Parkdean Resorts Sandy Bay Holiday Park, Northumberland — Hotel in Great Britain

Sandy Bay - Park Dean is an ok caravan park. But here are the NEGATIVES and POSITIVES to help people decide if it is the right park for them:

• NEGATIVES *

1. Many of the caravans DO NOT have a concrete parking space at the side of the caravan, so several small car parks are scattered around the park. This means that you may need to haul your luggage over the grassed areas that surround each caravan, which could be wet and muddy if it's been raining. Many of caravans have quite a bit of space between them, so it's a great shame that the park has not provided each caravan with its own parking space. Driving over the grassed areas is not permitted, but some people did it and I don't blame them.

2. The roads that guide you to the various zones and exits is a bit crazy. The road markings are worn out in some areas and seem wrongly placed, resulting in driver confusion. The one way system is a pain as getting to the exit from my caravan involved a 1-2 mile tour of the park! If I broke the rules and drove just 100 meters the wrong way I would have reached the exit in about 15 seconds! Not only would I have reached the exit quicker, I would have saved 1-2 miles worth of petrol and reduced environmental pollution! Something the park should consider.

3. The caravan was nice and modern, however, the seating in the lounge looked a little dirty and smelt a bit. But a quick blast with some Antibacterial Fabric Spray sorted the smell and any hygiene issues overnight.

4. The shower head mounting pole in the caravan was broken and falling to bits, so getting the shower head to stay in position was difficult.

5. The double bedroom in my 8 berth extra wide caravan was very cramped, with only about 10 inches each side of the bed. This made getting in and out of bed quite difficult.

6. The bathroom in my caravan was ok, but it had a 6 to 7 inch deep cabinet directly above the sink, so it was easy to whack your head on it when having a wash!

7. Sandy Bay is not a good area if you have a mobile phone that uses the Vodafone or Asda Mobile network, as the signal is poor. It's seems ok for O2 though. With Free Wi-Fi on-site this should not be a problem anyway.

8. Many of the tourist attractions (National Trust, Angel of the North, Beamish Museum, Alnwick Castle) are a fair distance away from Sandy Bay, so be prepared to drive upto 40 miles if you plan to visit them.

• POSITIVES *

1. When I arrived my caravan was ready. The woman working in the small reception cabin was nice and friendly. She gave me my keys and plotted a route on a paper map to show my caravans location.

2. The WHOLE of the caravan park has Wi-Fi access. You need to create an account, but once done, you have the option to have a FREE 2 Mbps service or a much faster service for a fee. You may need to log into your account daily to keep using the free service, but this takes seconds to do.

3. My caravan (8 berth extra wide) was modern and of good standard. It had everything I needed, including a good sized shower, 2 toilets, good heating system with heated bathroom towel rail, a 32" TV with DVD player, and a full sized 7ft tall fridge/freezer!

4. The park is located as near to the sea as it could possibly be! It also has a good beach for walking, but be very careful of the tide as it comes all the way in leaving little sand.

5. By looking at the provided map, the onsite facilities include a swimming pool, fish & chip shop, amusement arcade, showbar, bar & restaurant, Nisa store, launderette, outdoor sports court, and ice cream stall (near beach). However, I did not use or explore any of these, so, cannot comment on them.

6. The park was fairly peaceful and quiet...

This is honestly the worst holiday I’ve ever had, and I’ve been coming here for 10 entire years.

Just to sum this up to get the scale of just what you will be losing, we spend approximately 2 grand every single year on a two week holiday, where four of our family come and join us in separate caravans… That is around 8 grand spent every year. Not anymore.

Firstly I’d like to start on the manager of the park who spoke to us like we were a piece of dirt on the bottom of his shoe. In fact, that would probably get better treatment. Do not speak to us like we are stupid, we are a respectable family and do NOT deserve the Treatement you have gave us.

Secondly, to the woman who decided to come off of her break to interrupt a conversation with the receptionist at the park, who also spoke to us like we were toddlers. Stay on your break, we did not want to speak to you especially when you spoke to us in the manner you did. We are not stupid.

To all those who are reading this review. I would like to invite you to understand the various acts this caravan park has broken during our stay.

The Consumer Rights Act

For us booking a top of the range Newstead caravan to be downgraded without our knowledge, not receiving the money back and not a single apology.

