Clearly some people look out of their chalet window and think "Woo HOO, I'm in the woods". Sorry, but to my mind it's more like Milton Keynes with pine trees. The zillion acres of woodland is incredibly densely populated with street after tarmac street of little wooden chalets - except for one tiny, tiny segment of woodland near the Ranger's hut, apparently devoted to squirrels and organised nature hunts. There's no place to roam at all - you're fettered to tarmac roads and enclosed tarmac walkways. You can't wander because you'd be on someone's patio.
There is nothing peaceful or remote about this place. There is one tiny woodland path which doesn't abut the wooden chalets (about 5 minutes walk's worth) that leads to the Bird Hide. It is a real hide, but as you can see the road from it, it's hardly a remote spot to watch nature. They get round this by piling huge amounts of bird food in front of the hut - so yep, there are birds. I'm sure the hide is a bit neither here nor there - you could probably do line dancing in front of it, and they'd still be birds on the feeder - but hey ho... you'll either think it's great, or not.
Also bear in mind that diesel service vehicles continue to use the roads all week, and without any enclosed outdoor space you need to be mindful of small children as there is nowhere safe to play outside your chalet.
We stayed in a new style woodland chalet - quite comfy, clean and stylish. It says they have real fires - however, you are only allowed to burn flamefast firelogs - £5 each on site, or £1 from Home Bargains - so do stock up if you are planning on a fire! I had never heard of them before - basically you light the wrapper, and it ignites a bit like a disposable bbq. It gives off an impressive flame, to be fair, but zero heat. The whole thing then smoulders away to nothing. So you'll either think it is great - or like me, you'll wonder why anyone bothers with a fire that you can't build, prod or poke, which gives off absolutely no heat at all.
They push the cycle hire at you - the bikes aren't especially good, just pricey and the distances across the park are tiny... it really isn't that big, so there is no need to cycle anyway. It is certainly no quicker, as the tarmac roads and walkways are busy with pedestrians. Unless you enjoy cycling slowly past little wooden chalets, I wouldn't bother.
There is a real lack of choice in terms of dining out - or rather there is tons of choice if you like microwaveable meals. Cafe Rouge, the Pancake Place, papa's pizza and so on abound... the knock on issue is the quality of the public spaces... I don't mind having a coffee in Starbucks if I'm waiting for a train, but that and the other standardised chains aren't exactly comfortable relaxed surroundings to be on holiday in... well they don't drip charm and relaxation as far I'm concerned.
If you are going to self-cater, you'll need to bring everything with you. The Park supermarket is more like a corner store (eg no fresh meat, limited fruit and veg) and everything sells at a HUGE premium to regular supermarkets.
We found the rules and penny pinching a bit of a downer. Our mid range 2 bed chalet ranges from £250 for a 4 night midweek stay up to a whopping £900 for 4 nights midweek in August. So imagine our surprise to find that they won't replenish toilet roll, and leave a sachet of single use washing up liquid! They also leave an envelope and price list to pay for breakages - £2 for a wine glass - £3.50 for a cheap white dinner plate. Surely the odd breakage is something that most hotels and restaurants just accept? Despite not letting you into your accommodation until 3.30pm and wanting you out by 10am, they also expect you to strip the beds, put all the crockery etc back in the cupboard and empty all the rubbish. I've rented a fair number of cottages and apartments, and I can safely say no one, nowhere in the world, has ever asked us to strip beds, except in a YHA - and it's certainly not what you'd expect when you're paying up to £225 per night, is it?
Oh yeah, and it's £2 to rent a towel in the pool... and 20p to use the spinner for your costume. Per costume that is - I kid you not!
The real downer for us though was (and this is the total killer) was that we found it just a tweeny weeny bit boring. 4 days there with my husband and wee girl, and we'd had enough... I am sure a week would have tipped us over the edge. There are very few free things to do on the site. The waterpark is the highlight - and it is good fun - rapids, slides, flumes, waves, baby pool... the first day we went we had a great time... but how many times do you really want to go swimming - by day 4 it was really wearing thin.
The only other free activities were 2 playgrounds. I was sort of expecting to be wowed - but you won't be. Neither are especially good - sort of municipal park standard - nothing special at all. The only other free things to are walk around the tarmac roads peering at other people's chalets or go feed the ducks... or did I mention the Bird Hide?
There are however loads and loads of chargeable activities - however they are pricey and the standard of tuition seems quite poor. For example - cupcake decorating, lasted 1 hour 10 mins and cost £23. It's not exactly brain surgery, but I was expecting to be taught by someone who knew how to decorate cakes. Hmmm... the class was taken by a nice lass, who told me she'd originally worked in the call centre, but was now mainly a nursery nurse. She had been taught rote style to decorate 6 cupcakes and she could demonstrate how to do it. She also did hair braiding, face painting and a range of other stuff. I mean - it wasn't terrible - but c'mon... they ran the course at a table in Bella Italia out of hours... so 8 people brings in £184 per course... so I reckon that our "tutor" must have been on about £7.50 an hour tops... c'mon CentreParcs, you could have run to a proper baker, couldn't you?
Ditto - music for under 5s.. OK, I was expecting someone with a bit of talent, who would interact with the kids for my £7 - maybe even a guitar - but instead we had an affable teenager who played a CD and encouraged us to dance along to the hokey cokey.
Ditto Little Hawkers - there was a Hawk called Bob.. he flew about a bit.. but it felt like the sort of activity that you usually bump into at a castle in the summer - not something that should have cost £19.
Beware too that things like access to the spa pool and sauna, which would usually be included in most hotel stays, are extras here too.
