were all connected as we ended up on next-door pitches. The person booking has to be staying in the tent, so the one guy who booked for us had to claim he was in all three tents. The lady at reception got a little confused when six of us arrived for check-in but there were nine on the books. It didn't matter at all and was quickly sorted.
Our stay was Monday through Friday and cost £16 per tent. This is the most basic fare and I believe it's also on a slight offer right now. For a few pound more (£22) you can get a pitch with electric hook up. Weekend stays cost most, and obviously the price depends on the length of your stay.
The booking system will only allow you to stay 3, 4, or 7 nights.
A tip: don't go on pitch 48! One of our tents was meant to be there, and when we arrived to put our tents up, it was covered in weeds and bushes, too tall to pitch on top of! Fortunately, as there were three of us together, it didn't matter that we just moved over onto the next-door pitch instead.
The pitches themselves are very large, plenty big enough for even the biggest tent with space around it still. I think there were around 70 - 80 individual pitches in the camping area.
Haven offers you various other options during the booking process - Cancellation cover,
Personal insurance cover, or car breakdown insurance cover. Also if you want more than one car on site you're supposed to pay an additional £3 a night.
°*°*° Getting There °*°*° We travelled to Weymouth on National Express coaches, and then got the bus from Weymouth directly to the Haven site. The number 4 (or 4a or 4b) 'First' bus runs directly from the Haven site (well, from the Spice Ship that's only a few minutes walk away) to the Weymouth seafront. It runs every 20minutes in both directions. A one-way ticket will cost an adult £1.10. If you intend to use the bus both ways it might be worth buying a FirstDay travel ticket, which is only £2, and you get unlimited bus travel within Weymouth, on First buses. (I learnt this when asking for a 'return' and was instead sold a FirstDay travel ticket!) From my experience, this is a very reliable service and not once was it more than a couple of minutes behind schedule.
The Weymouth Sea View Haven isn't too far to walk into Weymouth, but it does take you a good hour or so to do.
°*°*° On-Site Facilities for Campers°*°*° Toilets Haven is primarily a caravan/holiday home resort. As such, the majority of people do have their own toilets and showering facilities. As we were camping, we didn't. Thankfully Haven does have a block of toilets and a few showers especially for 'tourers'. These were reasonably well maintained and I never once had to wait for either a toilet or a shower - although I did have to push through a few pre-teen girls to get to a sink and mirror a couple of times.
Washing up There were also undercover facilities especially for us to wash up in. (I didn't actually use these myself … we sent the guys to wash up each day!)
Laundry There is a small laundrette on site. This is £3 for a wash and £1 for 20minutes of tumble drying. The machines take tokens, which can be bought in the shop on site. This is open 9am to 5pm.
Gas Strangely (almost stupidly) there are no facilities to buy camping gas on site. The closest place to buy the larger canisters in the off license around 1 mile away. To get the smaller cylinders (what we needed) a trip to the Millets in Weymouth. (Right now they are on 'three for two' offer so that wasn't so bad)
°*°*° Food °*°*° There are two food establishments on site - Café bar and Fast Food Takeaway. There was also a small shop on site, which sold basic foods, drinks, alcohol and various other things at slightly over inflated prices. I think it was open from around 7 or 8 am until 6pm each day. A 5-minute walk can talk you the local co-op, which had much lower prices (but still higher than you'd pay else where) and slightly wider variety.
Also on the 5-minute walk to the Co-op you pass two fish and chip shops and the local pub (the Spice Ship). There is also an Italian restaurant right there. I think it was called Michelangelo's. In the pack we were given by Haven upon our arrival, we found a voucher for the Italian, so we had intended to eat there one night and it happened to be closed that day!! That is the extent of the local facilities. A slightly longer walk (25-30 minutes) and you can get to an off license, and an even longer walk (almost an hour) will take you to a Chinese takeaway. Of course if you had a car your options and travel time would be better! There are plenty of places to eat within Weymouth itself.
Okay, so back to on site. During our stay we only ate at the Café bar where they do breakfast each morning, and other meals throughout the day. Breakfast is served from 9.30 - 11.30am. It was reasonably priced I guess. It was a bit of a rush on the last day, as breakfast doesn't start until 9.30 and we were told to be off our pitch by 10!
Their standard breakfast was £1.95, a breakfast in sandwich form also £1.95, a larger breakfast was around £3 I think. You could also get toast at 95p for two slices. They market this as 'large' toast but I disagree, the slices were no bigger than a standard loaf.
A word of warning, they refuse outright to change any item on the set breakfast menu - even when it's wanting to trade a 65p scrambled egg portion for a 65p fried egg!!
