To ask how Pontins is still able to trade?

[pinkpetal2]

So I used to go as a child/teen to the Camber Sands Pontins resort last went in 2009. From 2005 now it has become so bad across each resort.

The reviews on trip advisor are terrible absolute shambles. Yet people still go? I understand it's very very cheap for a week. However the place isn't safe, management have told people to go away when you make complaints and they don't seem to ever be in trouble anywhere?

Watchdog have done reports, environmental health have carried out reports yet it still stands

Last year a ceiling collapsed on to people and injured 18 people at Brean sands and they are still thriving with bookings.

The whole place is really run down the accommodation is infested with bed bugs and mice it's really sad. They still have the green baths and sinks etc from the 70s.

I just don't understand how they are still operating? Every post I see from their Facebook groups are full of complaints and people walking away. I find it bizarrely fascinating to read.

When we last went in 2009 a manager we spoke to said they was being left to be run in to the ground so they could say it doesn't work anymore, knock them down and place hotels there.

I know people take the mick out of Butlins but I feel they really do provide a nice British seaside holiday experience and have fantastic entertainment, with Covid they have made a festival type outdoor entertainment thing at the moment it looks great.

Pontins have rooms that haven't been cleaned in months full of mice droppings? And you still have to pay for electric and bedding. I just wondered if any one has ever worked for them or knows how they get away with treating customers like this? It's been years now and hasn't changed.

@DobbyTheHouseElk you’d think so, but given you have to pay extra for electricity too....nothing comes free!

Oh, apart from the turd in the kettle (read up thread) 🤢

[quote Youngatheart00]@DobbyTheHouseElk you’d think so, but given you have to pay extra for electricity too....nothing comes free!

Oh, apart from the turd in the kettle (read up thread) 🤢[/quote]
Where they trying to poach it? 🤮

So the cheap holiday isn’t that cheap.

Food, bedding, electric. Baffling!

As I recall you get the duvet ,but have to pay for the duvet cover ?

But why? Do people nick,them, or is it because they give you a clean one each time?

I think it's just another reason to get as much money out of you as possible?

How bad is this. Honestly recommend joining these Facebook groups if you have it to read these posts. A window was kicked in whilst children slept and was showered in glass

@Deadposhtory

We went when I was 8months pregnant. Total nightmare. I got stoned by a load of gypsy kids

Sorry to hear that, children shouldn't be throwing stones. How did you know they were gypsy kids? Was it stamped on their foreheads or was that an assumption you made?

If you type Pontins into Google news you get so many stories just in the last few days. Journos at the local rags must love getting a break from Covid reporting to write another holiday from hell piece.

I went to the Southport one as a kid in the 80s. I remember my mum storming off to the shop and coming back with loads of cleaning products and blitzing the place so it must have been dirty even then.

I imagine its on the Holidays in the Sun

so many people knock it but yet people still go.
so what if it is worn out?
funny how the people read the reviews and still go and then write terrible reviews.
it is boring.
it is cheap for a holiday i imagine, not everyone can pay more

Every year there is a big kids' chess tournament at Pontins Camber Sands. Many of the top private schools in London have teams there (and take it quite seriously).

My son (who is shit at chess) really wanted to go and somehow got himself on the team.

No doubt because Pontins know they won't make any money in the pub/arcade etc that weekend they charge a fortune for accommodation. It seemed so expensive for such dire accommodation I decided we would stay in Rye and go as day visitors to Pontins (which cost over £40 for two of us across two days, using no facilities just getting him to the tournament room) but many of the schools insist parents stay on site.

I was outraged that low income families have to put up with such a disgusting place. The beach at Camber is amazing but Pontins as everyone has said was a disgrace and whilst it might appear cheap the extra charges probably really add up. Everything is vastly overpriced. The bedding that had to paid for was made of paper (no word of a lie) and the accommodation and site was utterly depressing.

Good on all the families that did stay onsite that weekend (many of them returning ones) who are warned to bring their own bedding and just kind of muck in and see it as a bit of a laugh but for families who might be saving up for a holiday and have to tolerate the utter horror there, the eye watering prices on site, the dire food, the disgraceful amenities etc I feel truly awful for them. There have to be better affordable offerings.

I did speak to someone afterwards who knew the company that run Pontins. I can't remember exactly what I was told but I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of "well they can keep getting away with it so they do".

Our family went to the one in Great Yarmouth that's now adults only, in 99. It was the same time as the eclipse happened and that was the most entertaining thing that happened.

Our family of 4 was used to camping in a trailer tent and going off to explore, but we went with my grandparents and my aunt and her kids and husband. They were all used to Pontins and staying in a chalet.
I remember it was bloody expensive cos my dad kept moaning.

