Grab a brew, a sandwich and sit down to immerse yourself in an Honest review from an experienced camper.
We booked our holidays a few months back, and we are particular in what we want. A quiet site, campfires, electric, no light pollution, decent toilet facilities, and price. After we put in our choices on pitch up, Menallack came up with a 9.7 star rating and looked perfect for us. We made the booking (which was very reasonable I might add), after reading the reviews on here generally all of them were favourable towards the site with only 1 or two not so favourable, after not having a holiday for 2 years we were really looking forward to this one. As part of my due diligence when booking our camping holidays I like to look through the photos of the campsites to see what the facilities are like, I struggled to find any of the toilets or facilities of this site. My wife (46), Son (25) daughter in law(21) grandson( 3months ) daughter(18)and Son (13) drove the 350+ miles down and arrived at the site at about 1pm. The entrance to the site (where the notice board is which gives you a map and what pitch you are at) is also the rubbish pit with 3/4 commercial biffa bins all overflowing, with bags and rubbish thrown on the floor. Not a great welcome.
The site has 2 fields lower and upper, we were on the upper field close to the toilets ( as we requested this due to my wife's mobility issues) We found our pitch and setup. We set up and went to explore the campsite and the facilities. The lower camp looked inviting as it was a big square patch of land of about 20 pitches encompassing a playing field in the middle. The upper level was just a field, I'd say that accommodates 40+? pitches. On the lower there was a concrete block of showers/toilets. The mens consisted of 2 toilets, 2 showers and 2 sinks, all separate. Now, one of the showers had a lockable door and the other - well that only had a shower curtain to hide your modesty. Not really acceptable given the amount of children on the site. The ladies was the same however both showers had Curtains for doors!!
Also on the lower section was a wooden building incorporating 2 x shower/toilet/sink units (shower-rooms) which gave piping hot, powerful showers, and a kitchen area. The kitchen offering 2 sinks to wash up, microwave, FridgeFreezer and FREE WASHING MACHINE ! The lower level seemed to have a mixture of level and sloped pitches. On the top field, it was all sloped, our pitch in particular sloped downhill and sideways making it awkward to sleep. There was a toilet container consisting of 2 x toilets for men and only 1 for women. So in summary 6 showers and 9 toilets trying to service 50/60 pitches?
You can see where my review is leading, the toilets and showers. Not enough in my opinion to service the site, the concrete block facilities are old, dated dirty and with shower curtains for doors not secure. The wooden combined "shower rooms" are the washroom of choice for the site so there was always a queue but even these had a lack of cleaning, Cobwebs and spiders in every corner. Unfortunately it seemed like it was the meeting point for all the children on site to congregate and my wife and daughter felt uncomfortable going there at certain times.
The toilet block on the upper level often ran out of loo roll, the ladies sink was hanging of the wall, the sanitary bin overflowed more than once, and the "hot water hand-wash units" had little to no water pressure so you couldn't use them to wash your hands. Add into that the grass was very long and needed to be cut which then added to the mess - cut wet grass everywhere. This site has the potential to be a 9.7 rated campsite it just needs a little investment financially and more staff to keep on top of the cleaning.
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