Parkdean Resorts White Cross Bay Holiday Park, Windermere — Hotel in Great Britain

Arriving at 15:30pm the entrance was full of cars and no directions to a parking area to wait until check-in. so like everyone else, I sat in the car whilst my wife went into reception. We were told to wait until 4pm on the dot and park in the park somewhere. Well it was chaos so we sat where we were and waited until 4pm. Unfortunately a coach then pulled in and blocked everyone as he had no where to go for about 15 minutes. Parkdean – Re-think your signage and check-in process for the love of god, others have reported the same issue. Once we got our keys and the blocked entrances were opened up again. The caravan was located in an area of the park called Calgarth park, which I thought was strange as id booked one called Thirlmere which was on the other side of the park… We opened the door to find a completely different layout, design and features to the one we booked online, as you can see. Its still a very nice caravan but totally different and one we would not have purchased for a break as it was on par with haven, whom are a lot cheaper might I add. No gas/electric fire No Ensuite Master bedroom was cramped and the bed springs were very present during sleep. The pictured displayed a nicely furnished master bedroom with plenty of room. No Towels (Haven gives you towels….) no oven gloves Kitchen was missing a whole section of cupboards compared to the pictures Bathroom bins had no bags in. Extremely scraped non stick frying pan which should be tossed as it’s a danger to health. Hole in one of the walls A lot less homely features as the picture shows (Cold colours and a couple of plastic plants) No tray to cook on. Just a glass dish and mini tray rack for 1 piece of toast. (the oven took 1 hour to cook defrosted chips on the max setting. Fridge didn’t seem to have enough power to keep food and a cold temperature. It was just cool. Overlooking bins and construction area. These are all things I’d expect from a cheap Haven holiday, not from Parkdean and the price we paid. 10 minutes after realising we had the wrong caravan, (or so we thought) my wife rang the reception and explained we have the wrong caravan, all the differences and we are also not in the part of the park we booked (Thirlmere). There must have been a mistake. The receptionist informed us that it was the right caravan and the website pictures are just for illustrative purposes. Seems misleading to me. She also mentioned that the name of the caravan we were in means nothing as it was part of the variety of Thirlmere caravans in the park. I don’t believe a word. Why would you name something on the website the same category as a section of the park? The receptionist then mentioned that the to other caravans in the park that are in the Thirlmere category and taken and we would only be able to down grade if we wanted. As we booked through Hoseasons we were unable to resolve the issue without involving them. So we rang, explained and after being on hold for a minute whilst they rang Parkdean to corroborate their story, we were told the same thing and that we were put through to complaints who may ring us back that eve or morning. No call was received that evening and Hoseasons lines closed at 5pm, how pointless. After a sleepless night on the springy bed in the cramped bed cupboard.. I mean bedroom. We rang Hoseasons at 10:30am to see what the progress was with out complaint. We were greeted by a mardy young male stating we hadn’t given them long enough and they’ll ring us. Not very professional. Sometime after that we received a call from a gentleman who’s job was obviously to make us go away. All he said was that no refunds or gestures of good-will will be given and that we can do nothing. After telling him a few more things I then realised that he was pretty much reading a script and waiting for me to put the phone down. I did. In other words they are a big company and have our money and don’t care about the misleading pictures and description of there accommodation and can get away with anything they want as its...

Avoid at all costs. (Costs that will increase without notification, resulting in a cancelled holiday should you not be aware )

Had nothing but problems with Parkdean resorts and white cross bay. Listed below are the reasons I have taken to forums to make others aware before booking.

Firstly the price you are shown and pay is not necessarily the price they will charge you. I paid my balance in full 5 days before the day due to travel, 2 days before travelling I received an email stating that my holiday will be cancelled should I not pay the outstanding balance immediately. It turns out they had changed their price after I booked and were now pursuing me for an “ outstanding balance “. I had to pay the outstanding balance in order to make sure they didn’t cancel my holiday ( which I would of lost full cost of because of the short notice period ) After 3 weeks of speaking with 5 customer service reps I still have not had a resolution. I have been advised a refund for the falsified amount was made but 2 weeks later it has still not been received.

