Betteshanger Park — Attraction in Dover

We love betteshanger for bike riding and Easter/Christmas trails with our 6yo daughter.

There's a wide paved bike track with a shorter loop and a longer loop. The short loop is perfect for children learning to ride without stabilisers as there is lots of space and no cars. A few very gentle up and downs but mostly pretty flat. There are also mountain bikr trails and walking routes across the park through open spaces and wooded areas.

Bike hire prices are very reasonable at about £7 an hour including helmet hire at time of writing. However, I went recently and the bike hire was closed but there was no mention of this on the website - I expect it was closed because the Christmas trail/market/fair were all on, but that was annoying so might be best to phone ahead to check if there are other events on when you want to cycle.

Decent play park for the kids to play in while parents have a coffee from the well appointed coffee van (they do a good hot chocolate too). Toilets at the car park.

Plenty of parking, but don't forget to pay (currently £3.50 for the day) or you'll have a very unyeilding and rude parking company (not operated by betteshanger park) demanding fines from you. Luckily staff at the park are lovely though and very helpful.

The new visitor centre has just opened so I'm sure more will be happening at the park in the future and facilities may improve, but for us, it's the safe cycling space that...

Such a shame that I have to leave a 2 star review.

Me and my family made a trip to Betteshanger park for the Christmas light walk which was lovely and my daughter met Santa 5/5 stars for this experience.

However when leaving and going to pay for parking, their machine told me there was nothing to pay. I thought free parking was just being offered on the day of my visit.

I then received a £50 PCN through the post. I brought this to the attention of Betteshanger park via email and they acknowledged they had issues on the day of my visit where the machines were incorrectly advising customers there was nothing to pay.

I was then copied into emails between Betteshanger park and Park with ease (the company who run their carpark) and have been told that other customers made payment at the same time as me BUT they had already acknowledged that this was an issue they had that day. I have taken this as them calling me a liar.

Not even an apology received from either company for their error. Terrible customer service and to insinuate that I am a liar (as other customers made payment) is totally unacceptable and has left a real sour taste in my mouth.

I would recommend visiting betteshanger park as me and my family have done so many times in the past but I would be careful and stay vigilant in regards to their SCAM car parking.

I will make sure everyone I know is aware of this issue and the way it was dealt...

Such a disappointing experience.

We went on Wednesday 4th September, so it wasn’t even a busy time! We arrived to the most disgusting view of overflowing bins, rubbish strewn everywhere!!

Then the parking system was ridiculous to use, the touch screen hardly working!

We took our puppy for a walk around the park which was nice but not amazing.

Then we thought we’d have breakfast at The Lamp Room, having seen it look so nice on Instagram, only for it to be really underwhelming!

The service was poor. Two girls were chatting about having got in at 3am, unbothered by us. The young lad that served us was actually really sweet, so that was a positive. We sat outside next to ice cream banners that had blown over in the wind and random chairs not placed with tables. It was like no care was being taken to make the outside look nice.

The squeaking swing in the kids play park is in desperate need of some WD40 😆

The food came out really quickly, which made us think the full English breakfast was all pre-prepared and the sausage wasn’t particularly hot.

One bonus was a hash brown bought out in addition that I think had been forgotten off the plate.

All in all, it just sort of missed the mark. It feels like the sort of place where the owner should be present, otherwise the staff don’t care.

Such a shame, as the concept is cool and it could be so...