Sandy Balls Holiday Village — Attraction in New Forest

We stayed here for a week in the Easter holidays as a family of 4 with two young children. I’ve written a detailed review because I think I would have appreciated some of this information beforehand and I also hope Away Resorts reads my review and considers taking on board some of my feedback. ||Lodge: |We booked the basic comfort lodge and were in Field Way 205 in a 3 bed lodge. It looked very ropey from the outside on arrival but once you got inside it was perfectly nice (on first appearance anyway, more on that further down). We paid £1,300 for a week in the Easter holidays. Definitely expensive but it is school holidays so we just had to suck it up and it is significantly cheaper than Center Parcs at the same time of year. ||To note, for our class of lodge you did not get any of the following provided:|- Tea/coffee|- Hand soap |- Bath mat |- Towels |- Placemats |- No dishwasher ||The above bar two are all fair enough but I literally cannot understand the lack of bath mat and place mats. We brought a bath mat because I’d read a previous review noting it, but I could see the level of water damage to the floor in the bathroom and the rotting wood as a result of water being splashed onto the floor over the years. The toilet also had rotten black wood behind it. It all smelled so foisty and unpleasant. I don’t think many people would think to bring a bath mat and I really think Sandy Balls should make this clear on booking that no towels also means no bath mat either. Having no placemats either meant that the dining table was in a grim state, sticky, covered in marks and quite unpleasant. I tried cleaning it as best I could but again, months/years of usage with no placemats made it impossible to clean to a good standard. Once again , if it had been clear when booking that I needed to bring placemats I absolutely would have done so.||WiFi |- Huge one in this day and age… no wifi in any of the lodges and we couldn’t get it to work in the main activity/shopping area either. |- We also couldn’t get any decent 4G signal in our lodge so had no way of getting online. |- Because you have no wifi it’s impossible to look up activities or Google maps or anything that is remotely helpful when you’re on holiday, especially with young kids. It’s so difficult to plan your day without being able to check out websites and online guides. |- You are encouraged to download the Away Resorts app in order to book on site activities, restaurants, swimming and also communicate with guest services etc. However as there is no WiFi and barely any signal you aren’t able to do these things online after you arrive. It was frustrating not being able to book activities or view menus because everything was app based and we had no wifi or signal. ||Facilities:|- Safe to say we used the soft play a lot and were very grateful for this with two kids under 7!! It is small in size but both kids could have probably spent hours there (although admittedly it’s a bit soul sucking from a parent perspective!) |- Our lodge was near one of the adventure playgrounds and this was great, particularly for our older child. It was done very nicely and had some really good equipment. Our toddler was a bit more bemused by it all but enjoyed the swings and having a runaround. |- The arcade was a fun way to spend quite a lot of money. Harmless fun though and we all enjoyed it for what it was. The 2p machines actually had some decent toys and sweets which were a lot of fun to win, for both adults and children alike! |- Laundrette was handy but it was £5.10 per wash and an extra £3.10 for the dryer which felt extortionate. |- The on site indoor pool was really poor. Far too cold, too deep for little kids even in the shallowest area (and our eldest is tall for her age), dirty changing rooms and you also have to provide your own lock for the locker (another thing that isn’t made clear in advance…bit of a theme here). ||Activities |- The mini land rovers were lots of fun and Jason was so lovely showing my daughter how to drive them and giving her confidence to take the wheel. I’d recommend it as a fun little activity!|- The alpaca walk was very sweet. At £25 a go it was on the higher side of the price range for a relatively short excursion but my daughter loved it. |- Contrary to other reviews we really enjoyed the evening kids entertainment. Our toddler enjoyed “Bear in the House” and our eldest loved “Kids House Party”. The two female entertainment staff doing these two events when we were there were full of fun and really good with all the kids and engaged with them really well. I’m not sure what more you could ask for or expect from a kids evening entertainment?? ||Staff:|- Almost ever staff member we encountered was kind and friendly, particularly the activities team, which created a really nice vibe. This is a real change from some places we’ve stayed before (Center Parcs being one of them which has some of the most miserable staff ever!). Bar staff were also friendly and nothing seemed like too much trouble. ||Conclusion: I really wanted to give this more than 3 stars because we did have a really nice family holiday. It is a great option for families with young kids. But the state of the accommodation and clear lack of maintenance in our lodge was a real disappointment. I’ve added pictures to show what I mean. I do not need accommodation to be fancy, as long as it covers the basics and is clean I’m happy. However the damp issues, lack of essential items such as bath mat and placemats and the total lack of care when it came to keeping this accommodation up to a fair standard really wasn’t acceptable at over £1,000 for the week. Also no WiFi was more of an issue than I would have anticipated when we were here for a whole week. I genuinely would be interested to know why Sandy Balls does not have WiFi. We’ve stayed in much more remote areas and always had WiFi provided. If it is cost saving then they should adjust the accommodation prices accordingly. |Ultimately if it wasn’t for the poor state of the lodge and lack of wifi I think we would have...

