A Winter Wonderland Trip to Center Parcs Whinfell Forest

This was the first time I have been to Whinfell Forest since 1997, when it was known as Oasis Lakeland Forest Village and the village centre was called the Butterfly Village. Center Parcs bought it out from Rank Organisation in 2001, and changed it's name to Center Parcs Oasis Whinfell Forest, but dropped 'Oasis' from its name in 2006. We stayed from 16th to 20th January on a midweek break. It is cheaper to stay for 4 nights on a midweek break than it is for a 3 night weekend break when the kids are in school.

This visit to Whinfell brought back a lot of memories, and the Subtropical Swimming Paradise seems to be largely the same, which is no bad thing, but the wild water rapids that used to go to the outside pool have now gone. I stayed with my Dad, sister and two-year-old nephew in a new style 3 bedroom executive detached lodge, which was 73 Seven Pines, which is located close to the car park and cycle centre and meant that we didn't need to drive to the lodge in all the traffic to unpack, which saved a lot of time, as well as collecting our bikes from the cycle centre across the road.

Out and about on the cycle routes, not a lot has changed from how I remember, but I can't remember which lodge I stayed at in 1997, nor what it looked like on the inside. We actually visited twice in 1997, as we were given a second holiday for free because we were supposed to be some of the first holiday makers there, but there were delays in finishing building the site. It eventually opened the month of June I think it was, which is when we visited, and then we returned for our free compensation holiday a couple of months later in the summer holidays.

This first visit in January 2023 since 1997 was largely a positive experience and I will be definitely returning again, possibly very soon. The only problems we faced was the wristband keys hadn't been activated, but luckily a passing supervisor let us in with his master key just after 4pm, and then I went down to guest services in the village centre a few hours later to get the wristband keys sorted out. The woman said the date was set to February 2000, so I can only surmise that when we checked in at the arrivals lodge, the person dealing with us was being distracted with phone calls and simply forgotten to activate them. Make sure they activate them when you check in to avoid frustration when you arrive at your lodge, especially if you have babies with you and it is cold. The second problem was the fridge door wouldn't fully close and had a gap in it meaning it was always beeping away because it wasn't cold enough. They'd put the bracket there to hold the fridge in place as a time saving measure to avoid adjusting the feet on the fridge, but for some reason they didn't seem to notice the fridge door would not close. We temporarily changed it a bit so our food didn't go bad.

Those two problems aside, the holiday went very well, and I didn't think that it was badly priced considering. We paid £499, plus £32 to chose 73 Seven Pines, which was an 'outer area' lodge, but was still only a few minutes cycling away from the village centre. It is a bit more expensive to choose a lodge on the middle and inner areas. Of course you can just let them allocate you a random lodge of the type you booked and not pay extra for it. We paid for three bikes and a children's trailer, although we were not able to book the children's trailer until after we booked. The Center Parcs website is not the clearest laid out website I have to say, but I managed to book a trailer in advance, although I needn't have worried as there was loads of them piled up at the cycle centre. The three bikes and the children's trailer was a total of £160 for the 4 night midweek break.

We never eaten out at the restaurants, but we did do a couple of takeaways which were fine. Nothing fantastic, but they were nice enough and the prices were about the same as Dominos. The prices for things in the ParcMarket were not badly priced, but some things were a lot more expensive in there than they would be in your local store. Some things were price about the same as they were in the super market, like cleaning products. I bought surface disinfectant spray and a box of lemon bakewell tarts for a total of £3 which is reasonable. The stuff that is sold is generally 'Co-op' branded. Some of the other shops were quite expensive like the sweet shop near the entrance to the Subtropical Swimming Paradise. They were selling small bars of Dairy Milk for £5 with different messages on them such as 'To My Wife' etc. Still, people must be buying them at that price, otherwise the price would be lower.

Bear in mind that Center Parcs is now cashless, and has been since the pandemic. There are no longer any COVID-19 measures in place in the villages, but they have kept the villages cash free since the pandemic, so make sure you take your debit/credit cards and don't bother taking cash. #centerparcs #woodenlodges #lakedistrict