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AIBU?

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Original poster

Center parks - a bit tacky?

368 replies

9uygjk · 23/08/2025 08:08

Just back from our first trip to center parks. Went to the one in Woburn and honestly I just thought it was a bit tacky. Apparently it's middle class Butlins but is it? Maybe am being particularly picky but I still thought it was a bit like Butlins. Is it just me?

OP posts:
ThePhantomoftheEcobubbleOpera · 25/08/2025 14:20

Gosh, remind me where you are from again, op? 🤔

rainbowsandraspberrygin · 25/08/2025 16:07

Iloveeverycat · 23/08/2025 09:43

There is no where to get decent fresh bread or coffee.
I must be really low class. This wouldn't even enter My head.

Especially as they have fresh baked goods in parc market and a Starbucks!

love a CP thread!!

Sheknowsaboutme · 25/08/2025 16:32

9uygjk · 24/08/2025 11:51

To clarify my kids like cycling but not on bikes without gears when it's so hilly. Woburn's pool at least in the summer is really really busy - they love swimming, my eight year old is in a swimming club. On paper it should have been perfect, in practice, it wasnt.

Fuck sakes OP, its not the tour de france. Its a forest with roads so accessible to all.

and swimming club? Of course, but its not training for the olympics us ut. Its a holiday camp where kids splash, love the rapids and love the waves.

”my child is in a swimming club”…. 😂

im gonna say fuck off to anyone who disses CP.

thevassal · 25/08/2025 17:13

SomethingFun · 25/08/2025 09:38

It is literally bonkers that people will vehemently argue centre parcs in the uk isn’t expensive for what it is. It is, it really is. I spent the money and it was overpriced. I can’t go outside of term time I have school age dc. I don’t want to bring my slow cooker and self cater every meal in a place with about ten restaurants, I am on holiday. I don’t want to spend £50 per person on a small rope course you are allowed to do once - it was £35 in Centre parcs in France, in an actual wood and you got 2.5 hours. The whole point is with the amount you are paying you are meant to be able to be there are not need to schelp out in the car to find an Aldi or bring everything with you. What is the point of it otherwise?

Honestly maybe I went to centre parcs in a parallel universe or something as the one I went to last year was crap and overpriced and a massive disappointment. Maybe if I’d not been to the much better one in France a couple of years earlier then I wouldn’t have seen it for the shite it is. I assumed (wrongly I suppose) that it’s a chain where I guess it’s really a franchise and is totally different in different countries.

Anyway I prefer Butlins in the uk so I will leave you all to your centre parcs and at least we won’t meet choking down the worst vanilla slices on planet earth with a £5 post mix Diet Coke 😁

well it depends on 'for what it is' means

If you paid for all the different elements separately, so a semi decent hotel (premier inn at minimum) PLUS 7 days entry to a big waterpark PLUS go ape PLUS paddleboarding PLUS bowling (just examples, insert alternative activities here) PLUS 7days worth of restaurants and takeaways twice a day, for a different UK holiday, I can't believe that would be significantly less than CP.

If you ate out every single day at home it would be expensive too.

I really don't get why stopping at a big supermarket once before you get to CP (you could even do a click and collect) is somehow SO MUCH MORE ONEROUS AND HOLIDAY RUINING than going to the small supermarket several times once you are in CP, but okay.

KindLemur · 25/08/2025 19:37

ThePhantomoftheEcobubbleOpera · 25/08/2025 14:20

Gosh, remind me where you are from again, op? 🤔

From a part of London which has such good bread and coffee and public transport links that you couldn’t even imagine.

but also is 90% woodland and has roads so quiet her kids can cycle freely

KindLemur · 25/08/2025 19:43

Seymour5 · 25/08/2025 09:06

All those educational opportunities the DGC could have had, and missed! I don’t think it’s impacted them too much. Oldest DGD can visit the mediaeval cathedral in Durham at her leisure later this year when she starts at uni there.

Show quote history

I don’t get the French holiday snob factor these days, we did eurocamp yearly as kids as it was a cheaper option and my parents could let us be feral or forget us for a bit at kids club, drink boxes and boxes of wine, smoke cheap fags outside the caravan and tell us to go to bed so they could play cards with the neighbouring family’s mum and dad at night ! We were from a very much not posh suburb of Manchester. We did used to go out and look round cathedrals and stuff - drive into a town or city, and my dad would sit in a square with a pint and chill while my mum tried to imbue some culture into us. My teen sister and brother once had a full on fight and he told her to fuck off and stormed off in the centre of Nantes, magical memories 😬🤪 we are all doing very well now and my brother who once got so pissed at the camp’s on site euro disco place he had to be escorted home by a member of staff earns 100k plus as a solicitor 😂

DenizenOfAisleOfShame · 25/08/2025 19:50

KindLemur · 25/08/2025 19:37

From a part of London which has such good bread and coffee and public transport links that you couldn’t even imagine.

but also is 90% woodland and has roads so quiet her kids can cycle freely

Show quote history

Richmond. Must be.

