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Which Center Parcs is best?

There are five Center Parcs ‘villages’ in England (often incorrectly listed as Centre Parcs). They’re all at the posh end of the holiday park market, but which is best? We’ve done a comparison of the five Center Parcs in England by looking at reviews, price, facilities and location.

If you can't be bothered with reading all this guff and just want the headlines, we reckon that Whinfell Forest in Cumbria or Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire are the Center Parcs villages which offer the best value for money.
​​If you want cheaper or alternative options, try our full Center Parcs Europe guide and book your holiday through CenterParcs.fr ​which is nearly always cheaper than CenterParcs.com for exactly the same holiday. ​Your browser will translate CenterParcs.fr to English if you don't speak French!

Our Center Parcs Europe top picks are:
If you'd rather stay in the UK and want alternatives to Center Parcs, try: 
Anyway, here's the more detailed comparison of Center Parcs in the UK:

Which Center Parcs is in the best location?

The Center Parcs in England are strategically spread out:
  • Whinfell Forest in Cumbria will be closest for people in Scotland and for most of the North of England
  • Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire is closest for people in most of the West Midlands, East Midlands and Yorkshire
  • Longleat Forest in Wiltshire is closest for the Westcountry
  • Elveden Forest in Suffolk is closest for parts of East Anglia
  • Woburn Forest in Bedfordshire is closest for people in London and some of the home counties and East Anglia.​​

Which Center Parcs village gets the best reviews?

In terms of customer reviews, there is very (very) little between the five Center Parcs sites in England. 

When we checked TripAdvisor, all five sites in England were scoring 4/5 based on many thousands of reviews. On Google’s reviews, they were all scoring 4.5/5 apart from Whinfell Forest which scored 4.6/5 (hardly enough of a difference to change your plans). I’ve no idea why Google reviews are consistently higher than TripAdvisor’s, but let’s try not to lose any sleep over it.

I'm not sure if this is particularly relevant, but Woburn Forest opened in 2014 and is the newest of the five Center Parcs villages in England. The other four parks opened in the 1980s and 1990s, although there have been various refurbishments over the years.

Which Center Parcs is cheapest?

We looked at prices for three different types of holiday at all five Center Parcs in England.

In all three price comparisons, Woburn in Bedfordshire was the most expensive option. Whinfell in Cumbria was the cheapest or joint cheapest every time. Elveden Forest in Suffolk and Longleat Forest in Wiltshire were somewhere in the middle every time, whilst Sherwood Forest was either joint cheapest or thereabouts.
The difference between the cheapest and most expensive was up to about £300, but at other times it was closer to £100.

If you’re interested, here are the full results:

We searched for a family of four without pets, including two adults and two children (one aged 5, one aged 8). Our searches were carried out in March 2019. We didn’t include any optional extras, and just looked for the cheapest accommodation available which was always a two bedroom woodland lodge.

One week in August 2019, from cheapest to most expensive:
  • Whinfell Forest - £1678
  • Sherwood Forest - £1798
  • Elveden Forest - £1778
  • Longleat Forest - £1798
  • Woburn Forest - £1958

A Friday to Monday break over the early May bank holiday 2019, from cheapest to most expensive:
  • Whinfell Forest - £649
  • Sherwood Forest - £649
  • Elveden Forest - £679
  • Longleat Forest - £699
  • Woburn Forest - £779

A midweek break in October half term 2019, staying from Monday to Friday, from cheapest to most expensive
  • Whinfell Forest - £849
  • Sherwood Forest - £879
  • Longleat Forest - £879
  • Elveden Forest - £899
  • Woburn Forest - £959​

Which Center Parcs has the best facilities?

All the Center Parcs sites have loads of things to do but there are slight differences in the number of activities on offer.

As you are probably aware, many activities at Center Parcs cost extra and some are only available at certain sites. If there’s something you are particularly keen to do, it’s worth checking the website first, but you can get a general idea of which village has the most number of activities with a bit of filtering on the website.

Number of activities on offer, from most to least
So, Woburn Forest has fewer activities whilst also being the most expensive village in our (limited) price comparison. It’s also noting that this is only a very rough way of looking at the number of activities due to the way the website is set up. For example, adventure golf is listed twice – once with 9 holes and once with 18 holes. At three of the villages you can do either 9 or 18 holes, whilst two of them you can only do 9 holes.

Also, bear in mind that this only tells you how many activities are available. It doesn't tell you how well run they are or which has the most modern equipment. Honestly though, I think if there was a big difference then it would show up in the average customer reviews which are very (very) similar across all five Center Parcs in England.

Which Center Parcs has the best swimming pool?

For a lot of people, the Subtropical Swimming Paradise is the main attraction of Center Parcs and it's one of the free things to do onsite (whereas most activities are charged extra). They all offer wave pools, flumes, rapids for stronger swimmers and jacuzzis. They do get rather busy at peak times - we've found they are much quieter and pleasant in the evening than during the day.

With a bit of digging you'll find that the swimming pools are reviewed separately by Google reviews. So which is the best Center Parcs swimming pool?

