Center Parcs Longleat Forest — Hotel in Great Britain

A disappointing tone was set from arrival. ||After queuing for 30minutes to get to the check in which is ultimately a handful of huts, we were greeted by a member of staff who immediately demanded “switch your engine off”, interesting I thought especially considering the vehicle we were in was in fully electric mode. ||Being passed our map and 2 bands the attendant told us to find a space and then wait till 4pm before taking our luggage to the lodge. ||Explaining that it was our first time at CP we asked how the land train operated, the attendant proceeded to bark at us, it’s not running before 7pm and it is complimentary so if it’s cancelled “it is what it is”, shocked by the statement I said it back she then said well it is an “active holiday”, again I repeated, “it is what it is though yes?” At this point I stopped talking to the attendant who proceeded to tell me how the land train had been cancelled yesterday and lots of customers were moaning at her about it and it’s not her problem. ||Lots of sighing to any questions we asked, not a great representation of CP. ||Complimentary land train, not linked to the cost of a stay being £1300 for 3 nights. ||A unique definition on “complimentary” I guess ||All in all a really unprofessional experience with no thought around guests with disabilities, In essence the undertone was you need to leave those with your vehicle. ||Ironically I noticed the site operated a hidden disability scheme. Perhaps that memo was missed by some staff? ||We found our lodge which was relatively clean albeit a little dilapidated and in need of a refresh its was a “new style executive lodge”.||We explored for the first day and did a couple of activities with our 16 and 9y/o, activities were ok. ||The shop on site was well stocked, priced reasonably and with friendly staff, we dined at Bella Italia, Las Iguana’s and Hucks standard food for chain restaurants. ||The second day snow was forecast from 5pm, we knew this as we had a weather app on our phone as most people do in 2025. ||Unfortunately CP management must have lost access to any form of communication with the outside world on this day and despite their own internal system stating activities may be closed due to “severe weather” little action was being taken to prepare the site for a little snow. ||We decided we would order our evening meal to be delivered to the lodge through the booking system, we booked and paid for this online for a 7.15 slot (booked at 6.15pm - whilst snow/ sleet was falling). ||Worth mentioning that the internet on site is akin to dial up broadband pre 2000’s - 2mbps download speeds which makes booking activities or food a challenge. ||At 7.09pm a member of staff called and bumbled his way through the call telling us that the roads had been closed and they could either refund the food, we could go and collect (a 15/20 minute walk one way) or they could try again in an hour. ||Asked what would be changing in an hour we were told, “I’m not sure”.||The “snow” if you can call it that had fallen for around 2hrs, we had watched runners and cyclists passing our lodge and the land train had been passing for most of this period. ||There had obviously been no planning to how a little snow would effect the operation at CP. ||I am assuming that the “snow” was only discovered when a member of the management team had walked outside.||To avoid this from reoccurring I am happy to assume the position of Adverse Weather Planning Manager for CP and prepare a plan for sleet which could include gritting the roads, cancelling online ordering system before guests order their evening meals or the provision of suitable vehicles for operations to continue. ||In summary it was a little bit of sleet and not the reformation of the ice age. ||Disappointingly we had planned pre our arrival a large group of friends coming to CP in Nov 2025 and at Christmas stay with our extended family (15+ of us). ||We are questioning this now, largely due to the fear that should the sun shine too brightly, should a passing downpour take place or if a brisk wind emerge the park may have to go into a critical state and Marshall Law be declared. ||In summary, some good points to CP mared by inept management with no forward planning that coupled with disengaged / poorly trained staff made for an...

There is no doubting that the facilities surrounding the lodges are brilliant, however our evening meals have been challenging for 4/4 nights and it is not good enough.

Night 1, we wanted to order takeout from Pinch of Asia. No one appeared to understand the protocol for my partner’s nut allergy, we were passed around the houses on the phone and at one point we listened to approx 6 people all discussing the process with one another whilst we eagerly waited on the final answer on the phone. After back and forth as we simply couldn’t understand why we couldn’t just place all our orders/ just order all over the phone, we eventually ordered our food online and had to call back to finalise the order for James with the nut allergy. This process is unnecessary, long-winded for us as customers and left us feeling frustrated for time wasted.

Night 2, we went to the shops and purchased lots of tapas bits for nibbles to pick at throughout our organised games night in. After 2 hours of waiting for the oven to heat up and eagerly flicking through the manual to figure out what we are doing wrong and growing more frustrated as the issue was eating into our quality games night time and progressively growing more hungry, I resorted to calling yourselves to send someone out as we were all out of ideas. Someone arrived promptly to explain that ‘the oven is broke, the ovens are cheap and have issues a lot and it would be replaced tomorrow.’ That did not resolve what we were meant to do that evening to feed 4 adults. Not good enough.

