Review of Pontins holidays in the UK
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Pontins have been offering seaside family holidays in the UK since the company was founded by Fred Pontin in 1946. They have seven holiday centres in the UK. Blackpool and Pakefield in Suffolk offer half board holidays. The five other centres, Prestatyn Sands in North Wales, Brean Sands in Somerset, Southport, Helmsley in Norfolk and Camber Sands in Sussex, have self catering accommodation.
The website has information about each of the holiday centres, such as accommodation options with floor plans of the apartments, centre facilities, activities and nearby attractions for days out.
Pontins have some great deals on UK breaks with half price offers on self catering holidays. There are also free child places available on selected dates on half board holidays. You can claim a free two night Euro 2008 break between 2 - 29 June if you book any Summer holiday or short break. However be aware that you have to pay a £30 booking fee for the Euro short break but you will receive £30 of Pontins voucher when you check in. If you book a Schools Out or Summer break you qualify for half price festive breaks. You must book before the end of February 2008 to be eligible for the offers.
I carried out several searches on the site and there was good availability for half price holidays. You can only carry out a search by holiday centre, month and length of stay. I’d have liked to see a date specific search where you could search several different holiday centres simultaneously, so you could easily compare prices at the various centres.
I was pretty irked when I clicked on the “50 Free Activities” bar in the left margin and every activity which came up on page one was subject to an additional charge. This is misleading for potential guests. I think most people realise that activities such as go-karting and quad bikes will be subject to a charge but why list them in free activities? Better to have two categories, one for free activities and one for charged activities. A fair number of activities are free such as indoor swimming pool, table tennis, cabaret shows, play station area, indoor soft play areas. You need to check the availability of activities at each holiday centre.
I do think that Pontins offer good value for UK holiday breaks. Their website is fairly easy to use, although the addition of a general site search box and a more flexible holiday date search facility would be useful.