ETA

Richmond isn’t actually like the OP describes. It’s what the people who live there like to imagine it to be.

Enigma54 · 25/08/2025 19:59

So we’ve established you are a middle class family, living in a part of London, where no one needs so drive. You are used to esquite coffee, fresh bread and more upmarket activities.

You’ve had multiple holidays, your DC will have survived the ordeal I’m sure!

unsurewhattodoaboutit · 25/08/2025 20:09

I think you’ve used the wrong term. What do you mean by tacky?

KindLemur · 25/08/2025 20:58

DenizenOfAisleOfShame · 25/08/2025 19:50

Richmond. Must be.

ETA

Richmond isn’t actually like the OP describes. It’s what the people who live there like to imagine it to be.

Edited
Show quote history

Don’t most people in Richmond have cars though ??

MyElatedUmberFinch · 25/08/2025 20:59

KindLemur · 25/08/2025 20:58

Don’t most people in Richmond have cars though ??

Show quote history

No cars just lots of swimming clubs.

PineappleCoconut · 25/08/2025 21:04

SpanThatWorld · 23/08/2025 08:13

It's a big pool that kids can play in surrounded by miles of woodland paths they can cycle in.
The centre has some okayish chain-style restaurants.
The accommodation is plain but spacious.

What's tacky about it?

Woburn sadly isn’t a big pool, despite being the newest in England

it’s a small shit wave pool filled with the smell of piss
the lazy river smells and looks like piss
the rapids are too dangerous for me, and the only outdoor pool is by the rapids queue, is tiny, and also smells of piss.

basically you pay to sit in piss all the time unless you pay for the spa, and their outside pool is relatively piss free but an extra £125+ per 5-8 hours

PineappleCoconut · 25/08/2025 21:05

Freegrass · 23/08/2025 08:15

Been to the Lake District one a couple
of times - didn’t think it was tacky.

This one has a brilliant pool in comparison to Woburn

i can’t believe they made the Woburn pool quite so small and shit

Skinnyblonde · 25/08/2025 21:06

9uygjk · 23/08/2025 08:52

Maybe tacky is the wrong word but I just thought it was pretty rubbish. There is no where to get decent fresh bread or coffee. Large parts of it feel like a crappy leisure centre, whilst the pool is bigger than normal, it didn't feel clean. The food out is terrible. The sports cafe is tacky.
Strangely it feels like aspirational middle classes in the 90s, cafe rouge, starbucks etc. By now no one middle class would actually go to any of these places in their real life.

I absolutely LOVED it!! We did the winter lights (it was in February) and the boat ride plus pottery painting, archery, bowling and I had 3 hours in the spa. Best holiday ever. Beautiful massive lodge for us plus grandparents and SIL.

DenizenOfAisleOfShame · 25/08/2025 22:38

KindLemur · 25/08/2025 20:58

Don’t most people in Richmond have cars though ??

Show quote history

Yes. That’s why it’s what OP imagines, not the reality.

There’s nowhere, anywhere that most people don’t own cars but ride bikes.. Apart from a Carmelite nunnery perhaps, or a hippy commune in Wales.

Original poster
9uygjk · 25/08/2025 22:52

Don't worry we don't live in Richmond and I have always assumed everyone drives there anyway.

OP posts:
SpanThatWorld · 25/08/2025 23:38

PineappleCoconut · 25/08/2025 21:04

Woburn sadly isn’t a big pool, despite being the newest in England

it’s a small shit wave pool filled with the smell of piss
the lazy river smells and looks like piss
the rapids are too dangerous for me, and the only outdoor pool is by the rapids queue, is tiny, and also smells of piss.

basically you pay to sit in piss all the time unless you pay for the spa, and their outside pool is relatively piss free but an extra £125+ per 5-8 hours

Show quote history

Never been to Woburn

Crikeyalmighty · 26/08/2025 18:11

@KindLemur ha yes, I remember a holiday exactly like this in Carnac -

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