Parkdean Resorts Manor Park Holiday Park, Norfolk — Hotel in King's Lynn and West Norfolk

Our first stay at this resort was from Fri 12/08/22 to Mon15/08/22 & was booked through Hoseasons. We booked a Hummingbird caravan & given a check in time of 4pm by Hoseasons by email & also by Park Dean. We arrived at the park went straight to the caravan to find it was a mess & had not been cleaned. We reported the issue to the reception to be told that Hoseasons had misinformed us, that check ins were from 5pm onwards. A new freezer was being installed in the caravan so we had to wait for this to be done, then had to wait over an hour for the caravan to be cleaned. When we returned home enquired about the check in time with yourselves to find that the check in time was in fact 4pm so we had been lied to by the reception team. We were so happy with the Hummingbird that we immediately booked to stay in October directly with Park Dean in a Hummingbird. Our second stay was from Fri 14/10/22 to Mon 17/10/22 Again, booked a Hummingbird. After we had checked in online, we received our caravan details which stated we had a complimentary upgrade to a Redhead. We arrived at the caravan, we found that the Redhead was nowhere near the quality or spec of a Hummingbird. The Redhead had more beds which were not required, narrower hallways less space in the kitchen & lounge areas. There was one TV which was not a modern spec like what we had previously in the Hummingbird i.e. no online connectivity for Netflix etc, there were no baking trays, it looked & felt dated & was not what we booked. We also found quite a lot of pubic hairs covering the base of the shower. We arrived after 6pm, we were unable to speak to reception to resolve the issue so planned to speak with them in the morning. Saturday I spoke with the manager Chloe about the issues to which I was told that she could not understand why we had been given the upgrade as there was no comments on the booking. She also told me that we could not be moved to a Hummingbird as there were none available. I challenged the spec of the Redhead compared with the Hummingbird to be told that the previous Hummingbird we had was a private rental & that’s why the facilities were better & modern, we weren't aware of this as we had booked through a holiday company. She said that there was an Eagle caravan available but would have to pay an extra £100 as it was a higher spec. I challenged that as they were able to give us a complementary upgrade to the Redhead (costing £70 as per our email), why could they not give us the same complementary upgrade as we had not received what we had booked. Chloe’s response was that she, nor her boss, had the authority to grant that request and that “we” would have to speak with customer relations to sort it out. We spoke to Tanya who is part of the customer relation’s team she couldn’t understand why Chloe had informed us that there was no Hummingbird available as she was looking at one on the system as we spoke. Tanya then tried several attempts to get hold of Chloe on reception. After about 45 minutes she did. Tanya rang us to confirm she had arranged for us to be moved later that day. When we finally were able to go to the new van we could clearly see we hadn't been upgraded previously the Hummingbird again was fabulous. Unfortunately, there seems to be an issue with some of the reception teams customer service, problem solving, attitudes & behaviours. I understand & appreciate that problems will arise & not everything runs smooth but it’s how you deal with the issues that defines the reputation of the business. Tanya listened to our concerns reacted. We let the 1st mishap go regarding the check in times. We queried this to customer service but we never complained. After this stay we felt we had the right to complain to Park Dean. We sent an email to Head office & have since had a reply basically thanking us for our feedback and thats it. No we will be back in touch, now are terribly sorry nothing. Just totally fobbed off. I’m really disappointed this is how Park Dean treat their customers. This would have become a regular holiday...

Stayed for a week Monday to Monday in late June of 2023. We stayed in the Chaffinch caravan in Kensington.

Accommodation: •Was clean for our standard •Only a little bit of dust in hard to see areas, E.g. above bedside storage, behind tv, lampshade, mainly places you wouldn’t think of dusting, but we weren’t too fussed. Everything else was clean. •I slept in the double bed which was comfy to sleep in, no issues sleeping. •I liked how the accommodation we stayed in had extra cooking utensils, and random bits the average household had. I was quite shocked as of how much there was. It was quite impressive. •The shower in the bathroom had really good pressure and the temperature was good, easily changeable. •We had a veranda on our caravan, which was lovely and the seating with the table was quite modern and also clean. It was nice to sit out on the veranda in the evening. •One issue we had was that some doors didn’t lock shut properly, the mechanism doesn’t click, then the door comes back open a crack. We weren’t too fussed but this potentially could annoy some people. •Only bigger issue with the accommodation would be the WiFi, we had problems connecting a few times and it wasn’t too great. I contacted the support team which were understanding and tried to fix our problem, but not at the same time, I only got 1 email a day, and no response for up to a few hours to over a day, And that was to resolve one question, there was about 4 questions and answers. By the time we found the issue, we were about to leave the next day. I would suggest having an around the clock support team working from 6am-10pm at least Monday to Friday for any customer inconvenience. Personally no one should be waiting almost a week for a resolution, it should be resolved within a few hours over the phone from experienced team members. We found the WiFi packaging cost was a bit pricey for us. Especially for only 20Mbps, we pay not much more at home for 200mbps. I would suggest improving the connectivity and speed between devices and lowering the cost. But other than that the accommodation was great, support team wasn’t, WiFi wasn’t a big issue, we just needed our devices to work for some planning.

