Look at the Haven Holiday website. Look at the beautiful caravans, don't they look bright, clean and welcoming. Then come back and look at the reality of what we were given:
including by the dining area...
Doesn't look much like the brochure does it.
And the price you would expect for this holiday? We paid £949 for the Haven Holiday shown above. Does this look like the Haven Holiday Silver Caravan shown in the brochure?
More of our Haven Holiday experience at Devon Cliffs:
Dirty caravan, as shown above, but also webs, broken glass etc round the outside of the interior of the caravan. It was obvious it was only being cleaned around the central areas.
No curtains up in the bathroom - interesting experience.
Filthy filthy filthy. I'm definitely no clean freak, far from it, but this was disgusting.
Facilities - Too crowded when we went in the school holidays. Too many people for the facilities offered when the site is almost full. Very little entertainment for free. Sport - in the old days of Haven they used to offer football games - parents and children playing. No more. Now everything to do with sport you have to pay an extra charge. Tiger Club - that's the reason a lot of us take our little ones right? In the evenings wayyyy too busy, wayyyy too crowded. Unless you get there early you're not going to get a seat. Nightmare. Overpriced food.
Dirty surroundings inside (outside looks beautiful though).
Check in and check out: Possibly okay out of the school holiday times. Other times BE WARNED. A few parking spaces for possibly 1000 to 2000 families (how many caravans there are at Haven Devon Cliffs depends on where you read - I'll email Haven and get an answer). All arriving at similar times, equals CHAOS. Crowded. Nowhere to park. Queues. Tempers flaring. Not fun. Not nice.
Caravans too close together. Also some of the vans travelling around the camp delivering gas drove at crazy fast speeds, despite there being speed limits. The tracks by the caravans are narrow at some points and several times we had to quickly pull our small child out of the way. We weren't the only ones doing this I noticed.
Other in summary:The beach. Steep slope. Covered in seaweed. Bus service. One an hour. Only goes to Exmouth.
No bedding covers for the first night - they told us they had run out. My son got ill, possibly from the disgusting dirty mattress and had to use his asthma pump for the first time in years. The second day when we got the sheets and duvet covers his health improved. The mattresses we were expected to sleep on were very old so it's not surprising really he got ill.
When you check the reviews out of Haven Holidays check how much people have paid - a lot of people have gone out of the school holidays and are only paying around £60 or so through the Sun holiday offers. For that money it's probably an acceptable holiday, so they sometimes give a good review (will show link) For the ones that have paid brochure price and have gone in the school holidays the reality is quite different and the reviews sometimes reflect that (add link).
Unless you follow their complaints procedure to the letter they won't even listen to your complaint, much less take note and do anything about it! So be sure to take your contract with you, some glasses to read the small print and a legal rights guide just to be on the safe side.
In our case they messed up. They failed to record the complaint and then use that as a reason as to why it's ok to offer a substandard joke of a holiday for £900+, and they think they don't have to do anything about it, because THEY messed up! Do they refuse to listen to complaints because they think they don't have too. People will look at the brochure, think they're getting what they see there, and when they don't do Haven Holidays think it's acceptable to ignore them because they think they can get away with ignoring complaints?
If you need to check out Haven's reputation further try these sites: (links to be added from the many researched online)
(This Haven Holiday review follows a holiday at Haven which was not as described in the brochure, and for the money was frankly a joke. Haven is aimed at families, and in a lot of cases budgets are tight. In the school holidays their prices are very high, so for that price you would expect a reasonable holiday, not luxury, but not squalor and dirt either. And to be able to use the facilities advertised also. You also rely on the fact that Haven is a large company, and so you trust them not to cheat you. At least if the holiday is not as described you expect the company to listen to you. In my experience, not so.
For the record, my family have been on caravan holidays in the summer holidays for at least the last 10 years. I have NEVER had occasion during that time to make a complaint. Nothing has ever been that bad before!
In my opinion Haven is ok if you buy it through the Sun holidays offers for £60 (most of the Haven parks are part of that offer). For that price your expectations will be low so it may be worth it.
I would not recommend paying brochure prices for school holidays. Some of the prices are over £1000. The camp I went to was so crowded more often than not the facilities were a nightmare and the caravan was disgusting, old and dirty.
I'll keep this website updated with whether Haven listen to their customers and take this complaint seriously (they haven't yet after 2 letters - they say just take us to court! I'm looking into it but what family can afford legal costs - do they know that and that's why they ignore us?). Be very wary with parting with your money - do the checks first - know what you're getting.
When you give a holiday company your money you trust them to provide what their brochure or website says they will. When they don't you trust they will listen and try to put it right. When they don't you feel cheated and the overriding feeling is that you want to stop other families being caught out in the same way.
I'll keep you updated and let you know what if Haven Holidays do anything to put the situation right. I'll also try and spread the word to stop other families being caught in the same way, so they can use my experiences in this Haven Holiday Review before making a decision to book a holiday.
