Parkdean Resorts Coopers Beach Holiday Park, Essex — Hotel in Colchester

I'm not going to lie, when people think of a caravan holiday, people do turn their noses up. Who wants to stay in a cold caravan.. well I can hand on heart say, it is one of the best times we have had as a family!

We have had an absolutely amazing time! The activities, my children were at times 2 old, but they joined most of the activities with the best one being the krew bake off with the chocolate tea party. It was soo fun watching the kids laugh and be covered in chocolate! There is a small swimming pool but big enough for the kids to have a little water fun. There are water activities that we didn't do.. We did them last time we was here.. staying standing up in one of them water balls is soo much harder than it looks!

The caravan, well I paid for a basic caravan for 7 nights and that is what you get. Showers aren't very good and the extractor fan almost fell off and the light cover in the living area fell off. There is heating and in one room was an electric heater.. I'm not going to lie, I turned it on one night for 30 minutes, walked into the room and felt like I was going to die walking into a blanket of heat! But everything was just what we needed.. make sure you bring food for the hob rather than the oven.. the ovens are not great.. cooking one pizza took nearly an hour and I had 7 to cook with the final one melting onto the bottom of the oven.. saying that the oven did cut the pizza into sections for me haha

The food at the boat house. Only ate a meal once but did get some snack items. The kebab was amazing but the nachos weren't great and I love my nachos. The sharing starter was really good but I'd recommend getting more than one for more than 2 people. Oh actually we also had the breakfast.. I really enjoyed it.. Kids under 12 also eat free which is a massive bonus.

The arcade... dam you!! The arcade is very small but has enough machines for the number of people on the site. I'm not going to lie, this section of our holiday took the most money but giving 3 kids money throughout the day and night for 7 days, you can only imagine the cost of it. We did win some Teddies and managed to get 3 cheap cups from winning tickets. Being back on the 2p machines remind me of back in the day as a kiddywink myself.. I loved it. Kids did play a lot of pool whilst here but my youngest is now better at it.

Other people.. It is great to meet other people whilst away.. the majority of people are absolutely brilliant and we got chatting to a few who even said the kids were good as gold (should see them at home lol) but like everywhere, you do get the odd one that can be really annoying but I suppose that can't be helped.. Who knows, we might have been the odd ones!

Now I have left the best till last! The entertainment! It may not be everyone's cup of tea.. but I absolutely loved every single night, from the games, the characters, the dances, the singing and the magic show at the end. We were clapping, laughing and dancing (well chair dancing anyways) for most of night.. We only saw 3 of the 4 entertainers sing.. and they were all fantastic!!!

Will, one of the funniest entertainers I have met! He's a diva, but in a good way. He's amazing at getting the crowd going and all excited for whatever he is doing. It was brilliant to see all the little kids screaming and jumping up and down. His singing is amazing when he does the shows. He really made our week feel even more special.

Chloe, she has an amazing smile and her eyeshadow is brilliant, she needs to show me how to do it :-) she is such a confident young lady who is always laughing and has one incredible voice.

Julie, amazing manager with an amazing voice. My little boy loves her and doesn't want to leave because of her. She even gave him a nickname. She is amazing, always smiling with what I can only describe as a heart of gold. She made our holiday a memorable one, one we will always remember.

Thank you for a fantastic holiday. See...

