Rockley Park rocks!! (British Holidays in general)

Member Name: scattyredhead

Product:	British Holidays in general
Date:	13/08/01 (950 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: very well appointed caravan site catering for all age groups.

Disadvantages: Not being able to reserve a particular van

As a family we had never really bothered with holidays away from home, preferring to have the odd day out here and there until 4 years ago.

We’d had a rotten couple of years prior to this and decided that we were going to push the boat out and go away for a week. No chance of going overboard in my family!!

We decided on Dorset as our destination. I had spent a lot of time in this part of the country as a child and was keen to revisit some of the old haunts.

Next we had to decide on where we were going to stay. We are not a conventional family in that we like to do things as and when we want, so a full-board hotel job was out of the question.

I have always loved caravans and suggested this. Hubby wasn’t so keen, thinking that they were a bit basic, but I soon got my way!! Tee hee hee!

We got hold of a copy of the British Holidays brochure and after a little deliberation we set our hearts on Rockley Park holiday village.

We had experienced British Holidays before as my parents used to take the boys away to Hopton Holiday Village on the North Norfolk coast.

They had always had a such a great time there so we figured, and hoped, that Rockley park was going to be of the same high standard, we weren't disappointed.

There are several choices of accommodation available, caravans or chalets. We chose a Silver rated van, which had 3 bedrooms, duvets and pillows supplied (bring your own covers).

Telephoned , paid the deposit and confirmed dates. All systems go!! I couldn’t wait!! I am easily pleased!!!

It took us 9 hours to get there, no hubby isn’t a slow driver. I have to confess here that I wanted to go via Stonehenge (one of the old haunts I wanted to revisit). It was quite a detour from Essex but he took it, bless him!

It was well worth it, even if I couldn’t get as close to the stones as I had when I was a child, I remember to
uching them. It still held the same fascination and air of mystery to me.

I thought it was the well worth the detour, 3 bored teenage sons sitting in the car waiting for me to return didn’t have the same enthusiasm I am sorry to say.

But anyway where was I?? Ah yes Rockley Park. We arrived and parked up, I went to sign in, which incidentally was fairly painless and rapid. I had visions of being stuck in the checking in queue for a long time. But they had it off to a tee.

We were given the keys to our van, which had been up graded to a Gold rating as they had over booked the Silver ones. Hey we weren’t about to complain as we got a patio set thrown in and heating in the van.

We were also given a map of the site and directions were clearly marked on it as to how to get to our particular van.

The difference between this particular holiday village and the one at Hopton was simply the way the park was set out.

Hopton is more like you would imagine a caravan park to be, with most of the caravans set out in nice neat orderly rows. not so Rockley park!

We were absolutely thrilled with where our caravan was. One reason hubby’s not keen on going to this type of holiday park was the dread of having a caravan right next to the amusement arcades, the disco and the like.

We aren’t partying people when we are away, preferring to be left to our own devices, we were. Our van was perched up high on a ledge with only one other one next to it, with perfect views right across the sea!! We loved it.

The downside of this, we thought would be if you had small children. There were several steep steps up to the van and as I said before we were quite some distance from the centre of the “village”.

Our lads were 15, 13 and 11 when we went so they were well able to go off and do their own thing.

Rockley Park is set over quite a large area in little block
s of vans, our block was Pine View. The vans were not all neat and tidy like the aforementioned Hopton but somewhat higgeldy piggedly, which only served to add to its charm!

Rockley park is odd to find, to me it seemed like it was in the middle of a housing estate!! It has most likely changed now. The site was very well appointed, with the usual shops.

The food store was quite reasonably priced, although we did choose to do our food shopping at the local Co-Op, more choice and we did a lot of shopping. My lads have huge appetites!

The gift shop on the site is great too, I could have spent a fortune in there! I love holiday souveniers..sad eh!!! There were 2 pools there one indoors and one out.

The boys didn’t go in the outdoor one it was always too busy. They went in the indoor one a couple of times though and rated it “cool!”

Other activities on the site included, tennis and football with various matches being organised for the kids and the teens.

There was outdoor bowling too and we decided to play at being “proper” holiday makers for a change and have a game. I am sad to say that we were both thrashed by the 11 year old!!!

I can’t really tell you all that much about the evening entertainment, we avoided it like the plague, hate those kind of things.

However when the boys were at Hopton with my parents a few years prior to this they did go to the evening affairs and the videos prove that they had a good time, as well as confirming to me why we avoid them!!

We did walk back from the shop one evening and the noise coming from the disco was deafening. We cringed and thanked our lucky stars that we were well away from that.

We didn’t really spend all that much time on the site as we wanted to do lots of exploring. Places we visited included Corfe Castle. Now that was something else. We loved that and I may write another op one day
about that.

The Naval base and HMS Victory at Portsmouth. Portland Bill and Chesil beach. Beware there, the waves can be enormous, as my youngest found out when he had to sit in the car on the way back in just his underwear with his sodden clothes wrapped in carrier bags!

We did a lot of driving around finding little places here and there. And it never seemed like much of a drive back to the caravan site. It really is a beautiful part of the country.

We had a great relaxing family holiday there and we were going to make a return visit the following year. There was an offer in one of the brochures we were given offering a reasonable discount of the cost of re booking for the following year.

I did make enquiries about it. In particular as to whether it would be possible to have the same van. Alas they couldn’t guarantee this as a lot of the vans are privately owned and who is to know if the same van will even be there the next year.

There are quite a few privately owned vans with phone numbers on them so that you could book direct with the owner. We did have a look at a few of them one evening but never came to a definite decision as they weren’t in the areas we would have liked.

We weren’t prepared to take pot luck in booking up via British Holidays in case we got a van near the amusements.

So as up to now I have not made a return visit to Rockley Park but not because I would not recommend it, I do.

I would like to one day, probably when we are old and grey and knowing our luck we will either end up in a van near the amusements (hey we might be into bingo by then?) or one on a ledge like this one was and we wont be able to manage the steps!

But..if all the British Holiday resorts are as well appointed as Rockley park and indeed Hopton then I don't suppose it will matter which one we choose to go and play bingo in!

That’s it. You can wake up n
ow! I surely didn’t mean this to go on quite so long…….
Thank you!
Kazzie!!

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