Centre parcs - is it worth it?

[grimmeeper]

Looking for the February half term with a five year old
Would be the Cumbria one
Is it really worth the money ?
Sorry I'm sure this has no doubt been asked before

It’s fine not to like it, but this comment is really unpleasant:

“it’s also full of chavs who think they’re posh because they can afford to go to centre parcs“.

Plus, its really simple to book activities in advance.

Agree with PP about Bluestone - we've done both Bluestone and CP, and found Bluestone more relaxing, more interesting, and with better activities for young kids, as well as being cheaper.

Yes for that price, 5 is the perfect age for it.

I don't think it is worth school holiday prices. We go in one of the cheaper weeks where a three bed is around £550 for 4 nights. We go out for a few meals but mostly cook at the lodge and we only tend to book the racket sports which are quite cheap. So for us works out as a cheapish break.

We used to go every year for a 3 night stay and used an inset day because the school always had one in June on a Monday so we took the children out of school for the Friday.

The children loved the pool both the children's play are and the general pool when the waves lapped up to the steps. It has been a long time since we did Whinfell but there are lots of videos on youtube showing all aspects of it. You can choose activities but they are not very cheap. It is not complicated to book activities as suggested above in fact it is very simple.

They love the bike rides, firstly in the trailer, then on a tandem and now riding their own bikes and when older going off by themselves. There are outdoor playgrounds too.

Yes it is busy over holidays but that shouldn't put you off doing something, pretty much everywhere is busy in half term. It does cost a lot more in school holidays than term time but we did well with the inset day thing.

Also - take a scooter or balance bike, or actual bike if your DC is capable. Scooting round between lodge and pool, playparks etc is part of the fun.

Make sure you get there as early as you can on the first day, and leave as late as you can on the last day.

We've been a couple of times when our February half term has been offset from others making it half the normal school holiday price. I think it's worth it at those times but then we love swimming.

Absolutely not. Go to your local pool with water slides. Play badminton at the leisure centre. Rent bikes at the woods or take your own.

It’s literally normal life packaged up and sold to gullible people for silly money. There’s nothing special there you can’t get elsewhere for 25% of the price or less

There are no pools with waterslides anywhere near me! Let alone with slides, wave pool, rapids etc etc.

Was at Whinfell last summer and it was really good.

A few points:

You can take your car to the lodge to unpack, but that’s it. You then drive it to the huge open car park and leave it there. Worth bearing in mind if you need to make a long walk back and would have any issue.

Some of the activities are very close to the centre, but some can be up to 45 mins walk away. Again, no car. You add and pay for activities on the website, which is easy.

The Parc Market is expensive. I think it was about £3 for a bag of Haribo so definitely take your own snacks for your lodge.

There are a couple of gift shops. Again, very expensive. One is very geared at kids and it’s just at the entrance to the swimming pool. They do ice cream for £2-odd a scoop, chocolate etc. It also has the CP teddy, bags, balls, toys.

I paid £9.50 for a daft little car for my son that still annoys me every time I see it. 😂

The food - from memory there’s Bella Italia, Huck’s, a burger place, a pancake place and a pub grub type place. All very expensive. A pancake each (with a drink) for 3 kids and 2 adults was easily £100.

Watch for Bella Italia adding a service charge as well as expecting a tip.
You can also get food delivered from the restaurants to your lodge. We did that one night and again, cost a fortune.

Swimming is free, and there is a baby pool as well as stuff for older kids. The main pool has a sloped entrance so kids can play in the shallow part.

There’s no nighttime entertainment that you might find at Haven or one of those type of companies.

‘Worth’ is a difficult one really. Haven’t been for years but went many times to different Center Parcs in England years ago. The kids, and we, loved it.

I wouldn’t bother with the paid activities. Just the pool and bikes. And you get such long days: up early, active all day swimming and cycling, bars/badminton/pool (as in pool tables) etc in the evenings and family meals in a cabin or a restaurant. (The restaurants were generally a bit crap though.)

I don’t know about ‘fake’ nature. Seems real enough to me. But we’re not ones for flogging up mountains or hiking across moors, shouting “Keep up Jemima!” and handing round Garibaldi biscuits. But each to their own.

Which theme park, is it Efteling?

do you live really close to centre parcs then?

tons of pools near me (south England) but then I looked here and loads up north too. The Yorkshire one looks amazing!!

www.netmums.com/activities/awesome-swimming-pools-that-have-wave-machines#16-colchester-leisure-world-colchester-essex-27550#item=16

I've always seen CP as a holiday for people who can't be arsed to travel outside this little island. It's not a cost issue because it's not even that cheap. With a little bit of effort you could take your family somewhere new.
Travelling to new places is essential. Otherwise you only ever expose yourself to similar people, how very boring.

Not in half term, no.

I have never holidayed there as it has never appealed to me...would much rather spend that money going abroad somewhere hot with a decent beach.

When was he /is he 5?

No unless you go out of term time.
I found the lodges very basic though it was 10 years ago.

4K? Horrendous!

I'm interested to hear what makes it worth it for that price? There are farms with lodges and a pub within walking distance you can stay at that at more of an experience and much cheaper or is it being able to pay for activities and food on site?

Like centre parcs , Whinfell is my personal favourite but yes it’s expensive as is the food in the restaurants/cafes and most of the activities, used to be a joke that if you can’t remember when school holidays are, have a look on the handy centre parcs booking page and it will remind you. DS recently priced a weekend break over the spring half term, worked out cheaper to fly to and stop in a good hotel and eat out every meal in somewhere like Amsterdam

Only been once and thought it was pretty poor value for the money. Even ignoring the money, it was just a bit crap really imo.

During term time yes absolutely

school holidays absolutely not

PS the Cumbrian one is great. We’ve been a few times are are booked for May.

Even prices like £600 for 4 nights seem very expensive to me. We went to Barcelona for that long for around that cost a few years ago! We have an apartment at the seaside in the Easter holidays for under £200 for Mon -Fri and that's splashing out for us! Over £1000 for center parcs seems madness. But if people like it and are willing to pay then guess it's up to them.

There are loads of slides good for his age.
plus splash areas and waves.

we spend hours in the pool each day

lots of swing parks too.

the extra activities do add up but again loads of great choices for his age