Things to take to Centre Parcs

If you have never been to Centre Parcs, it is useful to know what to take. We went recently and had a wonderful time!

Kitchen and Bathroom Essentials

We stayed in two of the woodland lodges in their Longleat Forest site in Wiltshire. We had gone with our extended family to celebrate a special birthday! There were nine of us so we needed two lodges, but had our meals and games in the bigger one. They are located in the forest and designed so that the view from the living area is of uninterrupted nature.

The kitchens are reasonably well equipped but you do need to take dishwasher tablets, washing up liquid, washing up cloths, t-towels and kitchen towels as well as food and drink of course. You can buy all this stuff on site, but it is a little more expensive than in your local Aldi or Tesco.

Centre Parcs also provide a very small amount of soap, shampoo and toilet rolls, so make sure you take what you need to last the whole time you are staying there.

Outdoor Kit

We went in early Spring so had no intention of using any of their boats or any of the things you can do on the lake. Instead we spent lots of time in the swimming pool complex and the sports hall. Naturally if you are going to do what we did, then you need not only your swimming kit but towels too. Centre Parcs supply towels for a shower, but not for swimming.

Because no cars are allowed on site, apart from on changeover days, most people hire bicycles. If you have your own helmet its probably worth taking that too. Most of our party did hire bikes for the weekend. The best fun we had though was on the segway experience! They supplied helmets, knee and elbow pads, which was good as one of our party fell off her segway. No damage done though, but we were pleased we had brought a small first aid kit with us.

Indoor Entertainment

Our lodge had a TV and we were able to watch the rugby in front of the fire. When we booked the lodge we also booked a bag of logs which are those easy ones that you just put a match to. We took a couple of board games, but didn’t use them. Instead we played some family favourite pen and paper games as well as charades and our own version of articulate. It rained much of the weekend that we were there, but it really didn’t matter. We had lots of fun playing air hockey in the sports hall too. And whilst we self-catered in the main, we did have one brunch at the Pancake House.

Centre Parcs in Longleat have a Trail with clues, but doing that would have been a busman’s holiday! The nearest Treasure Trail to the site is in Warminster. So you might want to add that to your list of things to take and do it before or after you check in to Longleat Forest.