Haven Cala Gran Holiday Park — Attraction in Borough of Wyre

This was our 4th consecutive year returning, much prefer the smaller park, unfortunately we won't be returning nor will we book with Haven ever again as things have massively changed & not for the better. Pre checking in, Haven emailed & offered early check in for £40 ( all other visits (the better the caravan, you'd be guaranteed early check-in) we declined paying extra but, still ended up receiving a 12 slot check in. We were also offered a quieter area location of a caravan, (we,'d booked a gold caravan) again we declined but were still allocated the spot that we'd been offered but for £30!, some may say this was a result(bonus) however my point is, I still could have ended up £70 worse off . On arrival, checked in, drove to the caravan, but it wasn't ready, sat in the car for a good 15 minutes. On entering the caravan, the level of cleanliness was immediately noticed, very mInimal, sticky worktops, greasy cooker, finger marks on windows, TV units and TV, plus stains on the sofa, cushions, plus carpet & curtains in some other areas. We were advised by the cleaner that the single bed in 1 of the bedrooms, slats were broken & this would be followed up and fixed later. We had a 3 bedroom caravan ( party of 3 adults & 2 children) The lounge consisted of a 2 seater sofa plus 2 arm chairs, no side table or nest of tables to place drinks on when watching TV or chatting, quite cramped, to make matters worse, 1 arm chair on inspection, the leg was broken making it quite unsafe, reception were informed of the issue on arrival day ( personally at the help desk) no one called, logged the job again too in the evening via online following receiving a feedback form, day 2, 2 handymen called in the morning, nice chaps. We all mentioned the issue surrounding the poor standard of cleaning to which they both laughed and said " youre not the first & you won't be last saying this" and said "we're hearing this alot, not too sure what has happened but there all new cleaners this season & there not very good" It's not very good when the employees are saying this. They fixed the bed slat, looked at the chair, yes it was a broken leg, plus we asked if there was a table missing which they agreed there was & it was left were both matters were going to be reported and hopefully sorted for us. We went out for the afternoon and returned to a note to say, there were no more arm chairs to exchange so would have to wait until we check out & that were no spare tables for the living room, massively disappointed so we had to improvise and bring the bedside cabinets in from the bedrooms to use and not use the chair making the living area seating even more compact. We were on day 2 and were only there for 4 days so we just thought, wait until we come home to feedback our experience. Day 2 in the evening came when my mum found a used false nail in the end of the bed, then on day 3 my son found a half eaten packet,share bag of crisps in between his mattress & bed base i just had no words to think what cleaning had if any had actually taken place. On our 4th evening when we were packing up, I asked my son to check under all the beds, he found a small beauty case and inside was a hair dryer, 2 straighteners,heatless rollers kit and other beauty pieces which I am assuming belonged to either the last occupiers or even the one before that - I'll never know, again questioning the level of cleanliness but also, that was someone's items, granted they'd left them but due to the lack of cleanliness/checks, the under beds were not cleaned or checked and there was someone massively out of pocket and I'm sure they would have registered leaving it but the cleaner, if asked, would have said no nothing, but Infact it was there in the caravan. A spare pair of curtains were in a wardrobe plus a dirty knife in a...

Before we even arrived at Cala Gran, myself and my mum made two separate bookings and then paid £30 to be next to each other, we got our check-in times to discover my mum had been moved to the other side of the caravan park, on ringing they ensured us they would move us as close as they could because apparently they had "over-booked" , and that even though we had paid, they can never 100% fully ensure we can get two caravans next to each other for multiple different reasons - which if this is the case, I think it is a bit cheeky to charge and not be able to ensure you get the caravan you book. They told us they did not have another 2 vans closer together, and they ensured is they would sort it in time. Days later, my mum did get moved but she was still 3 streets away - which is not ideal when you're holidaying together. We both complained and managed to get our £30 booking fee back, thankfully (thanks to the lovely lady we spoke to).

We arrived on park, and my mum had been upgraded to a gold, her van was amazing. Ours was also a bog standard bronze, we did have a full fridge, microwave and a dishwasher though, so no complaints. The caravan was cosy, and nice and clean.

