Pontins

mariaalice

Anyone ever have a holiday there or go there as a child it use to be very popular with the Irish, one of my children recons it was the best holiday every despite been taken to France and Spain and so on in other years, I was talking to someone about this and decided to look It up you can get a 7 night family holiday in Southport for 159 sterling which is good value. I suppose it might not be sophisticated enough for children today but mine use loved it.

Duggy747

Mosney was where it was at for us.

Sleepy

We got a cheap Ferry deal to North Wales last year and stayed in a Centre Parks resort (really just a well equipped campsite with a big swimming pool and an amusement arcade). The kids were small enough (4 and 7 at the time) to enjoy the pool, playground, activities in the kids club and the bingo in the evening before bedtime but we couldn't help feel like we were in an episode of Shameless.

While sun-holidays to package resorts in Spain are affordable to anyone working, or even those on welfare in Ireland, the UK welfare payment rates are a lot lower so that's pretty much all you have there: the residents of the council estates of the UK. Most of them are fine but there's a definite undercurrent of violence. On our last night there, they had a big pirate night show on in the entertainment hall and we turned around before we'd even gotten through the doors. You had young lads of 10/11 threatening to knife each other while their parents ignored them to drink as many cheap pints of beer as they could before the happy hour promotions ran out.

It was all just a bit depressing really. The place itself was well run, the staff were lovely and the facilities were excellent but the clientele put us off any notion of returning. The holiday only cost us about five or six hundred euros but we'll be spending that money on a few weekends away in Irish camp sites this year.

biko

La-di-da, someone got to go abroad for holidays

DesperateDan

Once I got to sit in an empty bucket and play make-believe pirates. That's as far abroad as I ever went as a child.

iMac_Hunt

Duggy747 wrote: »

Mosney was where it was at for us.

And then they turned it in to Mosnia

mariaalice

It was years ago so maybe its different now, we didn't have much money so that's why we did it, you can get the same thing on a sun holiday I got a cheap holiday to Spain and ended up beside some Irish people who just drank all day and let their toddlers run around the swimming pool with our being supervised. The kind that talk louder that everyone else and every second word starts with F.

I went to one as a young teenager, Southport I think. Bar a short trip to the north of spain for my uncle's wedding (paid for by my grandparents). It was the only holiday abroad I ever had as a kid. I feckin loved it. I climbed and abseiled, drove go karts, learned how to shoot a rifle, danced at the kids' disco, played bingo with the folks. Loved it.

Never did go to Mosney for more than a day trip!

Sir Arthur Daley

Getting alot of bad reviews op.

Myself and my husband saved the tokens for a Sun holiday, for a first family holiday with our baby son. We received our fourth choice... The fun began there!

To echo other posters, this place is like a concentration camp, with slot machines! Excrement smeared on and around toilets in the restaurant- welcome to Pontins!!

Our apartment was filthy: chocolate in the overflow in bathroom sink, excrement left in loo, black bunkers, grotty floor, no cleaning utensils, ridiculous condensation on the windows... Amidst other "issues". We had to leave three days early.

Have attempted to contact their management, to no avail...

Wow Pontins, you truly are the best... At being shockingly awful!

AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COSTS!!

Shakespeare's Sister

Went to Pontins Devon in 1986 (World Cup time and my brothers had Maradona t-shirts that were their pride and joy... they had to put them away in the suitcase during that holiday though :pac:) and Pontins Somerset 1987. Great craic!

Maphisto

I went to Butlins Bognor Regis as a kid was OK.

Went back there aged 18/19 with three other lads. It was an absolutely brilliant lads holiday.

Though these days (now I have a sensible head) if they still admit groups of lads or girls then as a family holiday, not so sure.

smellmepower

Went to that ****ty place down in Cork once.Was full of annoying culchie children and a couple who'd come home pissed from the on site pub at night and start loudly arguing in the chalet next to us.Never again!

Sleepy

mariaalice wrote: »

It was years ago so maybe its different now, we didn't have much money so that's why we did it, you can get the same thing on a sun holiday I got a cheap holiday to Spain and ended up beside some Irish people who just drank all day and let their toddlers run around the swimming pool with our being supervised. The kind that talk louder that everyone else and every second word starts with F.

Yep, you can find the worst of the Irish scumbags in Spain whereas the worst of the British now take over the holiday parks in their own country as their welfare doesn't stretch to foreign holidays as easily as ours does.

Like I said, it was just a bit depressing, the park should have been a great place for a family holiday - and up until early evening it was. They just attract an almost exclusively rough and/or elderly crowd nowadays.

