Center Parcs on the continent

[Hilary]

I'm planning our holiday for summer 2003 (unfortunately Florida won't feature in our plans for 2003 ), and have been looking at the Center Parcs sites in Europe.

Does anyone here have any experiences / recommendations? Top of the list at the moment is one of the Dutch Parcs - De Kempervennen - because it has a snowdome and scuba-diving facilities. Has anyone been there?

Any help much appreciated

 

[TracyK]

Hilary
A work colleague visited a Center Parc in Holland last month. I'm not absolutely sure if that's the one but it sounds familiar. I'm not in work until Tuesday but if you have any questions I could ask her for you.
Tracy

 

[WDWfan uk]

.....similar to Tracy, I have a friend who went to a Center Parcs in Holland - I'll check to see if it is the same one and report back.

 

[Hilary]

Thanks guys!

Tracey - I don't have any specific questions really, I just wondered how the European CPs compared to the UK ones. I'm assuming they are pretty much identical in design, feel, etc. I am assuming they all have the equivalent of the 'Sub-tropical swimming paradise' (why do I always feel slightly nauseous typing that phrase? ), but I'm not sure.

It seems quite difficult to get detailed information about them! The CP brochures here don't have anything about Europe, and the web site doesn't have an awful lot of detailed information either, just general stuff. I have requested a brochure from the internet site as one of the UK reps thought it might include details of the European parks, but she wasn't sure.

 

[BevS97]

Hi Hilary - we've stayed at deKempervennen. We went a couple of years ago with my sis-in-law and her dd, me, Phil and Katie. The girls were both 2 at the time.

We had a brilliant time - the parc is older than the UK ones, but they have been renovated and the chalet seemed nicer than the one we had at Nottingham Forest.

There is a swimming pool - we were mostly in the toddler area, but I seem to think it was a large pool with waves etc - not sure if it had slides, but I would have thought so.

we didn't do the skiing or scuba diving but I wouldn't mind trying the skiing another time.
Hmm -I'm trying to think what we did do (LOL) - I can remember some mini-golf, and there was a lake where you could go in a 'cave' and look under the water and watch something swim - I think maybe it was otters. They also had pedalos. There was a huge swing park area, where Katie and Jolanda had a whale of a time walking across a rope bridge.

In the dome area, as well as the pool, they had all the shops and restaurants (which is different to Nottingham where all the shops are outside) - we had dinner in one of the restaurants- a family style one, and also ate in a cafe which appeared to be outside by a stream with birds flying around etc - but was actually under the dome.
We also used the supermarket and ate in the villa.

I've only stayed at those 2 (Kempervennen and Nottingham) and I preferred Kempervennen.

The brochure for Europe doesn't seem to exist - every time I've requested it I've been told it's being reprinted/translated etc etc...
My sis-in-law managed to get one in Holland which was in Dutch - (fortunately she can read Dutch!) - but I just relied on the website.

Hmm - I could go on and on, so PM me if you want to know anything else.

Bev

 

[BevS97]

Another thing I've just thought of.

In Nottingham they had a spa where I had a full-body massage, not sure if they offered that in Kempervennen - but if they do it is just amazing - you have to book early as it's hard to get an appointment, but it was amazing.

Also, we used the creche in Nottingham which seemed very good - the kids were too young for the creche in Holland but it looked very similiar.

Bev

 

[TracyK]

Hilary, I asked my friend and this was the one she stayed at. She said she was impressed with the facilities on offer but did not get a chance to try many of them because they were booked up well in advance. She thought overall it was on a par with the one in Sherwood Forest. The food at the on site supermarket was very reasonable and they did all of their grocery shopping there. Not all the accommodation has been updated. Her accommodation was in need of refurbishment but her friends were staying in refurbished acommodation which was much nicer.
Tracy

 

[Hilary]

Thanks