Haven , no longer a family park, more like a bank !!! (Haven Holidays in general)

Member Name: lee

Product:	Haven Holidays in general
Date:	29/06/09 (389 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: everything costs a price, virtually nothings free apart from the pool

I recently visited one of your haven holiday parks with my 2 daughters and wife. i have holidayed with you 3 times before, once at Devon and twice at Great Yarmouth.
This time we decided to visit Rockley park at Poole , and upon arrival we decided to extend our original 4 day holiday to 7 days.
On the second day of our holiday my youngest daughter (7 years old) asked if she could go onto the bouncy castle and at the same time my oldest daughter asked if she could go onto the trampolines, we said yes and they walked over to there chosen activities, but just before the went on to them, we were stopped and told that we had not paid !!!
I was very shocked to say the least, but paid never the less. After the 15 minutes of play on the bouncy castle and trampolines' ,we all had a sit down and drinks and decided to play crazy golf, and yes yet another charge ?
After crazy golf my oldest daughter asked if she could go onto the climbing wall.... but another £5 charge !
I may be wrong, but the only activity i found in the park to not incur a charge was swimming !
by day 5 of my holiday, my funds were obviously running low and i had to visit one of your on-site cash dispensers, and oh yes a £1.25 charge for the use of it.
The final insult came on the Sunday, the day before we were set to leave the park. my youngest daughter was playing on the 2 pence machine in the arcade where the stage is, it was one of the machines were you insert the coin into the slot at the top and it drops onto a moving metal plate and in turn other coins are pushed off the edge onto the next level and the finally pushed off down into the winning collection pocket.
On the said machine, small key rings and novelty items and badges are placed onto the coins to be pushed off and won.
My daughter was playing on a part of the machine trying to win a Bradley Bear badge because she had seen the sign on the same machine in the adjoining room which read "win the badge and exchange it for the matching teddy bear"
Finally after inserting aprox. £5 in 2 pence coins she pushed the badge off. she was obviously very excited, and we went into the next room where the ticket office was to exchange the badge for a Bradley Bear..... I explained to the lady running the ticket prize office that we wanted to collect our prize, but was furious when i was told that the Bradley Bear was not included in the offer because it was available to buy in the shop ???
I explained and showed the lady the machine where it showed the sign, and she said that although it did indeed say that you can exchange the character badge for the teddy, it only included, if i remember rightly the tiger and the elephant ?
How can your company be so cruel to children when your supposed to be a family holiday park ?
Children don't understand "small print" or "technicalities" the just see what it says "win the badge and exchange it for the matching teddy"
I can now see that Haven is no longer a family entertainment complex where children come first, Money comes first at Haven !
When i first visited a Haven park some years ago, i knew it was a place where i wanted to visit again and again with my children, which i did, but then Haven became greedy, and money started to come before children's happiness, and it was then that Haven became a bank, where money always comes first.
I left that same day, cutting my holiday short by a day , disgusted, and wont be returning in a hurry.

Summary: wont be going back in a harry...