A few weeks ago, on the spur of the moment, I decided to book a little caravan get away.
We usually visit our neighbouring county of Cornwall at least once during the Summer, as it is just such a beautiful part of the country and there is so much to do there - but we fancied seeing a different part of Cornwall this time.
In the past we've always stayed around Newquay, but this time we decided we wanted to go further into Cornwall - I'd seen some stunning videos of Kynance Cove shared on social media and I was desperate to visit, so I searched for caravan sites around the area and came across Parkdean Mullion.
Having stayed at a Parkdean site in Newquay a few years ago, I was confident that they were the right choice for us - I knew the children would love the Sid & Lizzy Entertainment Mascots and the childrens discos in the evening, and the outdoor pool was another selling point as were visiting during one of the hottest weeks of the year.
We arrived to the site around dinner time on Monday, and checked in to our caravan right away - we had gone for the newest caravans on the site which were also the most expensive as there were no others available. The decor was really tasteful and the caravan was very wide and spacious, but unfortunately the cleaning job wasn't up to scratch at all.
There were hairs in the shower, and stains on the bedding - not good!
It was too late to make a complaint as reception was closed, but we decided it would keep until the next day and we headed off to the evening entertainment.
I had hoped to be able to have a game of Bingo but when I tried to buy a ticket I was told I wasn't allowed to without my entertainment pass - unfortunately we hadn't been informed this and so had left the pass in the car, so my bingo plans were scuppered - instead the kids had a bit of a dance and we headed out for dinner off site as the on site restaurant didn't look all that appetising and the advertised "Chippy" didn't seem to ever be open!
The next day, we got the children ready after lunch and headed down to the outdoor pool - it was a glorious hot day and they were all so excited to cool off in the pool - when we got there, we found it locked up.
We then located the tiniest of signs on the door of the indoor pool informing us of the pool opening times - both pools closed over the lunchtime period for around 1 and a half hours. This seemed pretty ridiculous, and we weren't the only surprised and disappointed guests as three other families tried to enter the pools while we were reading the signs - all of them complaining about the fact that they were closed.
We headed over to reception to make a complaint about this and the dirty caravan - we were told that somebody would come out to re-clean our caravan right away, and the lady explained that the pools close for the lifeguards to have lunch.
This seems rather silly considering the fact that there are paying guests waiting to use them - why not just take on more life guards or stagger their breaks?!
We also complained about the fact that the Parkdean website had charged us a £25 cancellation cover fee that I had unticked a box to opt out of - the lady said this was surprising as that fee wouldn't have covered us anyway as we were travelling the next morning, and she assured us she would have this fee refunded. It never was.
We went into the soft play area to entertain the disappointed children while we waited for the pool to open - when it did they had a great time, the pool was very good.
The kids also really enjoyed the park area, too.
Later that day we returned to our caravan to find the shower had been cleaned, but the bedding had not been replaced...so much for a thorough reclean.
For the rest of the week we spent our time enjoying the local area, which was really stunning - Kynance Cove was one of the most beautiful beaches we've ever visited and was well worth the 15 minute down hill walk it took to get there (and the 15 minute uphill climb back - we took the pushchair friendly route, and it wasn't too bad at all), and we really enjoyed visiting Lizard Village too.
We did spend a day at the indoor pool on site which the little ones enjoyed, and we spent every evening at the on site entertainment which was good fun for the children - they also really enjoyed the arcade too.
All in all, we had a lovely weeks holiday and would certainly return to the area again - but I don't think Parkdean Mullion is somewhere we'd happily return to unfortunately, which is a real shame as our previous experiences at other Parkdean sites had been so good.
Have you stayed at Parkdean before? I'd love to hear your experiences.
Aw what a shame but I've seen lots of stories like this lately about their caravans being dirty and unclean. We've been to Park Dean Trecco Bay 4 times now and love it, we've never had a problem luckily. We've actually booked a 4 bed caravan there next week, we paid a lot more than we usually do as it was a last minute booking due to our original holiday being cancelled last minute (thats's another story) I hope it's all clean and tidy for us, I really don't enjoy complaining x
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