The chalet was OK. The TV only played Pontins TV. It was very tiny in the bedroom I shared with my sister.

Unless you liked forced jollies seldom seen since hi-de-hi, or bingo, there was fuck all to do in the daytime. So my sister and cousin and I hung round the arcade.

The staff there were clearly trying to cop off with as many teenage girls as possible, so both my cousin and sister were constantly playing tonsil tennis with someone.

We went to the bar to watch a band one night and I had said to my cousin we wouldn't be allowed in because it was adults only after 9pm, she was right when she said if you wink at the doormen they won't give a shit. We were all well under 18, in fact my sister was 14 but we all got served Barcadi Breezers at the bar.
In the morning after that, my dad went mad as a camp security had said I was engaging in questionable behaviour with a member of staff after hours. I wasn't, in fact I was in bed that night by ten and had to drag my sister with me. But no this nightwatch wanker said it was definitely me. It was actually my cousin and she found it hilarious that I was given a warning!

I was very upset by it all. My dad went mad when he heard it wasn't me and demanded an apology which he didn't get so we packed up and left. We had lasted 4 days and I've never ever gone to a Pontins since.
My cousin came home pregnant.

Just hell on earth. I'd rather camp out in my garden.

It's really sad that it's declined so much. I went to Pontins with my family as a child (Hemsby, Prestatyn, Camber Sands, Brean) and have fond memories of things like the train, boating Lake, day and evening entertainment, go karts. Yes, the accommodation was basic back then, but it was clean and safe. We last went in 2008 and vowed never again! It was dirty, run down, dilapidated in areas, swimming pool was not properly maintained or patrolled, security had a whole team out every night. It was so bad, we left after two nights or a four night stay. We revisited the Brean area recently and were shocked at how little had changed in 12 years. And the Hemsby site has just been left to rot away.

It's disgraceful that Pontins aren't forced to make changes, but also, I don't understand why they have prime areas of land in a tourist location that they are not prepared to invest in. Maybe it's too late for Pontins now, the damage has been done.

Although, some of the Havens were awful.
We went to one in the nineties, forget where, and it was awful. The final straw was the ladies serving up food in the canteen with a fag in her mouth.
There used to be another one that Haven bought that were very good, Warner's I think.

@LadyofTheManners wow....that escalated 🙈

@LadyofTheManners WOW!

That sounds like a memorable holiday!!!!

I’m amazed by the reviews. One I read said some of the other “campers” looked like they lived there permanently. Looked like refugees.

A film crew really needs to go in undercover.

I wonder about camber sands

How do sun holiday keep going there

Why hand environmental health shut it down

It's just really shit that this is seen as acceptable for lower-income families. If a hotel or resort aimed at middle- or upper-class people was reported to be so crap (and actually dangerous) it would be closed down or repaired at the drop of a hat.

@Youngatheart00 @DobbyTheHouseElk yeah things usually did with that lot
Is it a huge surprise that after going off from home for about 18 months, I left home for good 2 days after getting back and have never gone back or spoken to them since?
They really put the fun in dysfunctional my lot.
I was pissed off that my dad could even think I would behave like that in the first place.
We escaped to my far nicer Grans after it, straight from Yarmouth to hers for a few days and she said, well your first mistake was going to Pontins. Your second mistake was going on holiday with that lot. She couldn't stand them and she very rarely disliked anyone.

But yes, one pregnant cousin, unfortunately she had a miscarriage quite late on, one sister who I'm surprised survived the booze but who regularly went out with mates getting utterly sozzled after being so kindly introduced to the booze by pregnant cousin and me leaving home!
I should probably thank Pontins really

Lucky escape then.

@pinkpetal2

Apparently environmental health are going in the camber sands one today or tomorrow to take a look. I don't know how true it is though

It wouldn't surprise me. It has got a terrible reputation locally. There is a long thread on the local FB page about it

I don't know what it takes for Environmental Health to do something. There used to be a B&B in Oxford called the Nanford Guest House which had loads of complaints, apparently lots of people reported them to Environmental Health but it stayed open for years. It seems to be closed now but I don't know if this was a direct result of the complaints or if it was for an unrelated reason.

Environmental Health can close down a restaurant, so I’d imagine they have the same powers for a holiday camp.

Depends what they look at really. Easy to clean the better chalets and present them for inspection.

@tectonicplates

I don't know what it takes for Environmental Health to do something. There used to be a B&B in Oxford called the Nanford Guest House which had loads of complaints, apparently lots of people reported them to Environmental Health but it stayed open for years. It seems to be closed now but I don't know if this was a direct result of the complaints or if it was for an unrelated reason.

IIRC, Nanford was raided by the Police as part of operation Bullfinch and the owner and sons were arrested. I suspect that had quite a part to play in it's closure.