Billing Aquadrome — Attraction in Great Britain

Liked: We had our family holiday here 3rd-10th august myself my hubby and 4 children 5/11/14/15 We all had a great time we have the mind set of a holiday is what you make it Swimming was fantastic (and free) so the water is so warm! Outside inflatable was hilarious slightly price at £20 pp especially with us being a large family but worth it whilst on holiday. We had to buy the non slip socks at £3 pp too Onsite Nisa shop has everything and anything you need and not stupidly over priced which was nice. My older 3 children did the indoor inflatable in the swimming pool (for ages 8-15) this was £5 per child and they said it was amazing the life guards made it a really great experience for them i think that is well worth the money! Crazy golf was ok 9 hole £4.50pp (£5 if your not a owner or holiday marker) Outside entertainment was great (if the weather is nice) Lots of toilets and showers and the showers were nice and warm with hair dryers too! Arcades not very big but we found this a good thing so the children was always detracted buy it and a upstairs indoor playarea my younger two children loved it in there but the playarea and the adult seating area was sooo warm! We didnt do the 4 seater bikes but we did look in the range shops and they are £15 to hire ‘Onsite’ bate shop and a 2 minute drive just outside the site is a petrol station and chip shop

Disliked: No im not one to moan but there was a few things that needed attention and addressing about the site/facilities

We were on Shelduck 4 and the toilets/showers/waterpipes bins and elson point was a good walk! If your going with young children be up for driving to and from the facilities especially in a morning or driving your toilet to the elson point so your not carrying it with it being the distance it is. This is also the same for the bins! I think all the fields needs their own facilities maybe not a toilet or shower but they definitely do need bins, water taps and elson points. When the fields are busy you have to walk in the middle or very close to someone’s camping set up or chairs to use the water taps.

I do think this site 100% needs more bins there are 5/6bins for 4 huge camping fields they do get emptied early morning but get super full throughout the day/evening when we was walking back from the entertainment at night people were putting their rubbish piled up by trees or round the bin because there was no where else to put them. One elson point for the 4 large fields (so make sure whoever is emptying the toilet has a strong stomach) im saying for the 4 large fields because we was on the back field with the other 3 fields around us there is more fields by the entrance i dont know if these have their own facilities. Next thing the site 100% needs are bbq disposal points because a lot of people bbq whilst camping/caravanning and the people that couldnt be bothered to bin bag the ash up out of their bbq and put it in the bin just tipped it out on the floor so there was big piles of ash on the floor dotted about

If your going with younger children people dont go expecting to have a early(ish) night or have a lie in because people play music loud out of their tents/caravans till early hours of the morning and start again early morning (one morning for us was 5:30am) And the last complaint from me was the smell of cannabis please also be mindful of this if your going with younger children

Also if your going with children DO NOT have your sights set on fishing the ‘bailiff’ is arrogant and rude and clearly dislikes children he threw us off fishing for us having forgot our landing mat but the two families next to us that just had one child didnt have a landing mat but he was fine with them. They dint charge for under 12’s (£5 a rod) i was holding the rod with my 5 year old and he said i had to pay £5 because i was touching the rod she was sat on my knee 😂i found this laughable. We packed up and didnt pay a penny My children were upset because thats the one thing they had asked to do whilst on holiday. We had a great holiday overall despite the dislikes

Would i rush back- ide definitely be searching the internet for different places but wouldnt rule billing aquadrome out.

Would I recommend to friends and family: i would but i would also make them be mindful to get a pitch close by to everything and about the music...

Liked: Lots of work going on improving facilities. However unless they start controlling the unruly travelling element on the touring pitches, it will be a waste of investment

