Center Parcs Netherlands

[wickedfairy]

We are looking to book either De Kempervennen or Het Heijdebos this summer.

Does anyone have experience of the villas please?

Can't decide whether to book a Comfort or Premium one! Is there much difference or are they the same lodges but you get extras (beds made, linen, etc) with the Premium? If they are the same physical lodges, I'm tempted to bring own bedding and use the savings on extra activities for the children!

Also, are they non-smoking these days?

Thanks in advance!

We stayed at De Kempervennen in a premium Eden villa which was modern, very clean, rammed with light-flooding picture windows and had everything we needed and even things we didn’t! The comfort villas looked like they needed a ruddy good hose down with a jet wash. I was slightly jealous to find out VIP villas get free bread roll deliveries every morning, but who needs bread anyway…
Bikes seem to be less popular here and are the one thing that seemed to cost as much, if not more than at home. We paid almost €200 for 5 bikes for a week but this was also money well spent as we went to the ski centre daily.
Booking restaurants is definitely advised, there are 4 main restaurants, 3 of which require bookings. We ate in all the restaurants and they were all average. A steak house, an Italian, an "everything restaurant!!" and a buffet restaurant. The best eats were outside of the park, a mile’s off-road cycling to De Suckyerbuck pancake house. From the outside it looks a bit weathered but go in and you’ll find the warmest staff, and absolutely cracking pancakes, waffles, schnitzel and more. Children are even given tokens to choose a free gift at the end of their meal.
One of the things that stuck out was the amount of animals at the park, this was lovely. Each day they have sessions for cuddling the small animals, feeding the larger animals, and watching animals like Otters get fed. A coup for this site is the Living Seas pool.

Thank you, that's really helpful! I'm steering towards the premium one, wish we could afford the Eden ones - they look lovely.

We are taking our own bikes but good to know how much we'd save doing so, as there are 5 of us too! Will mainly cook I think, with the odd meal out.

Not sure about skiing, as that will be expensive for us all - will see! Glad there are lots of animals - it's always good for the kids! Thank you

We stayed in de kempervenen last August and booked a premium thinking it was going to be one up from the comfort so would be OK. It was very very dated inside, tired and dirty. No amount of cleaning would have helped as it needed a complete refurbishment It wasn't somewhere we wanted to stay for a week. We complained and we weren't the only ones doing so. There was no other lodges to move us to, in the end we left early after getting some money back. I would say book the most you can afford. The park itself is a lovely setting, the swimming was really good. The Netherlands and efteling in particular was fantastic but for us centerparcs let it down.

We just returned from De Kempervennen this week! We stayed in an Eden and glad we did, the other ones looked a bit grotty. We were right at the back of the park but it was still only a 10 minute or so wall to the aqua dome. And our lodge backed into woodland with baby rabbits and red squirrels, really lovely! The children thought it was the best holiday ever and we might do it again next year!

We have stayed at Het Heijdebos two years ago at Easter, it was amazing and the pool area was phenomenal as was the rainforest.

We stayed in a basic lodge and it was perfect for what we needed. A premium or VIP would have been nice but I do not think it would make any difference to the holiday.

We stayed at de Kempervennen in February and booked one of the boathouses. Clean and modern but also showing quite a bit of wear and tear - totally stunning setting on the water though and very close to the facilities. The Eden ones looked s bit of a schlep.

Check out landal green parcs too. They're a similar idea to center parcs and the ones I've stayed in have been lovely.