Author's product rating: 
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Are you being bloody funny? |
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Don't know where to start, just read the opinion . |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
no |
Once again, thanks to reading another opinion, it has inspired me to write one on the same topic, this times the thanks goes to “Judgee”, and the topic I’m about to talk about is Pontin’s Prisoner of War Camps, oops sorry, Holiday Camps!
Now before I start, I want to make it clear that I have only stayed at a Pontins just the once (Thankfully), so I don’t claim to know the ins and outs, the regular prices and places where you may find a Pontins Holiday Camp, I am just writing about my one and only experience. So this opinion will not include the usual information, I’m sure there are plenty of excellent opinions that already tell you the basics; this is basically just a rant about the place.
Right, now that’s out of the way, I will tell you of my experience!
A couple of years ago, whilst reading through the local newspaper, my sister spotted a special offer for holidays in various Pontins Holiday Camps, whilst reading through the locations, she noticed one of the camps was in Devon, to be precise it was actually a place called Brixham in South Devon and they were offering a 5 day stay for only £10 per person (as it was the off-peak season), well anyway, my sister suggested we phone up and go down there for a short break, as knowing Devon to be a very nice place, surely the Pontins down there would be OK, oh by the way, the WE being; Me, my Girlfriend, my Sister and her Boyfriend, so we booked the holiday for a our stay and it was in a couple of weeks time, whilst booking, my sister clearly stated that it would be FOUR adults staying (no children) and because of this, we were required to pay an extra £55.00, this was supposedly giving us a better Chalet, with 2 Adult bedrooms, Microwave and Colour TV amongst other things.
So that was that, a short break booked and paid for via credit card.
So, the time came to travel down to Devon, and I must say “What a bloody trek that was!” we set out at around 7 AM and arrived in Devon at about 2.00 PM, seven hours, stuck in the back of a car and my legs were killing me.
So when we arrived, we checked in at the reception, upon getting our key for the Chalet, we received our first downer (well mine anyway, as I am highly superstitious regarding the number 13), yes, we were given Chalet THIRTEEN, oh well, never mind I thought, lets just get to the Chalet and get freshened up. Whilst approaching our group of Chalets, I noticed they seemed to be pretty grim; they actually looked like a block of “Prisoner of War” cells, so we got to number 13 and opened the door.
Upon entering, we noticed the place being a bit drab and depressing, but hey, what did we expect for such a cheap price anyway, one of the first things we did was check out the bedrooms, to work out who was sleeping where, we went into the first bedroom and what we were presented with, was a square room which must have measured about 6 ft by 8 ft and a Double bed plonked in the centre, around the bed, there must have been about 3 inches to spare, to walk (or attempt to walk) around the bed and then the wall and that was it, oh sorry, there was also a little tiny wardrobe that was built into the wall.
My first thoughts were, Na, I don’t like this room and said to my sister that her and her boyfriend could have this room, just hoping the other room was better, so me and my Girlfriend went to inspect what would be our bedroom, I opened the door and nearly fainted, what we were presented with was, an even smaller bedroom with a set of bloody bunk-beds, and when I say bunk-beds, I mean little tiny farting things, just about big enough for a six-year-old child to sleep in, so I jumped up on the top bunk to test it out, when I did, I noticed the bed was too short to lie in and not only that, when you lay down you were virtually licking the ceiling, it was that cramped.
So what happened to our ADULT Chalet? Where the hell were 4 adults meant to sleep in this Chalet?
Coming out of the bedroom in disgust, we checked the rest of the Chalet out, the living room (if that’s what you call it) was pretty drab and the walls were full of dirt, the colour TV we were promised consisted of a 12 inch colour portable, that had the worst picture I have seen on a TV, I mean it was like looking at a weather report on the snow, the Microwave we were promised was non-existent and the Cooker we had in the Chalet looked like something from the first world war. To say the Chalet was depressing in a massive understatement.
The next room I checked out, well actually it was the last room, was the Bathroom, the Bathroom was actually the brightest and best decorated of all the rooms, there was one big problem though, the Shower never worked properly and we soon found out that the so-called hot water only worked when it wanted to.