Overall we had a fantastic stay and I certainly hope to come back soon…..just a bit of info other visitors might find useful. ||We stayed in a vista lodge (opted for no hot tub). The lodge says that it sleeps 4-6 people, however I’m my opinion 4 was the max capacity. There was a sofa bed in the lounge so technically could sleep 6 but the lounge only has seating for 4 and the one bathroom. The view from lodge 70 was spectacular, with seating on the ground level veranda and on the roof top terrace. The lodge is sign posted but arriving after dark meant that we did miss the sign so drove around for a while….once we knew where to look the sign was clear but tricky in the dark and when you haven’t been before. ||Dog friendly - Away resorts provided a lovely welcome pack for our dog which included poo bags, a bowl, blankets and some dog perfume and wipes. This was a lovely, unexpected touch. Most of the park is very dog friendly with them welcome in restaurants and around the site. Of course they were excluded from certain activities and areas (sandy balls website will have more up to date info). ||A slight negative - overall the lodge was great but the decor in lodge 70 was a little tired and the sofas were not particularly comfortable. That said I would stay again as the positives out weigh the negatives. Also there wasn’t any sort of welcome package such as teas/coffee/wine/milk (these touches are not essential but nice to have - although the dog had one, so points for that). There were toiletries and some kitchen cleaning bits.||The park itself - we visited the first weekend in October, it was all decorated for Halloween which our young children enjoyed. We did a couple of activities, the Alpaca walk which was very nice and we learnt a lot about alpacas and our son drove the mini land-rovers. The activities were well run by friendly staff and reasonably priced. ||Places to eat - The shop was very handy (although the coffee machine was broken the whole weekend we were there, but the friendly staff advised us coffee was available in the Woodside bar). We found it reasonably priced for treats and snacks and there was a decent selection of pocket money children’s toys and souvenirs. The shop also had a place to gab sandwiches/toasties/cakes and fancy chocolates. |The Woodside inn, we had food to take away which worked well, the food was hot and tasty and reasonably priced (£15 for a decent sized burger and chips). We also had lunch at the Woodside with its £12 meal deal for a drink, wrap and chips. We ate at Aubrey’s and the food was very tasty and both places are of course very family oriented. There is also a pizza hatch for takeaway pizza, the pizza was nice but very limited toppings choices with no changes allowed, so I can’t rave about that as it just meant we both had pizzas which we didn’t particularly fancy. It would be handy if the lodges had QR codes for ordering food to collect rather than going to the restaurants to order first. ||Unfortunately the pool was disappointing, it had been closed in the days prior to our visit so apparently it was colder than normal - it was bloody Baltic! Far too cold for our 23 month old. That said, apparently this was not the typical temperature. The pool is just a large rectangle with not much difference in the depth for young children to be able to enjoy a noticeable ‘shallow end’ there are two small toddler paddle pools which we tried but it was just too cold and they were pretty boring, nothing for little ones to play with. We only went in the pool once during our visit due to the temp. The pool was disappointing and the cold water just didn’t help, it was hard to keep our little ones (non swimmers) entertained. I recommend taking pool noodles/floats because there is nothing else going on for kids and I noticed the pool noodles were £7 at reception which could quickly add up if you had to buy a few. I know in the summer there is an outdoor pool but the indoor space could do with something like a splash pad - still it wouldn’t stop us visiting again, it was just a shame it was a let down with the freezing temperature and we were so looking forward to the pool (it’s the reason I couldn’t give the trip full marks). ||Evening entertainment - there is list of what’s on each evening and it was a Halloween vibe when we visited. The staff put in a good effort with the kids and the kids enjoyed the entertainment and we enjoyed the drinks in the bar! My only gripe was that I tried to hype my kids up that there was going to be a bear at the bar (the away resorts mascot) and it was just a video of him talking….i did feel a bit cheated, luckily the kids hadn’t listened to me to begin with. The arcade was lots of fun. I suggest taking cash but there is a cash machine. ||We had lots of fun and I certainly recommend it to anyone looking for a weekend away with kids...

