Something just a little bit different today: a little overview of my recent stay at Center Parcs – Whinfell Forest!

I booked the trip as a present for my lovely fabulous Mum for Mother’s Day.

As my Dad and I are both teachers (like father, like daughter – I also have a beard and a bald head), we have to work our breaks around school holidays, so we went at Easter time.

The weather wasn’t ideal – in fact, it rained, hailstoned (is that a word?) and even snowed every single day. Didn’t really matter though – we’re hardy folk and had a backup plan – the swimming pool!We were a 5 minute walk away from the village centre, which is where the swimming pool (my personal favourite activity, mainly because it’s free) is, and 10 minutes away from the Sports Plaza (where we spent the majority of our time playing boules because we’re all literally 1000 years old).

I booked an Executive Lodge as 8 of us were going, and opted to pay about £35 more to secure a central location – my Nana came with us and we didn’t want her to be too tired wandering round the whole forest to get from A to B.

I took a few pictures to show the inside of the lodge. We absolutely loved it, and we’ll definitely book an executive lodge again.

The beds all had clean towels at the end (replaced as if by magic every day by the cleaning crew, who were really nice and chatted for ages with my uncle and auntie about all the wildlife around Center Parcs).

I loved the burgundy walls in the kitchen; it was really sleek and modern without taking away from the traditional lodge-style decoration.

We were impressed with the fact that the kitchen had a toaster and a blender, as well as a dishwasher. It meant we didn’t have to have the age-old “I cooked, so you wash up” debate.

The bathroom was my favourite part – we had the best shower in the world (no lie – I stayed in it for about 40 minutes one morning when I was having a particularly difficult time waking up!). Two of the other bathrooms had jacuzzi baths.

There were plenty of places to eat around Center Parcs, although I’d definitely recommend booking well in advance as we had a right kerfuffle trying to seat 10 people at any of the restaurants on Friday night (my cousin and her fiance had come to visit for the day).

We ate in the Pancake House for lunch one day. I’ll say no more. Just look at this picture.

We had a lovely time, and we’ll definitely be back! I just hope it doesn’t snow next time.