Haven Lakeland Leisure Park — Hotel in Great Britain

We decided to stay at the Haven Lake District caravan park in August 25 as a family of 2 adults, 1 teenager and 1 dog and had a wonderful time. ||We had booked the signature gold caravan as it included bed linen and towels so was easier and also the caravan included a wrap around decking area which was just brilliant for our dog. ||We arrived around 13:00ish and there were around 4 cars ahead of us to check in. It was all pretty quick and seamless and someone came up to our car, spoke briefly about the site and handed us our passes and details about where our caravan was and off we went. ||The park itself is huge and a little disorienting until you get used to it. Once we understood where we needed to go it was easy to find our caravan which was located at the top of the park near the owners lodge in such a beautiful area and was so lovely and quiet. We had a lake view from our decking and no one came near the area unless they were staying in one of the caravans so made it even quieter. ||Once we arrived we unpacked all the food and clothes we had brought and just took in the scenery from our decking area. ||The caravan had everything you could need including cooker, dishwasher, fridge, microwave and all the utensils and crockery that you would need. It also had central heating which we only needed first thing in the morning and it got quite cold first thing. All in all we couldn’t have been happier with our accommodation. ||We had paid for the activity passes as this lets you use the indoor pool and also go to the evening entertainment and book the kids activities throughout your stay. We only used the pool and some of the kids activities as we were just not interested in the evening entertainment.||Our daughter is 14 so unfortunately she is right in the age bracket where the kids things were too young for her but she wasn’t able to take part in adults activities but she still enjoyed herself. The best activity she took part in was the build a bear one where she made her own teddy and got to take it home, she loved that. ||My wife went swimming with my daughter a couple of times and while the pool itself is nice enough it isn’t very big and they found that it got incredibly busy to the point where you are looking for somewhere to stand with bumping into somebody else. It was nice enough but far too many people are able to swim at the same time and several times they could swim due to |the number of people and just had to walk in the pool. ||If you are a dog family like us then your dog will love this place. It’s very dog friendly, huge amounts of space for walkies and there were so many dog bins and rubbish bins that we never saw any rubbish on site, it was very clean indeed. ||One thing to note if you stay anywhere near the lakes is that they have swans that live near the site and you can often see them with ducks swimming around. They had 2 baby swans with them when we stayed but this meant the mother and father swans were quite protective of anyone walking by them. We even had one trying to get our dog through the decking so we had to keep her inside until it left. ||We did visit wraysholme creamery which was a lovely short drive from the site and we had one of the best cheese toasties I have ever eaten. They also sell their own home made ice cream but sadly they didn’t have any flavours that we wanted to try. ||If you book with Haven they the do give you tips of what to bring with you so I won’t mention that here as it’s quite extensive but there were a couple of things/tips that I would definitely recommend:||Food|100% take whatever food you want with you and try to eat it the caravan if you can. You get to have what you want and it won’t cost you much whereas all I heard about the onsite food was that it was hit and miss and cost a lot of money. ||Don’t visit the Burger King on site! We went there for food and took it back to our caravan and it was one of the worst Burger Kings I have ever eaten. It cost over £35 for 3 of us and it was awful. ||There is a shop on site and it’s surprisingly well stocked and quite large. To be honest if you did forget things chances are they will have it at the shop but be prepared for it to cost you more. ||We didn’t visit the chip shop on site as we read so many bad reviews about it. Instead we read about a chip shop / Chinese food takeaway which is about 5-10 mins drive along a straight road. It is called flounders and was nice enough fish and chips.||Finally, many reviews mentioned about WiFi on site and mobile networks not working, well we had 3 iPhones with all of us on Vodafone and we had full 5G signals all over the park so I am not sure what networks people are on who complained they couldn’t...

Up and down

Location wise and in terms from a break from the real world its great, especially considering signal in area. Genuinely helps you detach from tech for a bit.

Caravan wise. There's some stains in the carpet in the lounge and on the sofa cushions which I'm assuming are too tough to tackle and some of the doors don't close plush so it's very loud when sharing with a family of 6 and doors are being opened and closed but the caravan lay out is lovely. The beds where comfy, and plenty of storage to unpack whilst away :)

Entertainment wise. It's OK. Guaranteed my boys are older now at 10 and 11 so kids club isn't exactly the top of their list but as far as options go there's the park outside which they used up until the last 2 days when it rained, no options inside apart from the arcade. My eldest put nearly all of his money in one of the claw machines and no luck, last time we won so many and upon telling the staff that they commented 'inflation' only to realise on the Thursday night every half an hour or so an attendant was re positioning the plushes and feeding one through the machine presumably to reset the counter. No wonder we didn't win anything. Still the boys where happy pottering about, entertaining their youngest cousin and returning to the van for some good old fashioned card games.

Swimming was great. It was organised well, clean and well kept and capacity was well managed. The hour was just enough and we paid for water skis and inflatable swim and my boys loved those extra activities. Only downside is that of my youngest. He was getting poked by an odd bit of plastic on a broken water ski and assumed this was normal and didn't tell anyone til half way through it was broken. Nobodies fault but could of done with an extra check as my 10 year old looked like he'd been cuddling an unfriendly cat by the end of the session aha!

