We visited Crealy and stayed with them for 7 nights, 12-19th August 2024, we were impressed initially on arrival with the very friendly and helpful front desk staff.

The Lodge and Resort

First of all a few downsides. After a few days in the lodge (sooty suite 2) things started to become more apparent. Veneer was hanging on to the table legs for dear life by the last bit of adhesive, childrens dirty hand marks where on the livingrom mirror (they did clean this quickly), the WiFi was non-existent and you shared it was all the park guests so was not resort exclusive (signal is also non-existent which is expected for the countryside). We nipped into the shop on site for a loaf of bread and noticed that it was dated 17th July 2024, we were informed that the bread was still OK as it was frozen when it came in the previous month (we opted to go without it). The grip trod in the doorway of the master bedroom came up and unfortunately we hadn't noticed and my child trop of the nail that had come out (she is ok). The dishwasher was broken, it was missing the top rotator spray arm so did not clean and was full of rust. There was a built in stereo system but this did not work properly and we could not get the Bluetooth to link up and the TV needed retuning as majority of the kids channels were missing.

Let's talk some good points now! The kitchen was well equiped and has everything you needed to cook meals. The hot tub was very well maintained and the staff that did it was extremely friendly. The lodge end of the resort is very quiet (excluding you expected noises of children playing in hot tubs which is absolutely no issue). The beds had actual decent mattresses and the bedrooms were very spacious, each bedroom has usb charging sockets and all rooms had undercounter lighting. The decking had a nice rattan table and chairs set, which was lovely as I really dislike plastic ones. The living room has a toy trunk with built in "snakes and ladders" which was a lovely addition.

The Park

When we arrived we already had our entry wristbands which for families with no additional needs would be fantastic as you can go straight in. However in my family my husband is physically disabled and we have an Autistic child. My husband can not use the rides and only spent a total of maybe 8 hours across 7 days in the park.

Myself and our child spent about 4.5 days in the park. Our only issue was that when we arrived and collected our welcome pack,we were informed that to collect her ride access pass,we would have to que at the main ticket office every day. After waiting in the que for 30 minutes on the first full day with an over stimulated child who was quickly disregulating due to the noise and how busy it was in a confined space so left. We quickly learnt to be down at the ticket office at 9:30am to be at the front of the que. She could then run around for 30 minutes whilst I waited and ,t wasn't overloading her.

One of the days when my husband came with us just after opening time he took her through into the park whilst I waited and qued for her RAP, the woman on the desk was rude and refused to give me the wristband so I could go and put it on my child. She insisted she had to put it on herself so ended up putting it on me. This then caused issues in the park and our daughter was refused access onto the flying machine via the RAP entrance without me going on because I had the band on and not her (I did not fit in the swing seat). My daughter could not understand why she could not go on without me. This disrupted her so much that by 10:30am we were leaving and we spend the rest of the day in the lodge.

On another day I stood arguing with the young man on the ticket desk as he was adamant that my daughter did not have a RAP prebooked. After checking for the 3rd time he found her name on the list.

These issues could have been avoided by letting resort guests collect their RAP passes from the resort front desk of putting a dated RAP band (like the resort bands) and predated time cards for the duration of the stay in the welcome packs.