That said, I have happy memories of a chalet in a Haven Holiday park in Wales when I was a 6 that my mother recently told us she thought was quite rough and our own kids are still asking when we can go back to Ty Mawyr.

LorMal

smellmepower wrote: »

Went to that ****ty place down in Cork once.Was full of annoying culchie children and a couple who'd come home pissed from the on site pub at night and start loudly arguing in the chalet next to us.Never again!

I think you are talking about Trabolgan?? A kip of the highest order.
We drove down there for our annual holiday. Arrived to find complete chaos - nothing was ready - workmen in nearly every room - still doing the tiling / plastering etc. It was horrible. We waited a few hours (!!) in a queue to complain and ended up demanding our money back and driving home to Dublin that evening.
Totlly fu*ked up our holiday for our little 3 year old daughter. We could not get anywhere else at short notice.
A TOTAL DUMP - AVOID.

Nodin

smellmepower wrote: »

Went to that ****ty place down in Cork once.Was full of annoying culchie children and a couple who'd come home pissed from the on site pub at night and start loudly arguing in the chalet next to us.Never again!

'Why Do You Ride Hippos?'

SEPT 23 1989

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POv-3yIPSWc

JoeA3

I remember going to Pontins in North Wales as a kid on a family holiday. On the negative side, I remember the whole family being very underwhelmed by the "entertainment" on offer... it was obviously very British (pi$$ poor cabaret acts, fruit machines everywhere you look, etc), but other than that I think we had a great time!

Oh and my kid sister (about 6 or 7 at the time) went missing for a few hours one day, I remember my mother being in an absolute state, security took it very seriously, they shut down the park exits (this was long before Maddie McCann too). She did turn up perfectly safe and well thankfully.

MadYaker

Travel forum---->

Always went to France or to family in the US for holidays since I was a baby so I can't comment but it sounds rubbish.

urabell

Rather be sent to a Gulag after a show trial for alleged subversive actions against the state.

grundie

I went to Pontins Blackpool in 1986 when I was 10.

It was grim, really grim. The whole place looked like it was trapped in a run-down 1960s timewarp. I thought it would be fun and exciting but I couldn't wait to leave.

To top if off a male staff member went to great lengths to try and entice me in to his chalet and insisted I not tell my parents. I told my mother who tried to get camp security to do something, they refused and told her she should be calling her home town Londonderry, not Derry.

Oh, What a lovely place!!!

Sleepy

MadYaker wrote: »

Travel forum---->

Always went to France or to family in the US for holidays since I was a baby so I can't comment but it sounds rubbish.

It was what those of us whose mammy and daddy's couldn't afford to bring us on fancy holidays every year did in the 80's....

They were kinda rubbish but when the realistic alternative was Courtown or staying with your Aunt in the country for a week you were happy out to be going.

I took my own kids last year due to a combination of a ridiculously cheap ferry ticket and a serious case of the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. Wouldn't do it again (taking them to Disneyland Paris later in the year instead ) but I do think it's kind of a shame that some people can't behave at such places...

Holidays are actually very important to a childs psychological well-being (can't remember where I read it but the basic theory was that the bank of happy memories created on family holidays can help reduces suicide / depression rates amongst those who go ever year by helping the child remember that things can be happy) and it'd be nice if more affordable alternatives were available for those of us who can't afford fancier holidays every year (or ever in the case of some long-term unemployed etc.)

mariaalice

The type of holiday people go on are very telling I suppose my brother who has small children will only go on one of those camping mobile home holidays to France, because he know that the of people he will meet on that sort of holiday will be he type he is happy to have around his children.

The thing is what makes children happy is often very different to what the parents think will make the children happy.

Sleepy

mariaalice wrote: »

The type of holiday people go on are very telling I suppose my brother who has small children will only go on one of those camping mobile home holidays to France, because he know that the of people he will meet on that sort of holiday will be he type he is happy to have around his children.

The thing is what makes children happy is often very different to what the parents think will make the children happy.

I think it's more to do with the stage of life one's family are at. The holidays I enjoyed most in my single days (Skiing, San Fermin Festival in Pamplona, Backpacking around Europe etc) aren't ones I wouldn't enjoy now, just ones that wouldn't be suitable for my kids or, in the case of skiing, ones I just couldn't afford!).

While I've been on my fair share of them, package sun holidays wouldn't really be my thing... I'm actually looking forward to the kids being a bit older and taking them around Europe for a couple of weeks in a camper van / inter-railing etc.

Lia_lia

Nope, never went to any of those. My Dad always had awful things to say about those places...although I probably would had loved to have gone to place like that when I was young!

