Bert's Kitchen Garden — Hotel in Great Britain

We arrived at reception and were greeted by what we understand to be one of the owners. He was very welcoming and gave clear instruction on the location of the plot, and as we had a dog we were camping at the 'beach' plots, which is supposedly a private beach. We booked a table at the restaurant later that evening, and the owner allocated us a nice table outside, under cover, given that we had a dog. We pitched up and noted that the field was very uneven and full of holes. At this point it was dusk and I took the children to the composting toilet, which was only a stones throw away within a slightly wooded area. On entering the toilet there was no light and it was incredibly dark - not very child friendly or safe, in my view. We then walked back to the restaurant for dinner. When we arrived to be seated, the man who'd checked us in earlier directed us to a table indoors, and when I pointed out that we had the dog and that he'd allocated us a table under cover on the decking, he said that one of the staff must have moved things around! We were then allocated a picnic table! We ordered our food, (2 pizzas 2 burgers, a beer and a medium glass of wine, which came to £60). There was a little play area for children, so our 4 year old was occupied whilst we waited for our food. Our son got hold of a frisbee, which was apparently the establishments, and he started tossing the frisbee, having a great time, the owner then came out and was very politely explaining to our 4 year old that they didn't want the frisbee landing in the kitchen garden plants, which were everywhere. I did wonder why leave a frisbee out when it was inevitable it would land in the plants. We then waited 45 minutes for our food, and in 45 minutes wait no-one came to see if we'd like more drinks etc, we were just left to wait. The food arrived, the pizzas were nice, fairly standard, and then there were the burgers, - that looked like they'd been on the grill for 45 minutes. The cheese on the burger was so over done, that the cheese was like little shards of crunchy biscuits on the plate, the bun was burnt. The burger came with crisps and a small bunch of leaves, which I imagine were from the kitchen garden. We then went back to the tent to enjoy the view. We then realised that all the people walking past our camping field, weren't other campers they were actually members of the general public, with dogs off leads, and it was quite busy - so not private at all. Our general feeling is that this is a half hearted attempt to create a campsite, and then to compensate for the lack of facilities like electric and lights in the toilets, they've called themselves eco and then charged an awful lot for the privilege. We've actually stayed in many more campsites that don't market themselves as eco friendly but were far more sustainable and also cheaper. I think the kitchen garden is clearly very important in terms of the 'brand' and yet we saw little evidence of it in the food, which is a shame. Overall very underwhelming, we paid for 3 nights, we...

Absolutely awful experience - AVOID this campsite! Go to Aberafon down the road instead.

Set in a lovely part of Wales, but I’ve never come across a campsite with such strict rules & regulations (like having to sit to pee in the toilet, and only being able to walk on particular paths near the restaurant if you’re not camping there). The owners enforce these rules like the mafia - there are passive aggressive signposts written everywhere and if any rules are inadvertently broken by campers then the owners default to assuming the worst and telling-off campers instead of informing them.

My experience:

I intended to stay here for 3 nights in August to celebrate my 30th birthday, but left after the first night and asked for a refund due to extremely rude and petty staff (Ian & Alli who supposedly run this place).

I invited my family who live locally to join me and my partner for a quick drink at our tent before we went for a meal at the restaurant on the campsite where we spent a lot of money.

As we were leaving the restaurant both Ian & Alli accused us of trying to ‘sneak’ people into the campsite and treated us as if we’d just stolen the Queen’s Crown Jewels (when in reality we were unaware that guests were supposed to be checked in to come on the campsite).

It didn’t end there. As I walked my family back to their cars to drive home, the owners continued to be abusive and hounded us for ‘walking through a members only area’ to get back to the car park. Again, we were unaware of there being a ‘members area’ at the time and just wanted to get away from the abuse we were receiving. It’s also poorly designed if the logical route to the car park is via a members only area.

Finally after me and my partner returned to the tent, the owners came over and aggressively accused us of ‘peeing standing up’ which was the final straw for me.

I have never experienced a campsite with such rigid rules and regulations and such abhorrent tone of communicating when rules are inadvertently broken.

Advice to management:

Inform campers of any rules in advance If said rules are broken, inform the campers, don’t assume the worst and get offended. You don’t need such strict rules or passive aggressive signs. You’re not in the right profession if you can’t make friendly people feel welcome. Locals do matter. One of the comments from Ian was “I don’t care if you’re locals or whether you’re not”. You should remember where you have plonked your rigid campsite.

EDIT: [Laughing at the campsite’s response to this review which mentions ‘verbal abuse and threatening behaviour’. What they actually mean by this is that I threatened to give them a bad tripadvisor review 😂. Needless to say - I rest my case about the pettiness of the owners. Wishing you all the best in your pursuit of basic customer...

Where do I begin? The location is great, a beautiful campsite which is why my partner and I were looking forward to staying here as we’ve stayed in many campsites… to say we were let down is an understatement. We rang in advance to advise them that we would not make it in time for their 9pm last check in (which for campsites is a very early close) and we would be there by 9:30 latest, we were told we would receive a phone call back and never did so we didn’t risk just turning up so that was the first night of our 4 night stay wasted. We turned up the following day to how I can only describe as the most unwelcoming staff I’ve come across. The camping slots are cramped, you really feel like you’re on top of each other and it didn’t feel comfortable. The ‘eco friendly compost loos’ were not kept clean and with no light in them and a window you can see through both ways didn’t make a comfortable toilet experience. In fact I walked into the loo to have someone else’s faeces in the toilet not covered in sawdust and not really inside the main bit of the toilet at all. Then we come to the restaurant, we decided to eat there as we thought it was going to be amazing, it was not. Very overpriced, we had two burgers which were served with crisps?! Who serves burgers with crisps for dinner?! And a pizza to share, the waitress serving us was very young and very rude which only added to the overall experience feeling very uncomfortable, luckily there was one young girl who made up for the other as she was extremely polite and well mannered. In the end we only stayed the one night and ended up in a different campsite who ironically don’t advertise themselves as ‘eco friendly’ but were far more eco friendly than this campsite claim to be. You can also only use their products in the shower, as someone who suffers with psoriasis this isn’t exactly ideal, I suggest avoiding unless you want to experience very forced...