Shoddy condition of the accommodation made it unfit to stay in, meaning we cut our holiday a full day short. 3 night stay, upon arrival found a puddle of water in the kitchen around the bottom of a radiator. A maintenance van happened to be outside the next cabin, so I called him over and explained the situation to which he said he would have it looked at. Went for food and returned later that evening to find the puddle gone. Attempted to operate the heating and the boiler didn’t seem to want to work, wether this was to do with the leaking radiator or not I do not know, but this left the cabin very cold. Attempting to get a shower in the evening proved eventful, the shower head holder had broken loose, meaning you had to hold the shower head with one hand above your head to try and get a shower. The full family went to bed and found that the bed sheets are enormous compared to the tiny thin blankets inside of them. All 5 of our family found that we were chattering our teeth holding onto a thin sheet for warmth. We discussed this the next morning with front of house staff at reception and was told it would be rectified. Nothing got fixed other than the pool of water around the radiator. We left Sunday morning and cut our holiday a day and night short and could not wait to return home.

Upon returning home I was sent an email asking how our vacation was, in which I listed all of the above. From this I have been passed from Amber to Caitlyn to Emma to Richard and back and forth between. Upon constant chasing, Richard has today informed me that they cannot confirm I raised these grievances whilst on site, although repairs were made on the radiator which makes it evident they were, and that because of this they will not investigate any further and wish me the best going forward. Bare in mind at this time, not only have basic requirements of accommodation not been met, as in a warm, heated, comfortable bed, bedding and the availability of a proper shower, I have been overcharged and held to ransom for further payments, and threatened with cancellation of the holiday.

For Parkdean resorts to even consider acknowledging that they tried to overcharge, they asked for evidence of the price shown that I agreed to pay. Luckily enough I had taken a screenshot, should I have not had this they would of dismayed my claim as they are dismaying the horrid conditions they have overcharged me for.

After reading through Parkdeans responses to previous negative reviews it is safe to say no resolution will be offered by them and a wittingly sarcastic response shall follow. If you are reading this I imagine you already have your suspicions and for that I would refer you to Parkdean resorts complaints Facebook page, a forum set up wholly to bring to light how disgustingly poor and untrustworthy they are.

Will now seek to pursue reimbursement in a small...

After coming to this site for the past 9 years, this year will be our last. We stayed with our new born baby and toddler. ||The lodge it's self was not very clean, there was rubbish left in the bathroom bin at the front door and dirty towels hanging up in the bedroom when we arrived. There was also a broken plate outside of the lodge. ||When we arrived at the lodge, there was no travel cots or high chair which I had paid for in advance. I inconveniently went back to the recption and qued again to ask.||I also was disappointed to find it as struggle to fit the cots into the bedrooms or the sitting room. I did tell reception this and they offered for us to move to another lodge but it would have been smaller than the one we were given. Therefore I moved the beds and you will be able to see from the picture I have attached not only the muck but a huge knife! ||The kick board in the kitchen was broken,  everytime you opened and closed the dishwasher it fell off. My 1 year old son also touched it and it fell on him. When I reported to reception they sent the maintenance team out pretty quick. The lad stated he fixed it, I asked him if my son touched it again would it fall. He then reluctantly asked his colleague to pass him the screws, so he obviously had not fixed it. When I looked in the guest book in the lodge I could see this issue had already been reported but not fixed previously. ||In the living room there is a small table, I used this and the top fell off. As you can see from the pictures its been poorly 'glued' on. ||On the first day, the hot tub was not hot, I didnt complain about this as I know sometime when you arrive some where it might take a bit of time to heat up if it has been cleaned ect. But it was still not working the next morning, the lads came to have a look and said the pumps werent working and said they would get a hot tub engineer out. He came out after 2 hours (after telling reception he would be there within the hour) he advised it was in the wrong mode. The hot tub did heat up but half of the pumps still did not work. Park dean will respond and say they offered us another lodge, however it was up 2 flights of stairs, I am unable to carry a double pushchair up and down. And who wants to move lodges when they are on holiday and have 2 small children?  ||There was 3 broken chairs (out of 6) on the decking and one around the side of the lodge. I actually can't believe when I told reception they informed me that you were already aware of the furniture being broken and we're in talks with the owners. I'm so glad I noticed and checked all of the chairs before allowing my toddler or myself with my baby to sit on them. || ||I did speak to the manager when we were at the site and she stood and agreed with everything we said. We were offered 20% of the holiday back. Still waiting for the refund which I was told on the 26th May it would take 3-5 days. ||We stayed Monday - Friday outside of school holidays and we're unable to use the swimming pool on the Monday and Friday. There was no entertainment scheduled until the Thursday. This was not an issue for us but I did hear several people complaining in reception that they were not aware of this. ||It's such a shame the site as gone down hill and the manager clearly...