A long weekend at Center Parcs Woburn Forest, England with kids; * ad pr invite

Staycation

1 Feb

We live pretty close to the newest UK Center Parcs which is Woburn Forest but I can’t believe we’d never been before. I have such fond memories of going to Center Parcs as a child. They really are so brilliant for kids! In late September we absolutely lucked out with crisp autumn weather after a very stormy week & we picked Freya up from school with a fully packed car and were there, ready to start a long weekend of fun 40 minutes later. Some honest thoughts on our trip;

The check in procedure is straight forward, you can only drive in to unload at certain check in times to avoid cars around the site with all the kids/bikes etc.
We took the kids balance bikes with us and hired bikes for ourselves there with a trailer but actually didn’t use bikes there as much as I thought we would. The site is small but hilly and there are quite a few areas that don’t allow cycling.
I’d heard that the lodges were fairly basic but we were pleasantly surprised. They’re not luxurious but they were new enough, comfortable, surrounded by forest and very clean. We had a two bed, two bath lodge. We ended up pushing the kids beds together so they didn’t fall out as they’re quite high.
Take extra tea towels with you & soap/shower gels. We had a food package as part of our booking but if we hadn’t I’d have taken more of a bigger shop with us.
We did take some dinner with us for the first night so we could max out on swimming when we got there. It was so quiet on a Friday around dinner time as everyone else is busy checking in or going to restaurants.
The pool area is amazing! Indoor lazy river, water slides and splash areas for babies and kids of all ages, outdoor rapids.
We took puddle jumpers for our kids but they did actually have lots of float vests to borrow by the pools
They have lots of seats, a snack bar and Starbucks in the pool area. It’s a huge tropical dome filled with plants. Swimming is all unlimited and no need to book time slots.
huge credit for whoever thought to install the heated floors in the changing areas. It made getting changed with kids so much easier to not worry about getting wet socks when getting changed, the floors dried instantly! The locker system was easy to use too. We don’t go swimming in the UK much with our kids but this just all felt so easy and they absolutely loved it. Could hardly get them away from the pirate ship water slide bit!
Book activities in advance. I think it opens around 90 days in advance and they do get booked up. We did Off Road explorers, driving 4x4 mini cars which the kids adored and a crazy science class which was an hour long and packed so many fun experiments in, it was really engaging.
On the Saturday morning we were booked into try the very impressive Aqua Sana spa, I know lots of friends who have been to Center Parcs solely for this spa so I was excited to experience it. It has over 25 different zones, we loved the salt and crystal rooms and various different saunas and relaxation areas. The outdoor pool surrounded by the forest was so dreamy. Center Parcs had booked our children into a wizard academy class whilst we were in there and they can be hesitant of going to things like that but they honestly had the best time ever! I was really impressed with the staff who were there and who ran the crazy science, both older than you might imagine childcare to be at a place like that but I actually emailed compliments about both of them to management after. So great to have an Ofsted registered childcare option if you want to steal away a bit of adult time to use the spa. They have different activities for the childcare on different days, the chocolate making sounded fun also.
I think the only thing I didn’t love was our meal in Las Iguanas, we probably just chose wrong but it wasn’t great. There are lots of restaurants to choose from and again worth booking ahead of time. There’s also a mini supermarket on site and coffee shops etc.
The playgrounds were fun, particularly the big one behind the swimming complex. These were great on Sunday morning as the pool complex doesn’t open until 10am. Which is late if you have early risers like us ha.
It was perfect for a long weekend. I think we’d have possibly got a little bored for any longer there without spending loads on activities. It’s a fairly small site. I know lots of people who find it great for a place to go as a big group and the bigger lodges certainly work out better value by sharing them.
It is obviously expensive particularly in school holidays, the price difference in term time is huge. We ended up going home on Sunday night to get back for school on the Monday. We didn’t feel we missed too much doing this as you have to check out on Monday morning anyway but obviously you could check out of the lodge but then stay later to use the facilities if you had Monday to play with. But even for just 2 nights we packed loads in and made so many lovely family memories.
They do have baby sensory classes but most of the really fun stuff starts from age 3 towards so I was glad my son was 3 when we visited. Something to maybe bear in mind if you have an 18 month/2 year old perhaps who might be in between.