Fun in the sun (Haven Holidays in general)

Member Name: helican

Product:	Haven Holidays in general
Date:	05/06/09 (147 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: some good deals, a child-friendly site

Disadvantages: very basic accomodation, shameless commerciality & tedious evening entertainment

I got back today from Reighton Sands Haven Park in Filey, where I stayed with my kids for the second time. It's the only Haven site I've been to, but I don't imagine there's much variation.

The kids having had a fantastic time at Reighton last year, I rebooked early to get the best deal, & in fact without asking I got offered a better grade caravan, plus towels & linen (you otherwise bring your own), for the better price of £150 for four nights at the beginning of June.

The site there is clean & well-maintained. It's a big site & living in one of hundreds of near-identical caravans won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it avoids being totally sterile & hideous with lots of trees & green spaces, & a kids' nature trail leads out to areas you may not otherwise bother exploring, with beautiful cliff-top views, some lush countryside & a conservation area for great-crested newts.

So we got a decent-sized caravan, clean & in good condition, with one bedroom (ie two beds) more than I paid for (this happened both times we've been), with a good hot shower, TV & gas fire - which you definitely need as the temperature plummets at night, even in June. It was pretty well-equipped, though this year the cooker was very temperamental & I had to chase up the towel bale. It's certainly no luxury accomodation as everything's pretty basic, & I didn't get one great night's sleep, with the cold & the light blazing through the thin curtains at five in the morning.

With the kids aged ten-ish they loved it that they could use the caravan as a base & run off to the playground & arcades. There's a fairly basic swimming pool too which is free when there aren't special sessions on, & child-friendly evening entertainment until late with lots of joining in & dancing & shouting out, though it's hard to imagine anyone over the age of about six getting much out of it.

It's all alarmingly commercial & easy to spend a fortune: there's a gang of cartoon animals that feature in a lot of the kids' shows, & a ton of merchandise based around them. The arcades eat money, of course, & there's bars & restaurants (didn't try the food) & a lot of activities on-site that you have to pay for. At Reighton Sands there's crazy golf, a laser-battle place (closed when we went along, despite the sign), go-karts, swimming activities & sports lessons. We've done the kids' fencing (£5; OK;nothing special) & James-Bond-style aquajets (£6) which got them about 20 minutes of water time by the time they'd got flippers, masks etc on & was Ok but again a bit of a damp squib.

Of course you can avoid all this & spend as much or as little as you want, & it's a lovely contrast at Reighton that a beautiful footpath leads down through the woods to a gorgeous, clean sandy beach with just one ice cream van & no reminders at all of the soulless money-making machine back at the site.

The staff were mostly friendly & helpful, & minor problems ( towel bale, blocked water pipe last year) were put right immediately.

To me it's geat as an economical self-catering seaside holiday with a child-friendly site. If I wanted to pay lots for great food entertainment & activities I'd choose a different holiday company, & if I didn't have kids I'd never go for a big overpopulated over-commercial lowest-common-denominator holiday like this.

Summary: an affordable child-friendly seaside holiday