That was it, we just wanted to get out of the Chalet, we freshened up, had a quick bite to eat and went out to explore the rest of the camp, this took us about 30 minutes, I mean to say the place was bare is once again, a major understatement. The camp consisted of a Swimming pool (that was closed more than it was open), a snooker room (that, once again, was closed more than it was open), a bar, a shop, a large entertainment room, in which the nightly entertainment would be (Ha, some entertainment) and that was basically it.
So, having travelled the near 300 miles to get here, and seeing our Chalet and the possible entertainment on the camp, as you can imagine, we were pretty pissed off and decided to get out of the camp and explore the surrounding.
Once out of the camp, things began to brighten up, as the actual town of Brixham, is a lovely little fishing town situated just south of Torquay and was a pretty nice place to explore, during the stay we also visited Torquay and Paighnton, once again, very nice places, both with nice beaches and surroundings, not much in night-life, but a general pleasant place.
Well anyway, a bit later we returned to the boot camp (sorry, holiday camp), to see what the entertainment was like, and sample the beer, we went back to our Shack, oops sorry Chalet, got a cold shower <shiver, shiver> each and changed our clothes, with the thought of going and having a good piss-up and dance the night away.
Upon entering the main entertainment room, we were greeted by what can be called a room full of about 1,000 screaming kids running around wild, and the entertainment consisted of “Blue-Coats” singing and doing an awful job at that, Ah, don’t worry we thought, once it hits 11 PM, the kids will be tucked up in bed and maybe we’ll get a comedian or a proper singer coming on, WRONG, all the way through the night, up until around 1 AM, that was it, kids running around screaming and Blue Coats screeching out their terrible attempts at singing.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against kid’s (I hope not, as I have 2 of my own) and I don’t mind them enjoying themselves, but surely there should be a certain time of the night, when you can escape the kids, have a drink and a dance, and generally relax, apparently not in “THIS” Pontins, even most of the parents were sitting there with miserable gobs, just wishing someone would demand they take their kids back to the Chalet and allow themselves a bit of a break and some time to have a drink and dance themselves.
This was the situation on every one of the 5 nights we stayed, oh sorry, one night we did have proper entertainment, this come in the shape of a washed-up female singer from the past, a certain “Kelly Marie” remember her? Yes, she sung that song, “It feels like I’m in love, boom-boom, boom-boom”, well anyway, she sang this song about 5 times (on the bloody run) and that was it, our entertainment for the week.
The only escape from this, was a very small bar situated just outside the main entertainment room, which thankfully was Adults only, we went in there and they had a Karaoke and about 10 groups of adults sitting there looking pretty glum and depressed, so we just picked a table and had a good drink, after a few drinks, my girlfriend and sister decided to liven up the rather poor attempt of a Karaoke, by getting up and having a sing, us being scousers and all that, it was suggested by the Blue Coat, that they sang “You’ll never walk alone”, to which they did, immediately me and John (my sisters boyfriend) were standing on our table and the room erupted into a booming choir of “You’ll never walk alone” and for once, for the very first time, the place was lively, trust us scousers to get the place booming hey ;).
The people in the bar suddenly came out of their depression and were now beginning to mix with others and the night was OK. Unfortunately, this was the 5th night of our stay and we were leaving the next day, so there you have it, our one and only decent night in the camp and it was our last night, typical.
Anyway, I’ll stop my little rant now, to sum up my feeling for Pontins, sorry, I should point out THIS Pontins, I’m not too sure what the others are like, but this was poor, very poor (I have actually missed out other points, through fear of sending you to sleep) and to call this place a “Holiday Camp” is a bloody joke, I know it’s cheap and I know it’s meant to be mainly a family holiday camp, but not only were the Chalets a disgrace, but the entertainment was non-existent, there was nothing for kids to do and the place was all round depressing, to put it mildly, it was a dump.
When we got home, we phoned up and complained about the Chalet we were given (we tried this while we were there, but got no sense out of them) and we asked why we were charged the extra £55.00 and we were basically just fobbed off with poor excuses about the site being planned for a major overhaul in the near future and other crap; yeah right, the place needs it and if not, just bulldozer the bloody place.
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