The other meals were higher priced, and we decided too much for us to try. But they had the usual pub-meal type dishes on offer, as well as a very attractive dessert menu! (It was almost very temping to have dessert for breakfast. Any more than 4 days and I may have had to give in!)
The Café bar claims to be family friendly with several services available to families. Such as bottle warming, bibs and wipes, highchairs, children's menu, and colouring sheets and crayons. Certain mornings (I think Friday, Saturday and Monday) they put on 'character breakfasts' and an employee in a costume comes around to speak to the kids. We were treated to a pink elephant on our last morning.
°*°*° Things to do °*°*° Swim There are two pools at the Sea View Haven site - one indoor and one outdoor. The whole time I was there, the outdoor pool was closed. Signs said it was open from the end of May until the end of August. The pool looked quite small and shallow, but did have a water slide attached. The signs said that there would be a lifeguard on duty (when its open) and there are places around the pool to sit in.
There was a much larger pool inside the main complex. This pool is heated and also watched over by a lifeguard. They also set aside times for it to be 'adults only' so if you want to get some serious swimming in you don't have to avoid all the children bobbing around!
Also inside there is a small pool for babies, that comes up to about knee depth.
Seating surrounds the whole pool area, so you can just lounge around watching others swim if you want! They do allow use of inflatables, such as beach balls, in the pool, but only during the less busy times. There are no cameras or mobile phones allowed in the pool area.
As well as the 'adult only' sessions, there were a few other themed sessions laid on, 'Wave Rider', 'AquaJet Extreme' and 'SubSea Explorers'. There was also a 'learn to swim' session for beginner swimmers. Each of these sessions had a 'small' addition price.
Kids club As I was in a party of six students, we didn't exactly get to experience the kids club so I can't really comment on it.
From what I read on the website, there are different groups for different age groups of kid - 0-4 (PAWS), 5-11(Rory) and 12-16 (T-co). Each group laid on different activities to appeal to the intended age. There are several animals that seem to represent the kids club across the site - Rory the tiger, Bradley, Anxious the elephant (its her birthday this week apparently!) … and a few others
The kids clubs are not childminding services. Parents have to stay with their children (if they are under 8) while they do the activities laid on. Children over 8 can leave the club without being stopped. The kids club is free but you have to book your place upon arrival.
There is also a soft play area for the kids (Splash Zone) inside the complex building, and an outdoor 'adventure' play area too (this we did try out hehe).
°*°*° Entertainment °*°*° The main complex building at the Sea View Haven site is called Regatta Quays. This houses the indoor pool, Splash Zone play area and Café Bar mentioned before. It also includes the club area and the amusement arcade. Reception and check in are also now located in side Regatta Quays. All of this building is non-smoking - something which I liked a lot!
On the way into the complex, there was a selection of vending machines. These are the cheapest places to buy drinks on site.
Club The club is a room that seats around 300 people, gathered around a front centre stage. There is a small area between the seating and stage for dancing and games. Early in the evening there are various family games put on by the 'FunStars' who work for Haven. After this there are shows put on. The only one we went to, was a few minutes of cabaret. This didn't over impress us so we left for the amusements.
Within the club area, there is a bar where you can buy drinks and a selection of snacks - such as nachos, popcorn, hotdogs etc. These were all very overpriced. It's cheaper and better value to use the vending machines just outside the door.
There is also a small shop where kids (or adults) can buy souvenirs of their time in the kids club.
Amusements Aside from the shows put on in the evening, it seemed the only other thing to do on site was play in the amusements. This were a mix of 2p and 10p machines, claw grab games, and (in the 18+ area) slot machines. The 2p and 10p machines are filled with blue tokens that you can trade in for toys or collect to trade for a bigger prize. There are also a lot of novelty keyrings in the machines. Between our group we managed to collect two one-token teddies, a gherkin, a fish, and a football as keyrings lol. There were also three pool tables (which had a tenancy to get stuck but staff quickly sorted this each time) and two lanes of bowling/skittles. These things all cost a lot of money. Pool was £1 a turn and bowling was £2 per person. There was also a dance machine hidden away in a corner that we used several times. It was £1 per person too. I managed to spend far too much money in these amusements during my stay at Haven!
The amusements are open from 9am to 11pm and there are plenty of machines, and also people, ready to give you change.
°*°*° Contacting Haven °*°*°
Sea View Holiday Park Preston, Weymouth Dorset, DT3 6BQ
NH Hotels, the hotel chain leader in Europe, with more than 300 hotels in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Enter into our web site and find the best available tariff at all times
Advantages: clean facilites, up to date and in good repair, polite, well trained staff Disadvantages: pitches a bit on the small side, some awkward to use, no family bathing facilities.
Shroud 20.06.2007 (20.06.2007)
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Review of Haven Holidays
Sep 25th, 2006
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