Is Center Parcs worth it?

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Just got back from a 3 night break in Butlins....absolutely hated it. My friend warned me but we couldn't afford Center parcs.

Could someone please let me know how much extra the activities are at Centre Parcs? I know the pool is free, but what about things like roller skating, bike hire, etc?

It looks lovely, just rather pricey. We're currently deciding whether a week away in a cottage and go out to places would be a good choice, or blow all the budget on Centre Parcs where its all on site.

Any recommendations welcome! Thank you.

I won’t tell you how many years service my family have between us then…….you might want to look up the syllabus for the comedy badge too

Cp Europe especially the last week in august is much cheaper.

Try Duinrell in Holland too. Amazing holiday. You can stay in their duinglows or mobile homes with eurocamp etc. Also last week in august is cheaper.

I really like CP and think while it's expensive to book, once you're there it's what you make of it. You can easily have quite a cheap time there if you avoid the expensive restaurants and stick to cheaper/free activities.

If you combine the money spent to book with the money you'll spend there, I always find I spend more when we go five days at haven because it's so hard at haven not to spend on site.

You have MUG on your head then.

As if my family haven't been in scouting for decades.

It's just not sustainable with dump and run parents in the long term though. And old skool mentality that fails to recognise that is one of the reasons so many groups have folded.

We love CP - to respond to @Randomuser9876 we live ‘up north’ nearest CP a 1.5 hour drive away so we can head over on a Friday straight after school pick up and be there by 5pm, went in march and paid £489 for the 3 nights - which was much cheaper than the 3 nights in a premier inn when we went to legoland.

to go on a similar self drive to France/Spain etc as suggested we’d have a day of travel and driving that distance plus entertaining a 7 and 2 year old in the car for that length of time just does not appeal.

older one did 1 paid for activity / the climbing walls. And we hired a boat on the lake. Other than that at Whinfell there are 4 free soft play areas, about 4 outdoor play areas and biking/scooting alongside the swimming. Restaurants and Starbucks on site no differently priced to eating out in town.
we self catered breakfast/brunch and ate out 2 of the 3 evenings opting for a pizza night in the lodge the other one. It was lovely.

We go to center parcs. But it is for a short break, not a major holiday.

It is a couple of hours away for us... turn up Monday morning, go home Friday night, easy travel, great break away from home.

I never get it when people say its cheaper to go for a week to Europe, well yes, yes it is, but I don't want to go to Europe... we are in Gloucestershire, its a lot of travelling, requires passports and travel insurance etc.

*Why would anyone want to pay £2.5k for an average lodge on a site with only chain restaurants like Bella Pasta close by and every activity is booked up and extra??!!

Do they not know they could go to Frace, Italy or Spain for the same or less. Stay in a beautiful apartment, swim in the sea and eat at lovely restaurants?*

We do the France/Italy etc holiday AND CP, for a lot of people it’s a little extra break for a change of scene but their big holiday.

Yeh I wouldn't pay peak prices, no way

I've just got back from a 4 day trip to Centre parcs with my 4 year old. We loved it. I wouldn't pay 1200 to go in school holidays though we got it for just under 500 pounds.

If you have little ones, bring their scooters and bikes.. I bought my daughters scooter and it was perfect. A bike is £42 for the duration of your stay.

I booked inflatable football, roller blading, a nature trail and a boat trip and got my daughters face painted. In total cost about £60 for all those activities.

Went swimming every day. After dinner we went for an evening bike and scooter ride around the forest..it was perfect.

Had the best time but unless you can afford it. Don't go in school holidays. It will be rammed and extortionate.

I was sceptical but actually had a brilliant time and my children didn’t want to leave. We used the crèche and had child-free spa time which felt properly relaxing. We also had glorious weather though which makes a difference. I can imagine feeling less enthusiastic about it if it had been raining heavily.

Food options aren't fine dining but were fine. Lodges were a bit tired but in my experience this isn’t unique to center parcs. Lots of formerly nice hotels seem a bit shabby post covid.

We’ll definitely go back as it was nice to have everything in one place without needing to drive and to do a range of activities and the children loved it. It’s probably not the bag value I’d you’re looking at it really objectively but it was worth it to us. But… I genuinely can’t fathom why anyone would pay £5k for a weekend in one of the treehouses.

We’ve been both in/out school holidays. CP is a lot of money but if you weigh up the cost of petrol (you don’t use any at CP) and the entry into so many places (even swimming pools) if you go elsewhere & the pure enjoyment the children get from riding their bikes everywhere & not having to get in a car everyday; it’s a no brainer for CP. Equally Euro Camp may be great, but is it worth almost a 2-day round trip? (it’s not according to our 5yo triplets).