All of my friends went to Trabolgin too. Spent my summers traveling around France usually so how bad I guess..

gugleguy

Pontins seemed to pop up occasionally enough on That's Life with Esther Ranzen. Noteworthy that this program gave Pontins a chance to make a positive presentation for itself, not sure it this gave Pontins the boost it was looking for though.

mariaalice

The way I see it is if I could only afford a cheap holiday like that with my children ( mine are long grown up) then that what I would be doing because as Sleepy said holidays are a bank of happy memories for children and children don't have the same concerns as adults they just want the swimming pool and other children to have fun with.

Pumpkinseeds

We'd have 1 day trip to Mosney each Summer, I can remember the smell of wee and bleach coming from the open chalet doors, 30 years later. Foreign holidays were for rich people, if we were lucky it was a week in Fanore or a day at Spanish Point, ah the childhood excitement at the sight of the sea in the distance:). I'm sure all my parents were focused on was the wall to wall tail back of traffic though:D

Fat Christy

Trabolgan was where it was at when I was a kid. Oh gawd, we holidayed in Cork. :pac: :P

Maphisto

Sleepy wrote: »

Holidays are actually very important to a childs psychological well-being (can't remember where I read it but the basic theory was that the bank of happy memories created on family holidays can help reduces suicide / depression rates amongst those who go ever year by helping the child remember that things can be happy) and it'd be nice if more affordable alternatives were available for those of us who can't afford fancier holidays every year (or ever in the case of some long-term unemployed etc.)

Unfortunately I could only thank this once but I think its bang on the money.

I know of people who never went on holiday as a family - they're a weird lot of middle-aged folks now

porsche959

Derelict: Plemont Holiday Village - Jersey

gugleguy

entropi

I went to Butlins Pwhelli in North Wales a few times as a kid with the family, loved it every time. These days though I fear the rose-tinted memories would kick in and that would be that, a bunch of good memories. Highly doubtful that it is the same fun place today, If I had kids in future I'd never take them there...holidays and holiday parks like that are just not the same these days, a different time.

DoozerT6

Slightly off-topic, but who remembers the smell of salty chips on Tramore Promenade???

Never mind yere fancy holiday camps, Tramore was where it was at for our family. Every. Single. Year. In a caravan.

But them chips.........*insert Homer-esque drooling sound here*

grundie

We've taken to going to Haven and Park caravan sites lately.

We prefer them to the likes of Butlins. There's none of the enforced jollity and drunkenness you see in a holiday camp. The caravans are much more comfortable than the chalets you get in a Butlins. They have all the main facilities you need such as a pool, bar, playground, shop and kids activities. And much cheaper too.

fussyonion

We always went to Pontins as kids and there was never any entertainment on in the daytime. It was atrocious really as the ballroom and the cabaret bar were always empty...it was like a ghost town in the day.

Kids played in the playground or in the slot-machine area.
Entertainment was good at night.

Was OK at the time but reading recent reviews on TripAdvisor it seems the place has gone downhill drastically with people saying the chalets are filthy.

When we went, the place had been refurbished and it was clean but basic.
It's not somewhere I'd ever consider returning to even if I had young kids because it's just dated and it'd cost as much in Sterling as it would to go to Spain for a week.

unknowngirl!!

We used to go on Haven holidays in Wales before going abroad. We loved them! Think they're along the same idea as Pontins...

I'd love to go back and see if its changed much!

Snickers Man

Sleepy wrote: »

We got a cheap Ferry deal to North Wales last year and stayed in a Centre Parks resort..... we couldn't help feel like we were in an episode of Shameless.

Maybe that's why Pontins was operating a blacklist of dodgy surnames to be kept out of their parks?
It wasn't the [url=https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/pontins-traveller-gypsy-blacklist-surnames-ehrc-892968?fbclid=IwAR2QV977gEkkVpuPQJNtadzrOuTHjdpu_wX6vo1Y0vfF-H326UILztitB08
]Irish at all[/url]. Just the Shameless characters.

No again Danni

I have a vague memory of going to Pontins or it could have been Butlins in the late late 80s.

I cant remember what happened. We got bad service or it was a kip or something like that. My dad ended up telling them to ****off and we ended up having to go somewhere else.

Snickers Man

Snickers Man wrote: »

Maybe that's why Pontins was operating a blacklist of dodgy surnames to be kept out of their parks?
It wasn't the [url=https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/pontins-traveller-gypsy-blacklist-surnames-ehrc-892968?fbclid=IwAR2QV977gEkkVpuPQJNtadzrOuTHjdpu_wX6vo1Y0vfF-H326UILztitB08
]Irish at all[/url]. Just the Shameless characters.

That list is outrageous.

Only Irish people are allowed discriminate against travellers like that.

Tzardine

Holy bump batman.

Kimbot

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