Moto Donington Park — Local services in North West Leicestershire

I wouldn't normally review a service station as they are usually average/underwhelming, however this is definitely worth a review!

Travelling with our 11 month old son, the first thing I noticed was how child friendly this service stop is!

There is ample parent and child parking right by the huge outdoor space to crawl around in, and the picnic benches to have lunch at.

The first thing I went for was the baby changing room. It was clean and spacious and the mobile above the changing table is a great idea which kept my little one busy as I changed him.

I usually travel well prepared with lunch and snacks for my little one, especially for long journeys and often with things that can be eaten cold, however the microwave available for all customers to use was such a pleasant surprise and meant my little one could have his corn on the cob and Spinach and cheese pie slightly warm!

The seating was plentiful and there were a range of high chairs including the well loved easy clean IKEA style high chair which was a great height for the table (which is not often the case!).

On top of all this, there was even a soft play area so my little one could stretch his legs and crawl before we continued with the next leg of our journey!! (the huge green space with a lake would have been great too had it not been slightly chiily today)

Other modern, functional and considerate benefits to the well layed out and designed service station (my design engineer fiance added this!), we noticed were cosy hubs with sockets and USB ports, as well as ports and plugs all around the seating areas. We enjoyed a coffee from Costa and there is also pret to choose from. Had I not prepped lunch, there were many options from Burger King, KFC, a pasty shop, WH Smith and M&S (which included microwave meals you could actually eat then and there using the microwave - which was pretty clean!). The travelodge Hotel also seems to be directly attached to the services which seems a clever and functional design.

I'm sure there are other creatively functional bits I missed, but all three of us left very happy - especially my little one who is now sleeping in the car as I...

Unfortunately we arrived on the evening that the moto services had a power cut. We were staying in the Travelodge and arrived and booked in. Got into the room and all the power went off. Unfortunately for us we had a disabled traveller, who was then stuck in the room. We had been travelling for 4 hours and needed food and all of the concessions had to close due to the power cut. I went down to reception and the two members of staff had no idea. No contingency plan and no plan of where we could get food. We were then stuck in our room with no food! After 4 hours travelling and a disabled traveller who was then confined to a room. I went down to the actual services to see if there was anybody managerial staff to help me in this situation. Everybody was running around like headless chooks no idea what to do. Where to go? There was no manager on duty. I couldn't find a manager. I didn't know where I was going to get food from. We were stuck in the room. I didn't know if I was going to be able to get my wife out of the room and the staff in the travel lodge were unhelpful. They didn't even know where we could get some food from. We spoke to somebody from burger king, a young man who was very helpful and gave us some information about Donington to get some food but was unaware of if they had had a power cut too. The garage was off so we couldn't go across to the garage and they thought it was just immediate area but he called a couple of restaurants/takeaways in donington and they didn't reply. So we would presume that they were off as well. There should be a manager on duty during this sort of emergency or somebody else should have stepped up for that position. So I await your reply in this matter and that some empathy training needs to be given to staff in an event of this power cut to alleviate the anxiety caused. I...

So many happy memories of this place. Went to Download Festival every year for 10 years from 2003 onwards but it was '05 when I started driving. 2005 at Download was the year of the long-drops and anybody who has had the opportunity to defecate in one of these will probably agree it's a more pleasant experience to drive a few minutes to the services and use the restroom there.

Not only that, there is a food court as well and while food at a festival is part of the experience, it's no fun being disappointed with the fare on offer before one has taken the first bite! In contrast, a salad from M&S is as welcomed as an oasis in the desert.

To add to the feeling of a jewel in M1 desert, behind the services, there's a nature park behind with a lot of benches for families to sit and have lunch, enjoy the sunshine (if available) and break up the journey a bit. Coronavirus prevention measures aren't too intrusive.

Finally, Donington Services are "between July 2020 and October 2020, Donington will be taking part in the "fuel price drop", where Moto have pledged to compete with local petrol stations". I didn't need to fill up but it's...