Centre Parcs Longleat Forest

This BlogPost is a severe mixup of; a tripadvisor review of Longleat Forest, Brain Vomit and a review of my wonderful holiday. I shall try to make it as wonderful as I can.

Got up at silly-o-clock in the morning because I was feeling that tingly excitement everyone does just before anyone goes on holiday does :D Got up, drove down to the park and was greeted by fantastically wonderful, smiley staff. Either they've all got the "I'm at work, but I have to pretend I love it" grin down to a T or they genuinly love their jobs. We did have to pootle around a bit to find our cabin as the signs weren't crystal clear, but we found it within 5/10 minutes. The cabin itself was emmaculate on the inside, very clean, very welcoming. No signs of anyone being in there previously at all- which is something I like to feel. Don't like the idea of other people's bacteria mingling with my own.
After conducting my own brief "Four in a Bed"-like inspection. Everything was pretty top notch cleanliness-wise. Even the shelf with the tele on that was right up by the cieling was dusted. Wonderful.

Visiting the toilet upon my arrival however posed the first problem. The bathroom was pretty small, which was alright only having the two of us to share it- but the design didn't seem terribly thought out. The toilet was crammed into the corner snug next to the shower with the towel rail on the right hand wall. This did mean that unless you mounted the toilet at a diagonal angle, you either froze or burnt yourself on said towel rail. The tap was wobbly and the mirror wasn't anti-fog which did mean if the other half was in the shower, the mirror was out-of-bounds until 10 minutes after they were done. The only other problem I encountered in the bathroom was the shower. Nearly everything about it, unfortunately. The temperature was impossible to get right- kept freezing and then boiling, the shower head itself was so harshly pressurised, the damn thing HURT and the tap-like device to turn it on and off was iffy and needed quite the coax to go in the right position...
On the upside, the towel rail dried swimming-wear VERY efficiently so that it's ready to wear the next day if you leave it for one night.

On the subject of swimming: The Pool.
It was pretty fantastic, to be honest. It was clean, didn't have an overwhelming smell of chlorine- which is good if you know what that smell actually is... (Can't remember who told me that, but they said "Chlorine is actually odourless, the smell at swimming pools is feacal matter reacting with the chlorine" Ew.) There were no floaters or failed tampons bobbing about and not many unaccompanied children. So few whistles, it felt like the lifeguards weren't even there- which is a good thing, but there were a lot on duty every night all the way up until 9pm when they closed the pool to public. The rapids are one of the best bits. A series of woosh-y slides that woosh you down pretty fast ^^ The slides (apparently, I was too pussy) were fun and thus, the visit was all very good. I went three times during the week and felt like I'd had a decent work out each time. The showers were very helpful too (because mine was so shocking, it was nice to wash my hair without being hurt)

Other activities that were wonderful:
Longhorn Western Horse Riding; well organised, lovely horses, well instructed, felt safe but with a decent amount of control in the horse.
Kayaking; easy to book, got six of the family into one katakanu and me in a single kayak. Very tiring, but a great workout.
Badminton; courts very clean, spacious and well priced.
Adventure Golf; Pretty over-priced but still amazing fun.
Falconry; Just. Straight out wonderful. I got to fly a Harris Hawk, a Golden Eagle and a Peregrin falcon. Fantastic. Well priced, very educational and very well run. Loved it.

Extra bits. The "Maid" service... Well- it was punctual and efficient but they weren't as--- extensive as I would have hoped [No, I wasn't expecting a strip-o-gram included] but they didn't make the beds every day and I got no little choccy :(

This holiday was--- just amazing. The hills on the bikes were hard going and I'm definitely feeling now I'm home but seriously. If you get the chance. Do it. The shops are great, the atmosphere is great, the other people there are majoritively awesome and the staff deserve gold medals all round. Wicked.