We pre-booked a family holiday at this park through The Sun Holidays scheme last July. We timed the holiday as a little family break, but mainly for my daughter and her hubby as they had just had a baby at the time.
We asked for accommodation that was disabled friendly and that was as near to the main facilities (clubhouse/pool/shop) as possible, as my other daughter has difficulty walking and has to use crutches due to Lupus, but was told that the only places that were on one level were the gold apartments and these were only for 'Saturday to Saturday' bookings and were not available for 'Sun' customers, even though I offered to pay the additional costs.
Instead we were given a 3 bedroom house at the very top of the site and at the peak of a very steep hill, which meant driving up and down the site each time we wanted to use any facilities of the park.
In the accommodation we were allocated, there was a bedroom on the ground floor (which was covered in mould), but my daughter still had to negotiate the stairs to use the bathroom upstairs, so this was no help at all.
When my daughter with the baby went to move the single beds together for her husband and herself and to make room for the travel cot, she was confronted by rubbish from previous occupants and more mould.
When the maintenance men came out fix the electrics (as most of the lights went working) and attend to other repairs, they told us that they were embarrassed by the state of the state of the places and that the accommodation block we were staying in was being used for 'the Sun Customers' as these older houses and bungalows were due to be knocked down, due to the whole site being regenerated and that they were milking the last bit of money from them before they were demolished.
We were told that the new places were beautiful apartments with top of the range facilities including flat screen TV's, electric showers and dishwashers - whereas we had tiny portable TV with no reception, a shower over the bath and a washing up bowl!!!
I was really peeved at being told we has basically been segregated just because of being on a cheap Sun holiday deal. We have been on numerous Sun Holidays before and never been treated or made to feel anything other than a 'normal' full paying customer and have always had an acceptable level of accommodation - to be put in places that were uninhabitable and condemned was shocking.
My main concern was the health implications to my newborn grandson and daughters, so we put in a complaint about the state of the place on the first day, but was told the cleaners had gone home so it was to late to do anything that afternoon, but we at least got some of the repairs done.
We repeated our request to have the walls cleaned again the next day, as we all had breathing trouble overnight due to the mould spores and they sent someone round to have the mould cleaned off.
When other things started going wrong (like a leaky sewage pipe in the bathroom) we asked to be moved and they tried to send us 2 doors down from where we were staying to an identical place that was just as bad as what we were in, so we went back again and were finally offered one of the new apartments, but said it would cost us £60 for (the privilege) of staying there for the last 3 nights of our holiday.
I was pleased they were going to move us, but was annoyed that we had to pay for the upgrade when they knew the place we originally had been given wasn't fit for habitation.
I was also annoyed that I wasn't permitted to do the upgrade before we went on holiday which would have saved us going through all that stress and made our holiday more enjoyable one.
The new apartment was beautiful and was smack on the doorstep of all the facilities and was all on one level which was ideal for my daughter. The place was also damp free which was great for all our health and had all the amenities which were not luxuries but stuff that should come as standard to any paying customer whether they are on a deal or not!!!
The site itself is in a beautiful countryside setting with great views of the sea.
The reception area is very clean and presentable, but is a bit dated with remnants of 60's decor (eg wood cladding and dodgy carpet), they have tried to update things with some modern leather settees for an informal feel, but they look a little out of place.
There do have wi-fi, but this is limited to the lobby area, which wasn't ideal as it was a busy area, the signal kept dropping and it was hard using a laptop on a low coffee table.
The little shop on-site has your basics but is a bit pricey, so better to go to the local Tesco's across the road (2mins in car 5/10 walking).
The pool and pool area is immaculately clean with a nice little sauna which is free to use. There is an interesting harbour town (Ilfracombe itself) that has a curious mix of shops from different eras which was nice, but a little hard to negotiate - we found Barnstaple has a more varied mix of shops and a great market selling home produce, crafts, plants, books, etc (there is a great bakers opposite the market place too)
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