Featherdown farms - anyone been? Pettywood Farm for preference. Reviews welcome!

[OmniDroid]

Please? Anyone got anything, good, bad or indifferent to say before I spend all our money? Thinking of going to Pettywood Farm next spring, possibly with SIL and family if they agree. So 2 boys (just) under 4, one girl (just under 1) and the parents.

My mum thought she'd heard 'bad things' about them, but couldn;t be more help!

Have a look on the Times website - I read a really quite scathing review in the Times about them a few month ago.

Thank you!

I know they're expensive - but we always stay in holiday cottages, and they just looked a bit different. And more comfy than camping in our tent!

I can't get more than the link to the times review (think I have found the right one, though), keeps saying Error 404, grrr, but will keep trying.

we went to one for the weekend in september, in essex

as hana says, a bit too expensive- but we thought what the hell as it was our only holiday this year.

Tent was great, farm was lovely with the most gorgeous pigs HOWEVER ignore the blurb in the brochure about not needing to bring food etc-the "honesty shop " on the farm we went to was a bit shite really (and expensive) and I ended up wishing we'd brought a load more stuff with us (we just took basics like cereal, teabags, cooking oil etc).

There also wasn't as much erm "farmy" activity as I expected if you know what I mean. The farmer was lovely but busy so there was a bit of chicken-feeding, egg-collecting and pig-feeding one evening but that was about it.

But it was a lovely place-and the best thing was having it all to ourselves on the monday morning as the other people had all gone the night before. Though dd1 had had alot of fun running around with the other kids the other 2 nights we were there.

lordy how many times can i say lovely in one post??

have to say the piglets that were running about in the woods next to our tent were soooo gorgeous i amost kidnapped them

We stayed at Pond Farm in Suffolk in May with our 4yo and 3yo sons. We loved the idea but the execution of it wasn't as good as we'd imagined from the brochure. We wanted the whole rural idyll where the children could run round outside, watch the animals and enjoy all the lovely fresh air. The farm was very small with most of the animals in barns/pens around the farmyard and no opportunity for long walks around the farm. The tent was exactly like the brochure but the sides flapped a bit and it was quite a chilly weekend. At night I was freeeeeezing cold! The boys loved their cupboard bed. Also we were disappointed that the tents were pitched on quite a narrow strip of land in a regimental straight line with the fronts close to a tree windbreak so we couldn't really see the children when they were playing outside. The owners were lovely though, especially when our youngest was I'll. I think I would go again but choose the farm very carefully.

actually tents were arranged quite well on the farm we stayed on (Bouncers farm). The 5 tents were split between 2 parts of the farm, and quite well spaced from eachother.

We went to a farm in Dorset last September - midweek, and out of school hols, which makes it a lot cheaper. It was lovely, a dairy farm so lots of cows/calves, and a gorgeous setting. DD was only 8 months but loved seeing the chickens pecking round the door. We ended up cutting our stay short, as it POURED with rain and we couldn't sleep at night for the noise on the canvas roof
You definitely need to take your own supplies of food but our farm shop was pretty good and even had wine . Also take extra bedding, extra torches/lamps (one candle in each bedroom really doesn't give you a lot of light!), and a gas stove if you have one - it took us a long while to work out the wood burning stove and we were so glad we had the gas burner. Once the stove was up and going though, it was great.
I would definitely go back, we did have a lovely few days.

that reminds me...there was NO alcohol in our farm shop
that didn't go down well

Just remembered the funniest bit of our stay - when we went to put our empties in the recycling bins they were FULL, and I mean FULL of very expensive (empty) champagne bottles! Pol Roger, Taittinger, Moet, you name it. Don't know if there had been a big party there the week before or what, but we found it very amusing and somewhat mysterious.

My partner took our children to one in Scotland and they loved it - still talk about it a year later and want to go back. I thought it seemed expensive but now realising they loved it so much it seems worth it as a special holiday. They got to feed hens and gather eggs freshly laid and it was right by the beach.