We holidayed here in April; we had paid for a standard static van (around £280) and took our dog with us. When we arrived, the van was grubby and smelt very musty, it had 2 cracked window frames letting a howling draft through, and the bed linen was very old, tired and for august use not winter as it was so thin. We had a gas fire in the lounge, and a ceiling heater panel in the 2 bedrooms. It was very very cold, and we were absolutely frozen, to the extent that we could not sleep and were all huddled round the fire at 4am. It snowed and the temperature was well below freezing. We contacted reception to ask to move to another van but were told one was not available to have a pet in. Other gripes were that the site was laid out alongside a busy road through the villlage, so you had to get in your car to go to reception; and having walked on the beach on the sunday we arrived, went to walk on the monday morning and it was closed to the public during the week as it is MOD property (neither mentioned in the brochure).
We have contacted them to complain; waited over 3 weeks for a reply to be told it was our fault we were cold and had we contacted reception (incidentally not open during the night....when our power tripped we had to wait until 9am) they would have sorted it out. Really disgusted with their level of customer service - we were so cold and miserable we only stayed 2 nights instead of 7 and went onto another site round the coast in a warm van with central heating. These companies charge you a small fortune for taking a break in the school holidays, can rip you off with sub-standard accomodation and service, and have the cheek to reply to complaints telling you its your fault that you didn't enjoy what they have on offer.
However what is unacceptable, is the cleanliness and bad repair of the van. We actually ended up at Pendine Sands having moved from Kiln park for the same reasons. Did you ask for or did they offer an alternative park? I can see that pet friendly accomodation may not have been available, but that doesn't excuse the poor customer service. Would the staff dealing with you have been prepared to sleep in that van? I suspect not!!
If your complaint is based on being cold I suspect that is why you are getting nowhere, however if you have any pictures showing the state of the van I would send those and tackle it from that point of view, since that is the only element of the holiday that you didn't 'choose'.
Good luck, hope you get some satisfaction.
Pam
One thing we do tend to do if we're renting a caravan in the cooler months is to take a couple of small electric heaters with us, they can make all the difference especially in the bedrooms.
I hope you have better luck next time.
Sorry to hear about the trouble you had at pendine, I went there 9 years ago in the begining of may and found it the coldest caravan site we ever visited, we were a family of 5 and we only lasted 1 night out of the 4 that we booked. We had never been so cold at night and even put our coats and clothing over us to try to keep warm. The caravan was ok but when we do go in april or may we now make sure we book a caravan with double glazing and central heating.
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