Again, there isn't a huge range in the reviews but the Subtropical Swimming Paradise at Longleat is the best, according to reviewers as it was scoring 4.8/5 when we checked. Whinfell Forest and Elveden Forest's swimming pools were both scoring 4.7/5 whilst Sherwood Forest and Woburn Forest were both scoring 4.6/5. 

Other differences between the Center Parcs locations

According to Wikipedia (Ed: hmm...great research, you're fired) there are a number of other differences between the five Center Parcs in the UK:
  • Longleat Forest has 'fewer lodges than Elveden Forest and Sherwood Forest due to the steep topography of the site'
  • 'Whinfell is slightly different in that the style of accommodation is more akin to two-storey Scandinavian-style lodges, the main centre of the village is under cover, and there is no country club like at Elveden Forest and Sherwood Forest.'
  • Woburn Forest is 'the smallest UK Center Parcs village' (though there's not all that much difference)

Conclusion

Based on our (limited) comparisons, Whinfell Forest and Sherwood Forest appear to offer slightly better value than the other Center Parcs villages. They both compare well on reviews, offer slightly more activities than the others and were a little bit cheaper in our price comparisons.

Longleat Forest has the best Subtropical Swimming Paradise according to reviewers, but the difference is marginal and they all score very well.

I would say you would be best to weigh up the cost and convenience of travel with the money you could save. If you’re in the South of England or the Westcountry you might consider several hours extra in the car for a week’s holiday where you could save hundreds of pounds, but probably not for an off peak weekend where you might save £100.

Which are the best cheap alternatives to Center Parcs?

There are various alternatives to Center Parcs in the UK, some of which are considerably cheaper:
There are more than 20 Center Parcs around Europe, in France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands. Curiously, it is usually cheaper to book Center Parks Europe through the French version of the Center Parcs website rather than the English version. The saving is often £100 for a week's holiday in summer (read more on this).

We did a (rather time consuming) comparison based on customers reviews, price, activities and location and concluded that the four to consider first are:
One other thing to consider is that there's a Center Parcs which is a joint thing with Disneyland Paris called Center Parcs Les Villages Nature Paris so you can spend a couple of days watching Princess parades whilst on holiday. We've got a Disneyland Paris guide, if you're considering that.
Bluestone National Park Resort in Wales is a large holiday resort which is sometimes compared to Center Parcs in reviews. Bluestone has got 300 lodges in 500 acres of Pembrokeshire park, compared to about 800 lodges in 400 acres at Center Parcs. So, it's more spread out and less self contained than Center Parcs but it has a fairly similar choice of activities.

In total, Bluestone has 'over 100 indoor and outdoor activities', compared to around 200 at Center Parcs. Highlights at Bluestone include:
  • live music and dinner shows
  • a 'well spa'
  • a high ropes course called 'Steep Ravine'
  • activities like archery, rock climbing and raft building
  • an indoor adventure park
  • a water park called the Blue Lagoon 
  • bike hire
  • a woodland diner called 'Camp Smokey'​
Reviews for Bluestone averaged 4/5 on Trip Advisor or 4.6/5 on Google when we checked. That's almost identical to Center Parcs.

In our price comparison, a week in a 'Caldey' lodge at Bluestone in August 2019 was £1678 for a family of four (similar to the cheaper Center Parcs options for that week).

You do pay extra for most activities at Bluestone, much like Center Parcs (when I checked, 45 minutes of archery for a teenager was £15 at Bluestone or at Center Parcs). 
Landal GreenParks is a Dutch company which has five lodge parks across the UK and some of them get better overall reviews than Center Parcs.

There are plenty of activities on offer at their locations in: ​When we checked, Landal Gwel a Mor in Cornwall had the best customer reviews (5/5 on TripAdvisor). A week for four people in August 2019 at Sandybrook started at about £1100, whilst Gwel a Mor was about £1600 (similar to Center Parcs). We searched in March 2019.

They're much smaller than Center Parcs. Darwin Forest has about 120 lodges in 47 acres, whilst Center Parcs have about 800 lodges in 400 acres.

If you fancy an adventure, there are also dozens of Landal parks in the Netherlands.
​Haven has more than 30 holiday parks in the UK, some of which get reviews of 4.5/5 on TripAdvisor (slightly higher than Center Parcs on average). There's a top 10 guide on our Haven page, but some highly rated ones include:
Accommodation is mostly caravans and lodges. Expect to pay from about £900+ for a week in August for a family of four, compared to about £1700+ for a similar time of year at Center Parcs (based on our price comparisons). To give you a rough idea, Hopton Holiday Village is about 100 acres, whilst Center Parcs sites are about 400 acres.​​
Hoseasons manages bookings for dozens of holiday parks with lodges across the UK with last minute discounts on a fairly regular basis.
Darwin Escapes has more than 20 'holiday resorts' which mostly offer lodge accommodation with hot tubs. Many are in seaside locations and get very strong reviews. Some are bigger than others and facilities vary. 

Darwin Escapes resorts which offer a range of family activities include:

Other guides from the Holiday Park Guru

Holiday-Park-Guru-Don't-Blame-Us-Disclaimer: All the information on this page is accurate, as far as we know. However, facilities at holiday parks change so please check with the park before booking.