We, however quickly discovered that them over-booking was going to cause a nightmare. There must have been a dance contest or something on because everywhere was absolutely rammed. Because we were so far from the amenities and it was pouring it down with rain and we had 4 young kids (3m, 2y,4y and 6y) we drove down and I have never known anything like it. People had parked on the mini round-about, thrown their cars blocking each other in, in the car park, there was people practicing dancing in the middle of the car-park so we could not get through. We ended up having to get permission from a staff member to park on double yellows otherwise we were going to be late for our booked activities! Haven definitely should have informed us about this dance event in advance, we would have avoided this date had we have known (as a mum to 2 dancers myself, I know these things are booked in advance, so they would have known the dance event would be ongoing during this weekend).

Following on from this, the arcades and soft play was also something else, the behaviour from people attending on site was shocking. Our kids went on the soft-play, and we wound up having to go on with them to ensure their safety as parents were leaving their kids un-attended to do other things. On the slides, we had other kids running up and down them, grabbing peoples ankles and yanking them down the slides, sliding down backwards or on their stomachs. We had people pushing and shoving each other on the equipment, it was absolute carnage and not one staff member said anything - it ended with my 2 year old in tears due to them lobbing the softplay cubes everywhere and he wanted to play.

We moved on from the softplay and chose to play some arcade games, we had other peoples children climbing onto the ride WHILST IT WAS MOVING, and I had to tell them to get off as it was dangerous - this happened multiple times and staff saw and did not intervene. We also then had children coming up and asking us for money to play on arcade games, and when we asked them where their parents were they had no clue! Unattended children should NOT be allowed in the arcades. We had people blocking the doors to the main complex, people smoking cannabis - you name it.

The receptionist however, saved this review. We left our jacket with our wallet and money in (we realized 2hrs in to our drive home) and she quickly made sure the cleaners located it, and safely packaged it up and made sure we got it sent home, she handled the situation with grace, and we could not thank her enough.

I'm not sure we would holiday here, again though,...

Myself and my family have been booking with haven for years but I can hand on heart say this was a disappointing experience from the start. Upon entry to the caravan, we instantly noticed the cleanliness levels and how low they were. Everyone knows with caravans they’re not always 100% but this seemed to be pretty bad. There were toenails on the sofa, stains on the sofa that I could only describe as food smeared into it. The floors had not been swept or hoovered throughout the whole caravan, there was crumbs, hair and dust everywhere. The towel bale we paid extra had splats of orange stains, which were highly noticeable due to the towels being white. The “clean” bedding in the double room including the duvet, pillows and bottom sheet, had brown stains, hairs which did not match the guests, and again orange stains which I can only describe as food stains. The twin room, although it was not used by ourselves, had muddy footprints on the mattress and the spare bedding.

In the kitchen, the fridge looked like it had not been cleaned in months, there was old food crumbs, mould, hair, dust and just grime all over it inside and out. In the oven there was a baking tray which had pizza crusts left in them and other food remains that hasn’t been cleared out. The bathroom had grime in the shower, dust and crumbs on the floor, stains in the toilet and again hairs which were already there before anyone had taken a shower. The double bedroom also had a strong smell of weed and down the back of the bed there was food remains and a dummy (which again was not ours due to the fact we had no children present).

We submitted a report within an hour of arriving and the cleaning manager arrived and although she did apologise and offer for someone to come and do the job, we had already cleaned the caravan from top to bottom to the best standard we could. It soon became clear that the cleaning staff were not the greatest as we spotted them on multiple occasions smoking in and outside other peoples caravans, and when “cleaning” they would simply put the hoover on and pretend to be working, as we witnessed on many occasions.

The swimming pool changing rooms were also not the cleanest with rubbish left on the floor, big piles of hair had gathered everywhere and it was muddy. It did not provide enough space for everyone included within that booking slot, which meant people had to wait to find suitable changing facilities and it was very crowded, hot and cramped. Smaller issues included the fish and chip shop being advertised as “open until late” but would actually close at 8/9pm, after only opening at 5pm. The activity staff appeared rude to everyone and didn’t seem to want to be there. When leading activities they would be quite rude to the children if they were unable to do it first time and it did appear to upset the children, which I’m sure was not what the parents envisioned.

Whilst the site itself may be in a good location for seeing parts of the North West, it did leave much to be desired. It was quite disappointing considering it was a Haven site and they always tend to have a good reputation. Personally we wouldn’t recommend this site and we did shorten our stay by 2 days due to not...