A jolly holiday in Pontins!

I just been on a weekend break in Pontins Brean Sands just outside of burnam-on-sea, and to be honest it was quite enjoyable. The mini human we take places with us very much enjoyed herself both with the characters the park puts on and in Brean Leisure Park where she could happily have stayed for about a week.

The staff were helpful and friendly, especially at times such as check in, which with so many people arriving at once could potentially be chaos! The place had good facilities, sports courts, selection of food, pubs, playgrounds, bike hire etc. The staff put on a decent show, the dancing on the 'This is it' show on the Sunday was spot on, the singing... a good effort. The touring comedian was among the worst things I've ever seen though.

Even the entertainments manager was a good old valleys boy... tidy!

Prices were OK, food could be picked up cheap, the onsite shop was average and bar prices, by holiday camp standards mostly weren't thekick in the balls they could have been (£3 for fosters, 4 pts for £9.60 is a plus, £3.60 for Bow and £4.20 for desperado a minus)

Yes, the grabber machine things did make it too obvious they were cheating

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzE7TWzoaYw

But that's part of the fun... isn't it?

However the camp itself was... tired. Pontins has had it's money problems in the past (ewww I just linked to the Daily Mail, I feel quite dirty) which implies funds may not have been forthcoming to provide state of the art all singing all dancing stuff, but the quality of the accommodation was patchy at best. A selection of snap shots is below.

  

 

 

Generally the chalets themselves could have done with a little bit of money spent on them, new wallpaper to replace the rips, making sure every thing's in good condition, there was a string suggestion in the bedroom of damp, bothering the high proportion of asthmatics present. Other things as well just as the swimming pool(which once again was very good) changing rooms weren't the cleanest, or there was a swing missing in the main park. It's unlikely to be ware and tare as we're the first ones in that year (so who left the £1.38 electric credit... no idea) unless its last years ware and tear, in which case, you've had plenty of chance to fix it.

At the end of the day (it gets dark..) the chalet was just a place to go and the other stuff was tolerable, but thy seems small touches, which fair enough would have to be carried out on a large and cost producing scale, that could help restore the companies image a little better and maybe make sure there would be a full house more often.

Overall it was a cracking weekend and fun was had by all, just makes you think how popular places like Pontins could become if the maintenance matched the attitude of the staff.

Oh yeah, why I remember, why can you never get a decent 3G signal in these places? Do mobile masts not reach the coast?? And don't get me started on yet another free wi-fi which is as much use as a sponge hammer.