The day before (25/7/25) we came to the park we got a text to say we needed to bring towels and hand towels. Glad they text but we expected these to be included in the price and weren't aware they weren't until the day of the text. They want you to pay £58 to get early arrival for 1pm. We opted out, so arrival was from 4pm. We arrived at 4:20pm however reception closes at 5pm. This leaves very little time to check in and if anything is wrong well tough. There is no phone signal on the island and no free WiFi in the caravans ,so if there was a problem you wouldn't be able to get in touch with anyone. You can pay for upgraded WiFi at £6 per day or £30 per week. The upgraded WiFi meant to be for 10 devices also doesn't work. Free WiFi only available at the entertainment hub or at reception but its not always working it drops in and out. Which also means organising days out has been harder. The caravan was OK but much tighter then we expected. The double bed really is tight (2 slightly big people) it was a squeeze. My husband is 5ft 10 and his feet hung out the bottom. We ended up sleeping separately with 1 of is taking the sofa bed. Not great when you come away for a family holiday. As a family of 5 we had very little storage. No storage space in the shower room. So no option to store shampoos etc. Most of the kitchen cupboards were all taken up with kitchen items great but leaves little to no space to store food. No cushions or throws shown on the pictures. Double bed not made up properly, which meant I had to put pillow cases on myself. Spare bedding dumped inside the wardrobe of the double bedroom. Dirty wall above the tv, broken door in one of the twin rooms, dirty window on the outside of the caravan (front room right) and items left under the beds from previous guests, tissues and rubbish left under the sofa bed. Dog poo left near the front door from another guests dog. Reception did get a cleaner to remove the dog poo and clean under the beds. But it was awkward because we were there eating lunch whilst the cleaner cleaned. The entertainment hall was very busy and very loud. You need to get their early to get a seat. No thought at all to the Nerodivergent community. No sensory area. You have to walk through a noisy arcade area to get to the entertainment hub/ pub which can create sensory over load and be overwhelming. Food at the entertainment hub was ok not the best but OK. The pool you get 45 minutes free but its dirty and old corroded bars. Tiles around the pool area are slippy No thought process around Health and safety for disabled people who are unsteady on their feet. Pool temp is luke warm. Outside pool slightly cooler. There are a few changing rooms but theyre limited. be prepared to walk back to the caravan in a towel and bathing suit. Definitely be changed in swim gear before you get there. Two dogs did try to attack my husband on morning the 1st morning and another guest they are supposed to be on leads but this wasn't the case. Reception did say they'd sort it but nothing was done. Night 1 I was woken up by loud cars revving. Night 2 I was woken up twice by a family arguing screaming, shouting, swearing. Then by a group of girls running around laughing banging on the side of the caravans. It was dark so couldn't see their faces. Day 3 the oven (gas) would not work properly it took 3 hours to cook chips and pizza. Parkdean also did not provide a fish slice. The children's disco was fun. But entertainment was more aimed at 2- 8 year old. Nothing for teens other than football. The bingo was great fun but expensive £39 for 2 books and 2 dabbers. The night before we left my son was assaulted and called racist names. Which made us leave early as he didnt want to go out the next day. Overall really...

I am so disappointed and disgusted with Park Dean Resorts, flea ridden caravan and then so badly treated by the manager Mark in Mersea

I am a foster carer, and this was my child very first holiday in his little life and I booked 4 days in Mersea with my other 2 children and 2 small dogs.. Inside the caravan was absolutely disgusting. My house is 10 times cleaner than where we went to.

It was covered in false black widows spiders, where i cleaned it for over 2 hours as my F.child who has high needs and suffers from allergies and asthma, and I really did not want to complain!. We were on holiday!!

In the morning to our horror, we found a flea or bed bug in my child's bed. I took pictures of everything and showed it to the staff on the dest tgat were amazing in initially trying to get it sorted.

The sink was coming off the wall. There were disgusting stains in the bathroom. The sofa had dirty stains all over it, and that with the cushions smelt terrible.

My foster child woke up at 3am and was coughing, I opened a window, as an f.b.spider fell in. He was traumatized, so I put him on the sofa with the quilt they gave me, but he kept coughing, and the dogs were scratching. It was a difficult night, to say the least. In the morning, that was when i saw how dirty the sofa was, and I let him lay on a stained quilt. We were there for a total of 20 hours, where the manager was implying the bugs came from me and was extremely aggressive in making his feelings known. We waited for 4 hours in the morning to show staff and supervisor the caravan plus the pictures. It was so hot in there as we were fearful of openening a window as the spiders that were massive kept coming in. My foster child was been so upset and everyone wanted to go home plus I now needed to wash and clean everything from the car before I brought it into my own home, plus go to the vets to make sure they were retreated.

We found out from the permanent residents who were all so lovely that the previous people who stayed had left the caravan in a state and had 3 large dogs and they had spent less than 40 minutes cleaning it.

I spent over £300 for this gated caravan, and they want me to pay for the 20 hours I was there, and they have said they would only partly refund me.

Forget the wifi and the amount of work it was to get permission to take him, washing clean/dirty cloths, car, petrol, de flea the dogs, cloths, food etc

I have written so many emails from that night when I got home and still have not had a response. I can not speak to a real person after spending hours trying.

This was something my children and foster child had never experienced together, and it was a total letdown.

They had no understanding or empathy on the impact this had left him and all of us, especially with how the manager spoke to us and was obnoxious and extremely patronizing.

Saying if I went, it was my choice but wouldn't get a refund. I had a responsibility to my foster child to take him out of that situation and moving to another caravan(even though he said he didntvhave a dog friendly one and I would be passing on the bugs I had brought to the next caravan was insulting.

So I feel I have no choice but to write this review and post only 10 of the 30 pictures I had...