Haven, Thorpe Park Resort

Haven Thorpe Park Resort, Cleethorpes...

I would just like to start this post off by saying that I have previously stayed with Haven at their Seashore and Weymouth Bay Resorts and have absolutely loved them, I honestly couldn't find a single fault in either of these two locations and would happily go back to them.  This is what led us to book a long weekend at the Thorpe Park Resort in Cleethorpes.

Haven resorts have been perfect holiday breaks for our little family, the Caravans are the perfect set up for us as our baby has his own room and isn't disturbed when we watch TV in the evenings, there is lots of space, a separate bathroom, kitchen and living area.  You don't get all of that with a hotel room, in a hotel you are all crammed into one room watching the TV with minimal sound so its practically on mute whilst sitting in the dark and whispering so as not to disturb your sleeping child.

Because we have been so happy with the above two resorts we thought that we would try somewhere different and book up a seaside weekend break for my birthday.  When we was booking our trip we had the option of booking a Summer House, when we read the description for this it all sounded brilliant and worth the money, one of the main features that attracted us to the Summer House was the fact the Haven website stated many of our summer houses come with a verandah (see picture taken from their website).  This sounded perfect as it would give our little boy some outside space to play on safely and would give us somewhere to sit outside and have a drink and relax in the evenings when he was in bed.  We booked this up online and then called up the next day to confirm this and make sure we would defiantly get a verandah, we was told that a note had been made on their system and that they guaranteed we had one.

When we arrived at the Summer House located in the Waterside section of the park we was absolutely gutted to see that we was the only Summer house in our row to not have a verandah.  Once we had got our bags inside I called up the reception and said there must have been  mixup, I was told there was no mixup and that in fact no Summer Houses on their site had verandahs and if we wanted one of those we had to pay to upgrade to a Prestige Caravan.  I quoted what the website stated, also relayed my telephone conversation to them and also said I could quite clearly see that every one of the Summer Houses in our row had a Verandah but they just wasn't interested and really did not want to help, tired from a long car journey I gave up trying to argue with them.

I had also paid to hire a travel cot for my baby, this was not in the Summer House when we arrived, I called reception again and was assured it would be delivered to us no later than 6pm as that is when reception closes.  6pm came and there was still no travel cot and reception was now closed and my child was falling asleep with no bed to sleep in.  I called the out of office reception number at 6.30pm and asked where the travel cot was, a very rude and abrupt lady answered and basically told me it would be with me when it was with me and to just wait!  I was shocked and disgusted to be spoken to in this way for an error that was quite clearly theirs and not mine, 10 minutes later this lady turned up with the travel cot but didn't say two words to me, she just handed it over and walked off.  Terrible customer facing skills.

When we started to unpack we discovered that there was a ladies pair of shoes left in the wardrobe, it obviously hadn't been cleaned or checked by the cleaning team as there was no way they would have been missed if it had been.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, the next day, after cooking my son some pasta, I went to drain it using the colander in the kitchen to find it was covered in mould (picture attached).  How can anyone think that leaving a mouldy kitchen utensil out for other people to use is acceptable? If I had not spotted this and used it my baby could have become seriously ill.  When I checked the rest of the cutlery and utensils it was clear none of them had been washed up, they had all been put away dirty.  The spoons had dried up tea on them, the plates and bowls still had food stuck to them and the glasses had lip marks on, I had to go and buy washing up liquid and wash everything properly before we could use them.

                 

 


In the bedroom that our son was staying in the curtain pole was hanging off and only attached at one end, it was the same in the living room (pictures attached).  I called the reception who said they would send the maintenance team round to fix it, they did fix the bedroom but ignored the living room.  If my son had pulled on this it would have come right down and smacked him on the head, it was a huge health and safety offence that could have been very dangerous.

           

There was also dried food stuck to the ceiling of the caravan and the door in the kitchen (pictures attached).  The caravan was filthy and clearly had not been cleaned at all.

 


We also had to call the maintenance team out again as the TV was broken and only worked on one station.

It took us 3.5 hours to drive to the resort from where we live, checking out of the resort and going home wasn't an option as there is no way we could have made our baby sit in the car all that time again to go home.  As we have never been to the area before we had no idea where any other accommodation was situated so we decided to make the best of an awful situation and clean the Summer House ourself.

When we got home I complained about my experience to Haven.  I had to wait 14 days for them to look into this, I told them that I either wanted a full refund or a replacement holiday to make up for the awful one we had just had.  When I received my reply from Haven I was offered £50 refund and told that because we stayed on site and didn't leave to go home that was the best they could do and that they would look into the cleaning teams work, also that they could find no where on their website that stated the Summer Houses had verandahs, they didn't even mention my telephone call to their call centre where it was confirmed we would have one!  I phoned the number on the letter and said I was not happy with this and was told that it would be looked into further and to wait another 7 days.  After another 7 days I was then given a final offer of 25% of the holiday cost back.  I honestly feel like this is a joke of an offer.  The Haven website should not state that they have a certain type of accommodation if this isn't true, its false advertising.  I feel like we was cheated out of a holiday that we had booked for my birthday and that was meant to be special because of their lack of care and attention.

Being a full time mummy and only having one income coming into our household means that our holidays take a while to save up for and when we finally book and go on one we expect it to be perfect and everything we hoped for and more.  I can honestly say this holiday was an absolute nightmare and I wish we had never gone.  A total waste of our money and we will not be returning or recommending this resort to anybody.

To anyone considering staying at the Thorpe Park Resort in Cleethorpes, TOTALLY AVOID!!!

V x