I booked a 5 night break at Sandy Balls for my mum's birthday in March last month. We are big fans of Whitecliff Bay and Mill Rythe, so we were under the impression we would totally love Sandy Balls too. Week before our trip we wanted to book some activities online, such as alpaca walking and archery, however it wasn't letting us book anything. I called up and was told there is staff training that week and there won't be any activities on. We were so disappointed having paid the full balance and having no choice but to go anyway. On the phone the person who took the call was unemphatic and said "it's in the terms and conditions we can cancel activities at anytime". They then said "it does say this on the website". We have been going to Whitecliff Bay for 25+ year way before away resorts owned it. Since away resorts owned Whitecliff Bay, they always show on the website at the stage of finalising the booking "the Culver club and food venue will be closed due to out of season". I knew that the Away resorts website certainly did not state there would be no activities on for our stay that week in March. The call handler said the website does show this, I asked that I stay on the line and they can place me on hold whilst they find this and then email a screen shot to me. The call handler returned and agreed the website did not state this at any stage. We spent over £500 for 4 nights to stay on a site with absolutely nothing to do. I then read the terms and conditions which state "we will endeavour to contact you to make you aware", this never happened. I am keen for someone to reach out to me regarding this. I understand if it clearly showed it on the website and stated it in the T&C's, however it was not shown online that the activities would not be running this week. You are only binded into T&C's once you purchase a Holiday, so this should have been clearly stated online to give someone that choice! We stayed in a Tribeca with a hot tub. Inside the accommodation was totally clean. However the hot tub was falling to bits. The jets inside had caps float off (we had to put them back on ourselves), lights didn't work and the side panels around it were hanging off. We raised this with the hot tub technicians that check it daily, we asked if they could fix the side panels as we were not sure if it was safe for us to touch it, but during the 4 nights stay they didn't try to get the panels back on correctly. The hot tub looked a total state. I think the thing that upset me the most during this stay was how unwelcome we were made to feel in Aubrey kitchen restaurant. We went there on my mum's actual birthday. The restaurant was fairly quiet but we knew it was due to stay open for a further 2 hours. We tried to chat and be friendly to the staff, they had no interest in smiling, being friendly or wanting to build a rapport with us. We said it was my mum's birthday, there was no friendly acknowledgement or even a "happy birthday". Something we always value with away resorts is how amazing the staff are and how they really do make your holiday special. Staff at Sandy Balls were incredibly rude and unfriendly. We were sat on a table in the bar area, as we only wanted drinks and not food. Something we felt was strange was all the staff behind the bar were stood together nearly the whole night just staring at us like we were an inconvenience. One young lad with blonde highlights even made himself a bowl of ice cream and stood eating it behind the bar in front of us, surely you go away to a break room to eat? We started to feel so uncomfortable being stared at and really felt that we shouldn't have been there, it broke my heart as it was my mum's birthday and all she wanted was some cocktails. There was a female staff member who was heavily pregnant, my mum said to her "I'm sorry but should we leave"? The pregnant staff member then said "when the last customer is gone we get to go home". I was absolutely mortified by this! The bar was still meant to be open for another hour! Surely the right thing would have been to say something like "please don't worry, just enjoy yourself and relax". We have never been so uncomfortable and unwelcome somewhere. Overall our stay at Sandy Balls was a complete waste of time and we wish we had never booked it, we couldn't wait to get home and get to a local pub for a nice family meal where we are welcomed. From not being informed about there being no activities, to being an inconvenience to the staff there.....safe to say we would never ever return to...