Twinlakes Park — Attraction in Melton

Scammers, appalling customer service, disgusting n dangerous lodge.

Theme park was run down but enjoyable/fun. Some staff were pleasant n friendly, some miserable, rude n aloof. Some staff clearly didn’t want to be there! The black man on the buffalo stampede ride sticks out, was very unfriendly, didn’t have courtesy to look at you or reply when thanking him. Was very busy n some queues were pretty bad but kids loved it. Car park was really rough, not easy to drive on or car friendly. Lodge not easy to find or get to at all.

Lodge was cramped for 4 of us, cooking facilities were poor. Lots of creepy crawlies inside being in the countryside n being so close to woods. Was a large, loose drain cover with a large hole underneath near our lodge close to where the kids were playing. Was so dangerous n someone there must have known about it. Reported it n someone eventually came out n dealt with it. Could have ended up so much worse 😡 BBQ stand was one brick which we had to request 🤦‍♀️ The worse aspect about the glamping pod was when we came to make up pull out sofa bed, we pulled the sofa out n mattress was dirty n heavily stained, looked like urine to us. Spare bedding did smell absolutely awful,was really scruffy. Complained n lady turned up after a while n said “there was no clean bedding anywhere” but she swapped spare bedding from another pod. We tried to make the bed up with swapped bedding to discover an obvious dead bed bug, yuk!🤮Disgusting! Immediately packed it back away without further investigations, where there’s 1, there’s more! Threw it out n complained. The lady (she was leaving that day) was very good and apologetic, she arranged to swap the mattress and go out and buy new bedding (well the linen anyway), no good if the bedding is dirty and smells bad. This all happened late on and after customer service had closed. Our nearly 6 foot, 12 year old, already put off by said bed bug and scruffy bedding, had no bedding, nothing to cover himself up with and had to sleep on a tiny sofa, freezing cold, definitely good enough! Never again! It was not cheap and we had a terrible experience. I do not recommend staying here.

On to the scamming….. If I could leave a zero rating I would. Stayed in a glamping pod from 31st July til 2nd Aug paying a £100 refundable deposit. Was supposed to be refunded after 3-5 working days. Rang week later to enquire where my deposit was and was told “had been processed on the 4th Aug n to wait a little longer”. Another week passed and still no deposit. I rang again to be told the same thing. Was also told they couldn’t understand why I’d not received my deposit back and to call bank. I did despite it being obvious it was nothing to do with them. My bank told me they didn’t know anything about it n couldn’t see anything from Twinlakes. I waited even longer for my deposit and I rang Twinlakes again, asked to speak to the manager (was a woman with absolutely no customer service skills), told them what the bank said and was fobbed off some more. They got fed up with me at this point as they were ignoring my phone calls n emails. When I tried calling them on a different number, they answered 🤔 but continued to fob me off. I threatened them with financial ombudsman n then they started to reply again, funny that!

They sent me “proof” they had sent me my deposit according to them,and I sent them proof I had not received it! Receipt said they processed the refund on the 19th Aug but told me several times that they had processed it on the 4th Aug 🤔 Blatant lies. Finally received my deposit back on Sat 23rd Aug, after opening a case with Visa, no thanks to Twinlakes. They accidentally sent it twice but said I could keep the second deposit for the inconvenience. The stress, constant phone calls n emails and being ignored was not worth the hassle to be honest. I only wanted my deposit back. Absolute appalling customer service, never again! Wished never stayed here now.

Felt was only able to leave this review now, as no doubt Twinlakes would use it as another excuse to...

Mixed feeling about this place, let me start by saying I am only going to review from my experience on April 2025, which is 1st visit for our party:

Staff: Staff don't look happy, high temper, un helpful and rude. Many reason for that but the obvious one is: Bad management Staff don't believe in the brand Lack of training Cheap labour Hiring under 18 with no experience dealing with main customer segment kids, toddlers and parents. Short staffed rota, means everyone is pressured. Can not be bothered attitudes of staff usually synonymous with family run business, I bet this one is. Etc

You will be on the receiving end of all of that as you move through out the day from the entry to exit, you will not feel welcomed, or feel you are a customer and they won't give you the impression that they are happy you are there. Such a low energy, low excitement, low vibes staff.

They are trying to save money clearly, there is no help point or ushers or Staff who are walking arround to be accessible to guide or to be asked questions etc.

Rides: Not all the rides are open and there is no communication which one is closed or open, you just keep walking and look to see if there are people or not etc.

