Jumping straight to it with this blog post. We booked Center Parcs for a week in July and then we had to wait for a magic date in May to be able to book our activities.
When a friend told me theyād stayed up past midnight to book their activities I was really shocked! They encouraged me to check what date we could book ours from so we were ready. This was news to me, I panicked a little as it hadnāt dawned on me it was clearly a case of fastest finger first and that totally put me on edge! What if we couldnāt get any of the activities we wanted?! Would it even be worth going?
A few other friends had reached out and offered advice and said to go with activities first and pay for them, then go back on for food and pay for them and then go back for anything weād missed. This made a lot of sense!
Covid restrictions were still in place for our stay in July and that meant the pool required you to book daily (you could just rock up in the evenings) so that was our first priority.
Letās get booking!
10th May was our magic open booking date and it came around pretty quick. It wasnāt midnight for us, it was from 8:30am. Right in the middle of the school run, I mean honestly who thought that one through?! Not someone with children for sure!
We made sure Mark could work from home that morning so he could field the boys and I could sit ready to go on the laptop. Fastest finger firstā¦ Things were tense!
8:30am
Swim slots booked out faster than I could click and we only managed one day booked for opening at 10am. (Why donāt they open earlier?!) It was great to see the activities all being booked out but my goodness it was super stressful to book on the 6 lots of swimming and this was all before 8:40am!
Next up I tried to book all the activities. Timings and age limits (we hadnāt previously been able to view on the websiteās short activity descriptions) ended up changing quite a few of our plans. That was super frustrating. It turned out, Loki, aged 6, couldnāt do a lot of the āfamilyā activities. By the time Iād got the bookings added for the adults and big kids the younger kids options had all gone for several activities too. Gutted!
I wish we could have had that info about age ranges etc earlier, it would have really helped and I wouldnāt have wasted precious time rooting through alternative activities on the morning of booking!
The water sports at Whinfell were a nightmare, some of the options just didnāt make any sense. The full activity list we could view beforehand helpfully said āMay not be available at all sitesā but wouldnāt get specific! My favourite was a teasing picture of single kayaks but yet no single kayaks were available to book at Whinfell so I couldnāt book half what weād planned as none of it was an option and ended up going with 4 double kayaks and hoping for the best.
Prioritising swimming meant there were lots of activities we immediately couldnāt do as they only took place in the morning. Again, this would have been handy to know about beforehand. More frustrations, but at least our list was getting smaller!
I added everything I could from our list to the basket and then clicked to go to the checkout page and then literally cried real tears at the price. We thought weād generously overestimated the price of everything but were so wrong it was genuinely frightening.
Our activities came to more than our share of the lodge. A couple of them weād managed to call the price on but the rest were pretty much double, if not more, than anticipated. Again, I really really wish weād seen the prices beforehand. We could have made different plans/choices and it wouldnāt have been so panicky and stressful on the day working out what we could and couldnāt do!
I trimmed the list to a more sensible state of affairs, then phoned Mark who was sat outside the school. This resulted in some more harsh truths and depressing realities.
Can you even climb? Will the boys care if we join in or if we just watch? If they make that can we even fit that in the car on the way home? Is that more for our enjoyment or for theirs? One of us can just stay with the bags for that activityā¦
Ahā¦ the joys of adulting no one tells you about.
We decided to remove a bunch of activities and go with one for each day. Thankfully the booking calendar on the Center Parcs website was blissfully easy to navigate and by 8:55am Iād got 7 activities successfully booked.
- Aerial adventure (not Loki)
- Family Laser Combat (all of us)
- Indoor Climbing (just the boys)
- Archery (splitting up, 2 different activities)
- Kayaking (no idea what weāll end up with here but something is booked!)
- Bowling (hopefully an hour is long enough for a game?!)
- Mini Golf (first night activity sorted yay!)
Trying to keep those positive holiday vibes flowing, we cracked onā¦
Feed me!
Stress levels started to lower and I logged back on to book meals. We were aiming for 2 meals out and 2 lunches. That didnāt go to plan either. Getting a table for 7 was pretty much impossible. We couldnāt get any lunches at all and our desired times for dinner went straight out the window!
By 9:10am, Iāll be honest, I needed a lie down. I had a video call with my Mum and then sadly discovered because Iād booked swimming for the 5 of us she couldnāt book swimming, which was a shame – that wasnāt clear at all when I booked the swim slots. (I spent over an hour on the phone the next day seeing if I could add them but there was no spaces available and rules is rules.)
The hard part was over though. The activities were all booked, we were all excited again and the countdown was on!
Weāre really going to Center Parcs!
On reflection, the prices were a shock, yes, but for us (as a family of 5) to do 7 different activities (round our way) would have cost more! They all would have involved a lengthy drive (fuel) and extra pennies for parking/snacks/lunch/dinner while we were out etcā¦ it all adds up and to be honest looking into it more now, some of them worked out cheaper to do at Center Parcs than to do elsewhere!
Next up Iāll be sharing the price list of our activities and a wee review for each one. Did the prices surprises you when you saw them? Iād love to know, please pop a comment below.
Jo šļæ¼
team worrall 