Disliked: Billing Aquadome caravan park; AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE We made a major mistake when we duly arrived in mid July 2024 at Billing aquadrome for a few days holiday. We were informed at reception what the strict rules were (only to find these firstly did not apply to all and secondly were not enforced in anyway) Parking up (facing the road as the ‘strict rules’ stated) in the ‘Touring area’ we soon realized there were a number of groups of much larger caravans parked in all directions against the printed in close groups of threes or fours, on the park but closer to the main toilet blocks. There were also many work type vans and trucks. Later these had increased to around 15 -16 large caravans and probably in excess of 30 vehicles, mainly 4x4s or trucks. We were now slap bang in the middle of one large traveller encampment. The following days saw their vehicles racing across the grass (apparently 5mph limit) and gangs of kids dropping litter and swearing. Groups of men attempting to intimidate by either driving 4x4s between caravans, straight across our and others pitches without a care and stopping, talking and generally spitting on the ground in some sort of ritual behaviour on pitches and in front of other campers. The shouting was constant all day and just increased in volume as the day wore on. Their multiple ‘off lead’ (against the sites ‘strict rules’) roaming dogs defecating and urinating anywhere they liked Despite numerous calls to security highlighting the issues including their young children using a silver Kia Sorento to do donuts etc etc on the park itself for around two hours, they consistently failed to turn up. When they did eventually turn up and drive slowly past the numerous wrongly parked vans, roaming dogs they did not stop. How they missed the large open fire pit smoking out the rest of the site despite it being reported a number of times (open fires against strict rules) with flames being so high, is utterly amazing and one Dennis Christie should study. Thing were to turn drastically worse when on day three another large group of travellers turned up en masse. Parking their 10-12 vans and 20-30 accompanying work trucks closely together in what looked like a defensive position in an area designed for about 6 vans. They immediately took ownership of the last remaining water tap (the others being surrounded by and taken over by the small ‘defensive units’) and began a mammoth four hour washing trucks an van exercise with their hose pipe firmly attached The whole sorry saga came to an evitable conclusion when during another loud drunken night session (strictly no noise after a certain point and no driving after 11pm) two cars (one of which was reported many times for speeding through non traveller caravan and tent pitches) were playing extremely load music and traversed from one ‘defensive enclosure’ to the newer arrivals and challenges were put in from one group to another of violence they then raced away between other tents and returned to the new group again continuing for around 2 hours. Numerous calls were made to security and the police (none of whom turned up). The place then simply ‘kicked off’ leading to one of the vehicles being driven again at dangerous speeds and knocking over the last remaining water point which then ‘fountained’ for the next 10 hours. No one arrived to assist us and the other ‘holiday makers.’ Management involvement? We (and others) had already that day and the days before repeatedly spoken to the head of security (Martin), general manager (Gordon), site manager (Keeley) the two elderly wardens, multiple reception staff and even the cleaners of our disgust and concerns for safety the previous three days. No one listened and not a single thing was done. That says everything you need to know. We and the other 6-7 non traveller families then moved away never to return. AVOID BILLING AQUADOME LIKE THE PLAUGE. You have...

Booked back in October 24 sadly what we got was totally inadequate but we're told it was a Gold. The Apnr didn't work we couldn't access from the app and had to have a fob to gain entry to the van, great idea but only if it works and we weren't the only people dissatisfied with the whole system. The app was used by a long way around the caravans to book activities, shame it kept cancelling them. I asked reception while I was complaining where the pond dipping session was as couldn't find it on my app thing. I was told she didn't know as had nothing to do with the site but it's probably opposite the water inflatables so off we went and where anyone would think it was across the road it wasn't it was actually opposite across the lake!!! She remained unsmiling, unhelpful and very flippant on one occasion when offered some vouchers for activities for our grandchildren ages 3,4,5 only things to do for them we had already paid for so they were totally useless and I refused them, then I was offered money off a holiday for next year to say I was gobsmacked at this was an understatement. On one occasion a young man don't know who he was ? a salesman actually had the cheek to state that in October 24 when I booked the van we were in was a gold but now regraded to silver and caravans are rather like buying a new car - you get the new car at the time of order not at pick up. His attitude was very derogatory and I felt an insulting comparison especially as we ordered our new car over 18 months ago and we got the up-to-date vehicle at time of payment and I felt he was very unhelpful and uncaring. The caravan we booked was not a Gold as shown on website. It was dirty in the bedrooms, bedroom curtains badly stained, doors had stickers on them, bedframes were filthy as if they'd lain in mud, doors were the same as was the fire. TV has been damaged ? from drink or something similar. There was no brush, mop, bucket, dustpan or hand brush and only 2 towels were provided instead of 10. Van looked exactly like the bronze van on website except we had an electric fire rather than gas though we were told some of the bronze did have electric fires. They insisted the pictures on website were for illustration but I was assured when booking that we would be given the same or similar standard as photos. The van was cramped with no proper storage for our clothes only 2 shelves per room with a small wardrobe containing 3 hangers each. Main bedroom was very cramped, I'd explained on booking that I was disabled so needed adequate space to get in/out of bed due to back issues. I ended up sleeping on a very uncomfortable seating area in the lounge. This was all explained but nothing except a cleaning crew came in and thoroughly cleaned the beds etc and were lovely, we also got a new TV. We kept up our visits to reception but all we were offered was a free upgrade to a gold plus which we could move into on Easter Monday which would have meant us wasting another day having to pack up our belongings and clean the van to then move into this van for 4 nights we discussed this but felt it wasn't worth the effort and stated we felt we deserved a refund of difference between these levels ie bronze on website to gold in their minds. I then said how come one minute it's a gold then it's a silver as yous stated as my daughter was put in the van behind us and it's the same reason was because she had booked a silver but they were still adamant ours was a gold and again photos are for illustration only so by that you could put photos on of a super plus platinum on but you get an uncomfortable basic van but they denied customers weren't given the right or enough info to make an informed decision and I also stated we have been taking caravan holidays with our kids and now our grandkids for the last 40 plus years and never had this level of van or care from the staff and we have always booked gold and upwards they couldn't reply to this and then on the last day when we handed the fob back I get told I'm not entitled to any refund as I refused their goodwill...