Nice place, however this place does not deserve such entitlements or classified as a TOP10 campsite or placed so high in the list of top 10 South Island Te Wai Pounamu and really should not be so expensive as compared to other campsites, they are far cheaper and reward guests with the same qualities of service and services.
This campsite rewarded us with none but trouble throughout the last few days we stayed there.
We had contacted the Pohara Beach Holiday and booked online 4 hours previously before arriving at the holiday park. On our way there we received both a confirmation email as well as a email to inform us of some key knowledge needed here ( e.g, where the facilities are and how to access the Wi-Fi ). The email also informed us that we were able to place our tent anywhere we wished, so we did. However, in the following time we were here, my family went fishing in a location away from the campsite. Unfortunately our forth planned merry time as a family together were shortly interrupted and ruined after receiving a call from a staff that we needed to move our tent as someone else had already booked the site where our tents were situated at, not to mention this day was just after Christmas Day and we were all hoping for a break. Even though the email stated clearly we could settle down anywhere we wished, even though that was not the case. Making it extremely unfair towards my family as mentioned, we had hoped for a amazing day after such a special day
I believe most people who has experienced camping in a tent will understand moving tents or deconstructing them and constructing can be rather tiresome especially after a lousy day in the blazing sun in the middle of summer can be excruciatingly tiring and can cause damage to the tent. All caused by misinformation and a poorly managed system between the guests and the workers that worked here at the Holiday Park. ( when we arrived, it was 8:30 and on Christmas eve so the reception was closed and it was 4 hours ago since we made our last contact with the team at Pohara Beach Holiday Park )
We soon arrived back at the campsite and headed to the reception to resolve this sudden ordeal that has occurred. After speaking with lady at the reception we were taken up to resolve this mess with the manager. The manager’s attitude stayed simply dull for majority of the conversation which we found was rather rude in this troubling incident and the manager even sounded annoyed as the conversation grew, getting obviously frustrated and angry at us just because we were asking questions and other options or other nearby campsites we could stay at. Quickly the tension rose, my son asked that surely that there was better option than just kick us out of our current site and into another one with obstacles in between that made it even more difficult to move the tent without deconstructing it and my son also said surely you cannot just kick us out of our site this abruptly because of a mistake one of your staff members made that had ruined their afternoon. The manager responded in rude tone and said: “I can and I will!” Clearly angry at us.
This camp’s facilities are truly amazing, however, the attitude and communication abilities of the staff members and their services as a team could improve drastically as I know another family that had similar problems like us proving this incident was not uncommon in this time of the year, but can happen regularly to foreigners who has never been here before. This incident affected my families trip heavily, stopping our track of our plans of fishing and swimming and other forth planned activities we had planned to do.
Really a pity, we had such a good start, but ended horribly. Such a disappointment ...
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