Cathie and I spent last week at Center Parcs, Penrith, in the Lake district with the kids. If I had to sum it up in one word then without question that word would be Babylon.
It would be an understatement to say that I didn’t rate the experience: it was overpriced – but I was expecting that – the main issue was that it was also not good value. For example a restaurant meal for 2 adults and 2 small children was easily going to cost £50 (and much more without trying hard). I appreciate that’s not too expensive in the scheme of things but when the quality was ‘chainy’ at best – think poor Beefeater – then it starts to grate pretty quickly. So the next option is to think of utilising the kitchen and go self catering, but the markup on the internal supermarket was easily 40% over normal prices. So on the second day I went into the nearby town and went large on everything, posh bacon, cheese, wine etc and we cooked for ourselves for the rest of the holiday and still ‘saved’ a packet.
My expectation of the holiday was that it would be luxury in idyllic surroundings with loads of activities laid on. Well the accommodation was good (but it should be for getting on for £100 a day) but except for the, admittedly great, swimming pool and the one playground everything was extra; *loads* extra. Now I don’t mind spending a few quid but when I start feeling that I’m getting ripped off, I close my wallet pretty quickly.
Another thing that I didn’t like was the fact that there was *no* promotion of the local area. We were in the Lake District FFS! You’d think it was just some big ponds and some little hills nearby. The best two days of the holiday where when we escaped the dome (Logans run?) and sampled the local scenery. Only 20 miles away was Derwent Water and breathtakingly beautiful it was too.
What has confused us the most (and is mainly the driver for writing this) is that a considerable proportion of the people that we know and rate in this world all love Center Parcs and swear they’ll go again; we’re both thinking that actually it’s us that’s weird!
The only thing we can think of is that if we still lived in East London (or any other bit of a city) then the escape itself would have been a great tonic. In reality what we got was a very expensive swimming pool in surroundings that we could replicate by either going out into the back garden (e.g. pheasants, bunnies, trees) or by driving west 10 miles into Herefordshire and eating some nice sarnies and drinking a flask of tea.
I guess the caravanning lark will suit us down to the ground then.
Edit
In a fit of dual blogging – we were were in different parts of the house and unaware of what the other was doing – The Mrs posted something up about the holiday at the same time as I was writing mine. As expected hers is is slightly more eloquent.