The Equality Act

For the fact we were placed in the exact same caravan last year. The reason we booked an entirely different caravan was because my brother who does suffer from autism associated the last caravan we had with our family dog who passed away. But to add insult to injury, it was the exact same caravan we had last year, how did we know this? We accidentally left a dish drainer which park dean had decided to keep in the caravan for all to use. How cheap?!❤️

Furthermore… your power outages were wrongly handled, when we were in the club my brother and some of my older cousins were in the arcade. The power went out, which lead him to have a state of panic and distress. DO NOT, tell me that I cannot go collect my brother, he means the world to me, Me being me, I went anyway, but if I was further refused I kid you not I would tear that disgrace of a park apart with my bare hands.

Also… a 30 pound voucher for the restaurant that serves god awful greasy food for the 300 pounds of food I had ruined in the power outage, which lasted around 17 hours.

The entire park was full of anti social behaviour, I have never seen as many large groups of teenage boys roam round in their montirex sets, balaclavas, launching stones at caravans, starting fights and peering into cars and through people’s windows. Quite frankly, I refused to let any member of my family walk alone, this was entirely dangerous, what was worse is the lack of security, they must’ve cut the costs from the security and staff department to open up two food shacks which always miraculously ran out of food. What an absolute joke honestly.

Also don’t drink from the taps, you will end up with Cryptosporidium.

To add onto this, a full complaint was written from each member of my family and we only got a sorry, I hope they acknowledge this one properly, as this is getting sent onto every single reviewing platform I can find. I just want to warn every single person to steer clear from this god awful park, find somewhere else and have the best holiday you can, because this clearly is not the place to enjoy yourself, whether that be to relax or have fun… because genuinely we did not have either of...

My Wife and I have just returned from a 5 day holiday trip here. I honestly wish we could have stayed another week. The location is easy enough to get to by car, not sure about public transport. Upon arrival, we were greeted at the reception by a very friendly and cheerful lady who made our booking in easy. She gave us a map of the site and showed us our caravan (404) easy to drive to with ample parking available. Our caravan was on the 1st row towards the car parking area so we didn't encounter too much mud.

Upon getting in, we were greeted with a lovingly sized caravan, beautifully presented and very clean. Has everything you need from plates to utensils, brushes and iron. A big fridge/freezer, plenty of storage space. You can instantly feel the comfort upon entering. We had a look around the caravan, 2 very clean toilets, a walk in shower, a lovely double bed in 1 room and 2 single beds in another room. The heating worked great and it was very comfortable with lots of lights to help create a warm atmosphere. You even turn up or down the brightness if you want.

The double bed was very spacious and very comfortable! Had 5 great nights sleep. Very clean sheets with plenty of spares.

There are plenty of ammendments on site from fish and chips to arcades and launderette. A shop too. The restaurant on site is lovely and clean. The staff were very pleasant and friendly. Prices were fair too. We didn't attend the events on site but we played alot of arcades. The arcade staff were very helpful and friendly throughout our visit.

The site overall is very maintained with absolutely no rubbish or trash anywhere. Very quiet and cosy.

The only, only gripe I have is the WiFi is very poor inside and mobile data is really poor around the area so consider that if you decide to come to stay. The WiFi towers outside are great when you are outside but in the caravans, we didn't get any signal at all and gave up trying to connect. The caravan had an RJ45 LAN port but didn't seem to work when I tried linking it to the smart TV inside.

Overall we would definitely come back as we loved every single minute of it

5*

Edit (28th April 2025 - 2nd May 2025) We came back to SandyBay for another 5 days as we enjoyed our 1st holiday here. We were given the exact same caravan as last year (404) which was reallyfunny. Still equally as nice as last year. Caravan clean and maintained just as before. Parkdean have upgraded the WiFi on-site as I now get WiFi inside the caravan so that's a bonus. Had trouble last year with the WiFi which was a minor inconvenience. That has been rectified. We had some food on-site on our 1st day which was a let down. The fish and chips I ordered were nice but my partner's Haloumi, chips and coleslaw were disappointing. She said the Haloumi was dry, chips were cold and coleslaw looked like the cabbage was rotting slightly. Took over an hour from order to getting our food, and it wasn't busy either. We didn't go back after our 1st day.

The arcades have changed a bit, still plenty to play but the 2p machine prizes aren't as good this time around.

There is a new burger eatery on-site called Thunderbird Chicken. We unfortunately didn't get a chance to try as when we fancied trying, it wasn't open.

Everything else is exactly as before which is highly appreciated. So overall, still 5* and we'll definitely come back again. Hopefully get 404 again for...