Night 3, we went to Bella Italia. We had the most lovely waitress who was visibly stretched through no fault of her own juggling an uncomfortable amount of guests. The robots that had been put in to attempt to improve service was very clearly doing quite the opposite. Our food arrived by a robot. After an awkward 2 minutes of looking around for a waiter/ waitress, we removed (served ourselves) our food as it would be getting cold. No one had explained prior to this how the robots were meant to work with our service so we were left confused. After 5 minutes of waiting, I got up and asked if I could help myself to the serving station for parma cheese, salt, pepper etc. As I sat back down, to my disbelief, I can see another robot had ran off with another customer’s desserts, leaving the customers chasing the robot around the restaurant and resulting in the poor waitress in tears.

Night 4, our final night was the final nail in the coffin. We discussed when we arrived that we would have a curry night for the final night. We planned our day at longleat around coming back in good time to get the baby to sleep and order a curry. We ordered online as we are told to do. The order arrived 2 hours later with my friend’s main dish missing. She called through to yourselves and got transferred to the wrong number. I then called the Indian direct and explained to them that we were missing a main dish (Chicken Tikka to be precise) and we were not given any options to deliver or refund. We were simply told ‘the kitchen is closed. It will be a refund.’ No apology, no remorse or the offer to deliver as it was their fault. My friend who’s 30th birthday we are here celebrating resorted to eating something out of the fridge this evening for our final night instead.

My partner and I work/ have worked in hospitality and this would simply not be a standard we would accept.

There’s only one good, full sized pool cue which is cracked. The remaining are damaged and/or inefficient for adults. there’s dust bunnies in the corner of the lounge which my 8 month old baby had discovered before we did. I cut my toe on a swimming tile that had come loose in the swimming pool just outside the rapids.

Sadly I reported the above to customer services and after 3 weeks waiting a response, it is clear now our money has been taken, that the customer care team are not bothered by our experience which is...

There is no doubting that the facilities surrounding the lodges are brilliant, however our evening meals have been challenging for 4/4 nights and it is not good enough.||Night 1, we wanted to order takeout from Pinch of Asia. No one appeared to understand the protocol for my partner’s nut allergy, we were passed around the houses on the phone and at one point we listened to approx 6 people all discussing the process with one another whilst we eagerly waited on the final answer on the phone. After back and forth as we simply couldn’t understand why we couldn’t just place all our orders/ just order all over the phone, we eventually ordered our food online and had to call back to finalise the order for James with the nut allergy. This process is unnecessary, long-winded for us as customers and left us feeling frustrated for time wasted.||Night 2, we went to the shops and purchased lots of tapas bits for nibbles to pick at throughout our organised games night in. After 2 hours of waiting for the oven to heat up and eagerly flicking through the manual to figure out what we are doing wrong and growing more frustrated as the issue was eating into our quality games night time and progressively growing more hungry, I resorted to calling yourselves to send someone out as we were all out of ideas. Someone arrived promptly to explain that ‘the oven is broke, the ovens are cheap and have issues a lot and it would be replaced tomorrow.’ That did not resolve what we were meant to do that evening to feed 4 adults. Not good enough.||Night 3, we went to Bella Italia. We had the most lovely waitress who was visibly stretched through no fault of her own juggling an uncomfortable amount of guests. The robots that had been put in to attempt to improve service was very clearly doing quite the opposite. Our food arrived by a robot. After an awkward 2 minutes of looking around for a waiter/ waitress, we removed (served ourselves) our food as it would be getting cold. No one had explained prior to this how the robots were meant to work with our service so we were left confused. After 5 minutes of waiting, I got up and asked if I could help myself to the serving station for parma cheese, salt, pepper etc. As I sat back down, to my disbelief, I can see another robot had ran off with another customer’s desserts, leaving the customers chasing the robot around the restaurant and resulting in the poor waitress in tears.||Night 4, our final night was the final nail in the coffin. We discussed when we arrived that we would have a curry night for the final night. We planned our day at longleat around coming back in good time to get the baby to sleep and order a curry. We ordered online as we are told to do. The order arrived 2 hours later with my friend’s main dish missing. She called through to yourselves and got transferred to the wrong number. I then called the Indian direct and explained to them that we were missing a main dish (Chicken Tikka to be precise) and we were not given any options to deliver or refund. We were simply told ‘the kitchen is closed. It will be a refund.’ No apology, no remorse or the offer to deliver as it was their fault. My friend who’s 30th birthday we are here celebrating resorted to eating something out of the fridge this evening for our final night instead.|My partner and I work/ have worked in hospitality and this would simply not be a standard we would accept.||- There’s only one good, full sized pool cue which is cracked. The remaining are damaged and/or inefficient for adults.|- there’s dust bunnies in the corner of the lounge which my 8 month old baby had discovered before we did.|- I cut my toe on a swimming tile that had come loose in the swimming pool just outside the rapids.||Sadly I reported the above to customer services and after 3 weeks waiting a response, it is clear now our money has been taken, that the customer care team are not bothered by our experience which is...