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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

To wonder what sort of person goes to Featherdown Farms?

185 replies

MamaVoo · 23/12/2009 12:36

I received the brochure this morning and if I had to describe it I'd say it was over priced 'camping' for the posh. I'm imgaining that the brouchure is aimed at families who have houses in affluent parts of London and children who spend all of their time sealed into mummy's 4x4 being ferried to a variety of extra-curricular lessons.

Things that made me particularly were the 'slow food packages', whereby you pay £32.50 and they give you the ingredients for a stew which you then have to cook yourself over a fire. Then there is 'private bunny hire'. £15 to look after the farmer's rabbit for a week - not forgetting to clean the hutch out before you leave. Is it just me who can't see the appeal?

OP posts:
Original poster
MamaVoo · 23/12/2009 17:26

at UnquieDad.

OP posts:
Original poster
MamaVoo · 23/12/2009 17:27

We have a posh garden centre near us where I once heard a very well spoken mum call to her daughter "Ella, we don't touch people". I bet they'd go.

OP posts:
5Foot5 · 23/12/2009 17:31

I agree that the brochure is very OTT and twee. However we went to one for 3 nights last year and it really was very nice.

We didn't pay for any of the ridiculous extras - I know how to cook a stew for a good deal less than that! The family who had the tent nearest us paid for a private hen coop (£15 I think) but they had two little DDs who loved to go in looking for eggs.

Inside the "tents" really are charming. DD loved it because it reminded her of "Little House on the Prairie" and she got to sleep in something that was basically a cupboard. I fancied it because I know that I would never get DH to try normal camping in a hundred years but this had enough novelty combined with home comforts to keep him happy. Also he got to play with lighting fires - alot.

Sure you can rent a cottage for about the same price and we often have. But it was the novelty factor that won us over. If you do "proper" camping then it would be easy to sneer at this but for anyone who fancies "glamping" I would recommend it.

Oh and we don't drive a 4x4 or live in Islington!

Pikelit · 23/12/2009 18:32

I would disagree about traditional nosh in Hastings. Every year I enjoy a huge bag of really delicious chips after the ceremonial bits are over at Hastings Bonfire Night.

It's not that I disagree about posh camping either. I did so much unposh camping when dcs were little that I refuse, point blank to sleep in a tent nowadays. We are also "double-incommed" - although isn't everyone who lives with a partner who also has a job? I'm also "aware of my surroundings".

But as that last description of their target group proves, the utter cack written by Featherdown Farms is risible beyond belief. In fact, it is so ludicrously patronising that I'd quite happily burn their tents down and dance around the embers like an unkempt, undiscerning banshee. While the rabbit simmers slowly over an "old time" trivet.

No offence, mind.

RubysReturn · 23/12/2009 18:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

smallorange · 23/12/2009 18:42

I think the wood- fired stove alone would put me back on the fags.

The kids would love it though.

MrsBadger · 23/12/2009 18:54

NB for everyone who says they would do this because they 'would love to go camping but need a proper bed / stove / fridge / cafetiere' I have one thing to say

eurocamp

stubbornstains · 23/12/2009 18:58

O thankyou thankyou OP for starting this post! (Except that it has made my pelvic floor give way again and some wee has come out...)

ROFFFL!

"Vintage toilet?!" Why, what a coincidence, I believe I have one of them!

It seems obvious to me that this is a hoax site set up by class warriors to humiliate the urban middle class....

What do you think I should charge the good people of Islington to come and stay on my bijou boat for a week in midwinter? Extra, obviously, to hunt-and-gather me a pile of firewood (men only!). They can come and freeze their tits off, "like in the old days".

For £20 I am willing to offer an extra excursion where they can enjoy the privilege of being chased by real live bullocks.

And for £30 p/w they can look after a real live not-even-battery-operated cat, while I am away....

Oh, priceless (sob)...

stubbornstains · 23/12/2009 19:05

MInd you, I can't see the point of Centerparcs either- seems a vast amount of money to pay to spend time in the middle of a Forestry Commission plantation (battery farming for trees...)

MNHQ
AbbyMumsnet · 23/12/2009 19:09

Ignore the ponce in the brochure. You don't have to pay for the over-priced extras. We've been (twice, get us) tents are fabulous, and DS had absolute ball running wild. Other guests complete mix and all really nice and friendly.

QOD · 23/12/2009 19:09

I know of 3 couples who went together, with kids. They are the most pretentious bunch of not so yummy but think they are mummies in the playground. If a holiday doesn't cost a lot, it's not worth taking
Money doesnt buy class

lisad123wantsherquoteinDM · 23/12/2009 19:15

give me center parcs anyday. Nice warm lodge and a lush pool

Morloth · 23/12/2009 19:17

Fuck I hate camping. You can glam it up all you like. If there is no hot running water/room service etc then I am not going.