Few rides you walked past that were open, the staff closed it and possibly went on to rssource a busier station or relief other staff for lunch on another ride, so you can't plan to go back as you don't know when it will become unmanned.

Toilets Main Toilets are closed as you land in, you suddenly need to hunt for one, you had all summer to fix this, unbelievable.

Disability Imagine carers have to pay ?!?!?

That all out of the way, you will have a good time if you set your expectations low and just enjoy the kids enjoy themselves, the place is good size, if all the rides are open it will be decent day out.

The layout great, you will get to walk and rest and there are enough activities to keep under 12 happy for sure.

Kids enjoyed it and that's what I keep telling myself.

Few thrillers, we tried the eating there not too bad. There is no place or fountain or any drinkable water, you have to pay for water and if there is water point or fountain; this will take me to my next point the place is missing route, maps, you are here, discretion post etc. You do get the paper map and there is an app.

I would recommend it for family for sure, just need to ignore the owners short comings.

We were a party of 11, had 2 kids with Disability and 5 kids all under 14. They all had a good time, we were able to ride with our young ones and we all had a great day out. If this is your 1st time i hope you will enjoy it as we did.

Would i come back again, debatable, the kids have to ask for it for me to do so, I won't volunteer it.

The place has so much potential and there are tons of ideas that all simple that can be implemented that can elevate the experience, missed opportunities.

Oh we were there during week days and it was fantastic, almost zero queue, you walk arround and you enjoy the space even though there are many people arround.

If you are reading this and you are a parent, please parent your kids, whatever bad job you are doing at home, the staff don't need to compensate for you. Don't set there and chat while your kids go the wrong way and create hazard and distractions for everyone.

Pay attention to the details, otherwise the staff and people like me have to parent on your behalf. Enjoy your day though supervising، it's a new environment, boundaries are new , manage it.

Casual, pedestrian parenting is inconsiderate. I promised Steve who was on the receiving end of bad parenting to mention this as it become noticeable that parent want to set on the benches, snack and leave the staff to...

This day was good overall, and my kids (3 years old and 21 months) enjoyed their day here. But there was also so much potential.

The rides: My toddler isn't the most confident so it was disappointing that although there were a good amount of small rides for him to go on, most of them required him to ride alone, and so he didn't want to go on them. The same was true for my 21 month old who was desperate to go on a ride, but again had to go alone and cried the first ride she went on because we couldn't be with her. I'm grateful for the staff member who saw her distress and was willing to stop the ride so she could get off.

There appeared to be only two rides we could go on as a family together. Other places like Sundown, Cbeebies Land at Alton Towers, and Thomas Land at Drayton Manor have a really good selection of rides that all ages can enjoy together, so Twinlakes have missed a trick here.

For the rides we did go on, the queues were generally moving at a decent speed, apart from the bumper boats where only two boats were operational (and looking at reviews from last year seems to be an ongoing issue!).

It looked like there is a good selection of rollercoasters and big rides as well for the thrillseekers young and old. My youngest kept trying to join the queue for them but sadly was far too small!

The farm: While the kids loved seeing the animals, the farm appeared to be in poor condition, with a number of empty enclosures and run down buildings. The staff member who did the meerkat talk was great though, and very engaging with the children.

The play areas: The kids loved the jumping pillows and the Dolphin softplay in the Buccaneers Island zone. My 21 month old was obsessed with walking around the Black Knights Castle play area but the slide is in very poor condition.

The water park: This was definitely the highlight; both kids loved it (and us adults ended up getting soaked as well - recommend that even adults bring a change of clothes or swimwear!). However the changing rooms are not pleasant and there didn't appear to be a suitable baby change area. Be prepared for this.

General park and facilities: The park itself has certain parts that seem rundown and in need of updating and maintaining. The toilets especially were not the nicest. There were also very few signs around the park making it quite difficult to find your way around - the phone app was a great help for us! I also hadn't realized that a couple of the zones were inside unmarked warehouses that don't look very inviting. The Buccaneers Islands zone especially seemed very dingy inside. The outdoor zones were much nicer.

Conclusion: If you can look past the areas that are in need of TLC this theme park has a good offering for confident toddlers and older children/young teenagers who are keen to try everything. If you have toddlers who haven't yet had the chance to properly experience a theme park, I would definitely recommend checking out Cbeebies Land or Thomas Land first where they can ride with adults and build their confidence up.

At the end of the day, only I saw the negatives. My children didn't notice what they missed out on and enjoyed their...