So basically, if you like sitting around a pool for a long, long time, and you want to do that most days... and you enjoy low key planned activities run by "Red Coats" you'll like CenterParcs. For me, it was boring, repetitive and lacking in WOW. It's sort of neither one thing or another... you could have been anywhere... and pretty much all the activities are stuff I could have taken part in within a mile of my house - for less money - and my own fire burns proper wood too.
There is nothing peaceful or remote about this place. There is one tiny woodland path which doesn't abut the wooden chalets (about 5 minutes walk's worth) that leads to the Bird Hide. It is a real hide, but as you can see the road from it, it's hardly a remote spot to watch nature. They get round this by piling huge amounts of bird food in front of the hut - so yep, there are birds. I'm sure the hide is a bit neither here nor there - you could probably do line dancing in front of it, and they'd still be birds on the feeder - but hey ho... you'll either think it's great, or not.
Also bear in mind that diesel service vehicles continue to use the roads all week, and without any enclosed outdoor space you need to be mindful of small children as there is nowhere safe to play outside your chalet.
We stayed in a new style woodland chalet - quite comfy, clean and stylish. It says they have real fires - however, you are only allowed to burn flamefast firelogs - £5 each on site, or £1 from Home Bargains - so do stock up if you are planning on a fire! I had never heard of them before - basically you light the wrapper, and it ignites a bit like a disposable bbq. It gives off an impressive flame, to be fair, but zero heat. The whole thing then smoulders away to nothing. So you'll either think it is great - or like me, you'll wonder why anyone bothers with a fire that you can't build, prod or poke, which gives off absolutely no heat at all.
They push the cycle hire at you - the bikes aren't especially good, just pricey and the distances across the park are tiny... it really isn't that big, so there is no need to cycle anyway. It is certainly no quicker, as the tarmac roads and walkways are busy with pedestrians. Unless you enjoy cycling slowly past little wooden chalets, I wouldn't bother.
There is a real lack of choice in terms of dining out - or rather there is tons of choice if you like microwaveable meals. Cafe Rouge, the Pancake Place, papa's pizza and so on abound... the knock on issue is the quality of the public spaces... I don't mind having a coffee in Starbucks if I'm waiting for a train, but that and the other standardised chains aren't exactly comfortable relaxed surroundings to be on holiday in... well they don't drip charm and relaxation as far I'm concerned.
If you are going to self-cater, you'll need to bring everything with you. The Park supermarket is more like a corner store (eg no fresh meat, limited fruit and veg) and everything sells at a HUGE premium to regular supermarkets.
We found the rules and penny pinching a bit of a downer. Our mid range 2 bed chalet ranges from £250 for a 4 night midweek stay up to a whopping £900 for 4 nights midweek in August. So imagine our surprise to find that they won't replenish toilet roll, and leave a sachet of single use washing up liquid! They also leave an envelope and price list to pay for breakages - £2 for a wine glass - £3.50 for a cheap white dinner plate. Surely the odd breakage is something that most hotels and restaurants just accept? Despite not letting you into your accommodation until 3.30pm and wanting you out by 10am, they also expect you to strip the beds, put all the crockery etc back in the cupboard and empty all the rubbish. I've rented a fair number of cottages and apartments, and I can safely say no one, nowhere in the world, has ever asked us to strip beds, except in a YHA - and it's certainly not what you'd expect when you're paying up to £225 per night, is it?
Oh yeah, and it's £2 to rent a towel in the pool... and 20p to use the spinner for your costume. Per costume that is - I kid you not!
The real downer for us though was (and this is the total killer) was that we found it just a tweeny weeny bit boring. 4 days there with my husband and wee girl, and we'd had enough... I am sure a week would have tipped us over the edge. There are very few free things to do on the site. The waterpark is the highlight - and it is good fun - rapids, slides, flumes, waves, baby pool... the first day we went we had a great time... but how many times do you really want to go swimming - by day 4 it was really wearing thin.
The only other free activities were 2 playgrounds. I was sort of expecting to be wowed - but you won't be. Neither are especially good - sort of municipal park standard - nothing special at all. The only other free things to are walk around the tarmac roads peering at other people's chalets or go feed the ducks... or did I mention the Bird Hide?
There are however loads and loads of chargeable activities - however they are pricey and the standard of tuition seems quite poor. For example - cupcake decorating, lasted 1 hour 10 mins and cost £23. It's not exactly brain surgery, but I was expecting to be taught by someone who knew how to decorate cakes. Hmmm... the class was taken by a nice lass, who told me she'd originally worked in the call centre, but was now mainly a nursery nurse. She had been taught rote style to decorate 6 cupcakes and she could demonstrate how to do it. She also did hair braiding, face painting and a range of other stuff. I mean - it wasn't terrible - but c'mon... they ran the course at a table in Bella Italia out of hours... so 8 people brings in £184 per course... so I reckon that our "tutor" must have been on about £7.50 an hour tops... c'mon CentreParcs, you could have run to a proper baker, couldn't you?
Ditto - music for under 5s.. OK, I was expecting someone with a bit of talent, who would interact with the kids for my £7 - maybe even a guitar - but instead we had an affable teenager who played a CD and encouraged us to dance along to the hokey cokey.
Ditto Little Hawkers - there was a Hawk called Bob.. he flew about a bit.. but it felt like the sort of activity that you usually bump into at a castle in the summer - not something that should have cost £19.
Beware too that things like access to the spa pool and sauna, which would usually be included in most hotel stays, are extras here too.
So basically, if you like sitting around a pool for a long, long time, and you want to do that most days... and you enjoy low key planned activities run by "Red Coats" you'll like CenterParcs. For me, it was boring, repetitive and lacking in WOW. It's sort of neither one thing or another... you could have been anywhere... and pretty much all the activities are stuff I could have taken part in within a mile of my house - for less money - and my own fire burns proper wood too.