The Hub: •we found the hub quite nice and quaint, a few arcades, a few coin machines and an ATM (which isn’t free, £1.50 for withdrawal), not much there but we weren’t surprised considering it’s Hunstanton, it’s not Haven or Butlins. We did like the quietness as when it’s too busy it ruins the peaceful atmosphere. •The food menu for the Hub was your bog standard English food, which was okay. We only had lunch there once as we ate in town other days, we found the menu quite lacking in variety, but the food was quite tasty, better than expected. We’re quite picky with our food so we like a variety. But if you’re not like us, then it shouldn’t be an issue. They have a bar which isn’t too bad, serve your usual alcohol and what not, and an entertainment stage for the children, not massive but the children like it so that’s what matters. I like how the staff are involved with keeping the children entertained. We popped in for bingo night to check out what was happening, completely different atmosphere, it changes completely from morning and midday to evening. •Also to note the Launderette which they have is helpful, it only has two washing machines and two dryers, there could be more. But other than that they were great and did the job.

Park atmosphere: •we found the park to be very clean and tidy, nice cut grass, some nice shrubs and colourful plants, really helps the atmosphere seem more lively and colourful. •Was very quiet during the week but picked up a lot from Friday-Sunday morning. We stayed far back in the park in Kensington so fortunately we didn’t hear much at all, we did come back into the park late evening and there was a few people being a bit loud but what’s to expect on weekend evening? Luckily we didn’t hear anything near us.

Would definitely go again, and would definitely recommend. Good...

If you want a quiet holiday do not stay in the first row on Hampton. Especially DO NOT stay on Hampton 26. This caravan is directly opposite the sites works/maintenance depot and we were woken EVERY morning in the week around 6.45a.m. with the staff starting their day at 7a.m. Cars pulling onto gravel forecourt from 6.40a.m. Wheelie bins dragged along tarmac road as early as 7.10a.m. Noise on this pitch getting worse as the day goes on, we couldn't really enjoy a nice relaxing minute on our decking with mowers, site vans, delivery lorries, etc continually in and out all day, up to 3/4p.m.. Not unlike having a 'council' run depot directly across, large tractors, sit on mowers, parks own vehicles, etc and on one particular morning we had a biffa skip truck bringing, moving around and taking away big heavy metal skips just a few metres away from our caravan. This delivery driver started shuffling these skips around at 7.10a.m. Surely Parkdean are a big enough organisation to be able to ask Biffa not to go on leisure complex sites until at the very least 8 a.m. Totally unacceptable. This works depot isn't shown on their map of the park, nor can you find any mention of this on website. I spoke to a member on the reception a few days before our visit, paying an extra £20 to actually move to this pitch, not knowing about the works site. I was not made aware of this either by the member of staff, so had no idea this depot even existed. Caravan nice. Clean. But it's location was unbearable in that we were woken before 7.00a.m. every day and this affected all the caravans at least on the first row going down from Hampton 26 towards reception. Can't be sure how far this unacceptable noise permiated back across other rows. If we had been made aware of the position of this pitch at time of booking we would obviously not have made the decision to stay here. Despite complaining about all this early morning awakening to the manageress (Sadie), having given a few days to see if things would calm down, it was confirmed by her that normal working hours are 7a.m. to 4p.m. and we were told most emphatically by her that we would NOT be receiving any refund for our distress and that we could have asked for a quiet pitch at time of booking. Since there was no way of knowing before we arrived on the pitch that this depot was even there then how were we to know it would become a very noisy, busy pitch to be on. We were told by her that she would look into moving us to another pitch but it would have just been another added upset having to pack away everything we had in caravan to have to unpack for a few more days in another van to have to re pack on leaving. Not really a solution nor compensation. Having been asked by her to leave during our meeting with her we came away feeling it was a complete waste of time and receiving no empathy or sympathy from her for our situation whatsoever. We are most certainly not in our graves yet but at 69 years and 78 years we were just wanting a nice quiet, peaceful 7 days away, instead we paid not an inconsiderable amount of money for time away that was not at...