Years and years and years and years of being dragged fucking camping, I hate it. Hate hate vomit.

Anything less than 3 stars is camping IMO. The countryside is why God invented Von Essen hotels.

Have I managed to get across just how much I hate stupid camping?

upahill · 23/12/2009 19:20

Me and DH saw a feature in our local paper about the one quite local to us. It seemed fairly intersting as we do a lot of hostels/camping both on sites and wild and so on. However when we saw the price we pissed ourselves laughing. We went to France on the ferry this summer and had a week in a caravan AND even taken into account fuel we used it was still cheaper than Featherdown.
Complete and utter shite for the gulliable, naive and the more money than sense brigade I am afraid.

mistletoekisses · 23/12/2009 19:20

I think they look fantastic and we are definitely going either this year or next. Friends who have been say that they are lovely. Considering that DS loves the outdoors and animals in equal measure, this would be his dream holiday.

And if I am camping, then it has to be somewhere like this.

Oh and dont live in Islington either.

glastocat · 23/12/2009 19:20

I think it looks like good fun. Mind you we went for a weekend away to a yurt for my 40th and it was fab. FWIW I also do proper (wild) camping, nice hotels, and city apartments, so not sure what that makes me. Oh, and I used to work in Butlins.

5Foot5 · 23/12/2009 19:53

I have been to a CenterParcs now THAT is overpriced IMO.

Unless you take your own bikes and are happy to spend all day everyday in the pool then you are always putting your money in your pocket for extras. We paid extra for what was described as a lakeside location but it turned out that we backed on to a stagnant bit of backwater that had nothing to recommend it.

At least the extras at Featherdown are entirely avoidable and you can have a great time without paying anything over the initial cost.

As Abbymumsnet said - ignore the gush in the brochure. It IS nice and certainly had a reasonable mix of families at the one we went to.

MNHQ
AbbyMumsnet · 23/12/2009 20:12

Did you see the Watchdog piece about CP - cost over summer was just unreal. We rented a six-bed villa in Thailand with staff of eight for less! Admittedly, had to do a fair bit of haggling and hold out until days before travelling - but don't think you can compare the two! Admittedly, did have to fly there... but flights were cheaper than mates paid to France!

UnquietDad · 23/12/2009 20:14

Campsites - proper ones - are perfectly comfortable these days.

People think it is all about pitching your tent in sheep-shit on a wet slope in a howling gale and trudging half a mile through mud to the toilet block while carrying a slopping bucket of urine in one hand and a bowl of washing-up in the other.

It's only sometimes like that.

Some campsites have toilet blocks which are much nearer.

claraquack · 23/12/2009 20:14

Abbeymumsnet - are you trying to rescue a situation from putting off potential advertisers perchance? I imagine Mumsnet is exactly the sort of place these people would think they should advertise. After this thread they might have 2nd thoughts...

UnquietDad · 23/12/2009 20:16

Well, that's why you don't go to CP over the summer. We always go at Easter in a big group (4 families). Cost is perfectly manageable.

MNHQ
AbbyMumsnet · 23/12/2009 20:16

Ha - nope, you big cynic! Just been twice and had fab time both times. And not ponce or Islington based!

Fibilou · 23/12/2009 20:26

" would disagree about traditional nosh in Hastings. Every year I enjoy a huge bag of really delicious chips after the ceremonial bits are over at Hastings Bonfire Night"

a bag of chips after bonfire night can hardly be described as a regional dish now, can it ?

TeamEdwardsSparklyBaubles · 23/12/2009 20:30

We've been on a FDF holiday for 3 years running.
Cornwall, Hampshire and Dorset. We go for the spring half term (4 night, Mon to Fri) and it's about £495. Me, DH, DS1, DS2, my Mum and Dad go together. It really is fantastic fun.
We are not posh (although well educated and almost double incomed) and we do live relativley rurally anyway. But the farms are so exciting for the children, and there realy is nothing else like getting up, lighting the stove, fetching a warm freshly laid egg and cooking egg sarnies for breakfast.
The beds are really comfortable, the tent nice and warm - even when it's raining, and it's fab to have your own flushing loo!
The extras are very easy to avoid. We shop off site, take our own tea-towels and candles, and for four nights for six of us it works out as about £20 a night each.

TeamEdwardsSparklyBaubles · 23/12/2009 20:30

And hello to the other Hastings dwellers on this thread!