Could anyone give some advice/experiences please. We are looking to book for summer 23 and have children who will be 12 & 15. We like Centre parcs UK but can only ever stretch to the cheapest weekends there (just been this weekend).
I've heard the Netherlands parcs mentioned here so looked at them. De Kempervennen looks better for our kids ages than Het Meerdal due to ski centre and water skiing being there. Both really enjoy pools and water sports. Any advice on this?
Also what is the deal with being able to visit other parks for the day for free? I've only seen it mentioned on here and can't find anything about it on the centre parcs Europe or France sites. How do you arrange it? Can you just turn up at another park? We're thinking 10 nights would be good so would definitely want to do some days out from the park we are staying at. Any suggestions for good days out near the parks would be helpful.
Another consideration is that we have 1 coeliac child (recent diagnosis) so may not do well with on site restaurants or shops. I would stuff the car with store cupboard stuff but having a decent supermarket in reach would be reassuring. We've enjoyed French camping holidays before but think the kids need more space to be away from each other than now. I was also hoping Netherlands may be better for negotiating food allergies than France but from what I've read so far maybe not?
We do tend to self cater mostly but the option for the odd meal out is nice to have.
Regarding travel we are in the Midlands UK so thinking euro tunnel to Calais then driving. The 2 parcs above look to be 3 to 3.5 hours from Calais which would be an easy distance for us. We've driven as far as the Dordogne before but had to add an extra hotel night as too far for us in one go.
Any advice on the above would be great or if there's a park that I've not considered that might suit us better.