Restaurant wise. The food we had was lovely and well thought out. Half the party is vegetarian and happy with the options. On Thursday night the chips where cold in the restaurant at the top but nobody checks if your food is OK and we couldn't see any staff so we just left the chips. But paying 80 odd pounds for a meal and drinks would of been nice to ask for hot chips.

Staff wise. Monday afternoon we had a table booked for 4.30 in the restaurant at the back. The lady at the desk to be seated was the first member of staff we had come across and first impression was not good. She was serving someone else and didn't think to say won't be a mo she almost just death stared us before very glumly finding us a table. She wasn't friendly or polite and didn't even smile I've been in hospitality 15 years so I know things can get stressful but I also know how important it is to fake it even if you're not having the best of days. She didn't however and upon being seated we all felt a bit awkward. There was Eden? I think in the pool on water ski day, she was so good with my boys! Very informative. There was a security guard tall fellow, Newcastle accent I think, did an impression of Queen (he should be on stage) great with both adults and kids and there was a person on the top restaurant on the Thursday night I don't want to offend in saying Australian maybe? But they were lovely! Really good asset to your team. There was also a couple of lads In the shop who were so friendly, over attentive and always smiling, definitely nice to have to take the edge off on site prices haha.

All in all caravan was worth the money as we booked a year in advance so always cheaper only wish we had insurance as a caravan was left empty as cancer hit the family. Things to do and options 7/10  food 8/10 staff 8/10 quality for money 8/10 cleanliness 9/10

To put probably my longest review ever into a nut shell. I've been coming to Haven Flookburgh since I was a little girl and been bringing my family since they were small also and although I love it for familiarities I think it may be time to try somewhere else next time. We had a lovely stay all in all and I thank everyone that made our...

Honestly, not great. Issues cropped up during a week long family stay we had recently in Flookburgh which unfortunately cemented my decision not to return here again. We arrived to the caravan after 5 (we'd been advised check in was between 4-5 and no earlier) we had been travelling all day in the car and arrived at 4.45 - right at the tail end of the allocated time. I admit that when we were given directions to our caravan they said it would have a green seal on the door when it was cleaned - we went in forgetting this and found paw prints on the bed, a dirty floor etc. The lady called round about half an hour later and said we shouldn't have gone in when the seal wasn't on the door - but if we're happy enough they would let us stay on in there without cleaning it for us. We were too exhausted to pack all our things back up again and leave for an undetermined amount of time so we said it was fine. However - if check out is strictly 10am then that leaves 6 hours to have prepped the caravan for the next arrivals, it's not really acceptable to give the time 4-5pm for check in and then not have cleaned it. Otherwise why have a check in time at all? If we had arrived at 4, were we honestly expected to sit there for over an hour to get access to the caravan? The activities are oversold and pretty underwhelming for the price and time you actually get to complete them. Most are rushed with uninterested staff members, just trying to get it over and done with. If you do stay here, id much sooner recommend trying water activities at the centres near Windermere etc and the wildlife experience/aquariums there too. Much more value for money and just, better really. Be prepared for absolutely no wifi or data access in the caravans, a nightmare trying to keep in touch with family members, keep up with important appointments etc. wifi/data works ok down at the entertainment/fun works area, but it wouldn't have killed them to set up a few masts so people can be connected while in their caravans. Sure, people do come to places like this to chill out and "get away from it all" but after paying over £1000 for 2 caravans, you would expect basic internet access. The irony is they encourage you in emails, posters all around the complex and posters in your actual caravan..to use the Haven app for online bookings, information, ordering food to the caravan etc. And yet it doesn't actually work! It was near impossible to arrange activities or anything for this reason and we missed the free pint/table booking for euros etc because of it. The place boasts itself as dog-friendly but that translates to "dogs can stay in the caravan and sit in/outside the restaurant" That's where the friendly part ends. There were two quiet, isolated grassy areas, far away from caravans, cars, people and anything else that might possibly clash with a dog chasing a ball. We thought that was brilliant because our dogs love running after the ball and need a good bit of exercise every day. The only other place nearby was the beach but rocks, quicksand and dodgy surfaces meant it was pretty much inaccessible to us. For the first few days we threw the ball for a few minutes and no one said a word. One of the last days, a security van pulled up outside and shouted that we weren't to let our dogs off-lead. I knew this was the case around the complex but as this grass was separated off from everything else, I didn't understand why this was such a problem. The man said because it was near caravans (it wasn't?) and near a golf course (which was actually half a mile round the corner) We complied and walked the dogs on lead the rest of the stay, but this was very disappointing. We had seen other dogs running there too, and it was a fun experience for all the dogs involved. Overall, it was alright for a cheap last minute break with a big group with the usual entertainment, amusements, ok swimming pool (very hard to book) but I definitely wouldn't be recommending it there are plenty of nice hotels and other caravan parks that seem to offer more than...