The school summer holidays are just a few weeks away and thousands of us are looking forward to spending quality time with our families and friends and catching up with loved ones in the sunshine – hopefully! Unfortunately, trips away seem to be getting more expensive every year and it can be very difficult and stressful for parents and carers to find the money to splash out on a holiday with their children, especially amid the Cost of Living Crisis.
Earlier this month, one mum said she saved more than £600 by venturing to Center Parcs in Belgium for her family’s week-long holiday, instead of driving just a few hours’ away to Center Parcs Sherwood Forest in Nottingham.
Rebecca Kellett, 33, travelled with her partner JP, 42, and his two children, to Center Parcs De Vossemeren during June Half Term and paid just £445 for their accommodation. A stay during the same time-frame at Sherwood Forest would have set the family back £1,699, Rebecca claimed – so travelling to Belgium for their family trip was a no-brainer. You can recap more about what Rebecca said about her bargain holiday here.
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With Rebecca's brilliant money-saving hack in mind, we decided to compare the prices for holidays in Center Parcs in the UK with holidays in Center Parcs in Belgium during the upcoming school summer break. Whilst a week’s accommodation at Longleat Center Parcs in Wiltshire, England this summer is priced at more than £2,500 – price not including food and drink, activities or travel to the site – a week’s stay in the Belgium Center Parcs sites will cost around £1,300 or £1,600 (depending on the park) – with the combined price of accommodation and travelling costs totalling hundreds of pounds less than a stay at Longleat. Scroll down to read the price comparisons in-full.
For our price comparison, we looked at seven-night holidays for a family of four, two adults and two children aged six and nine, from August 4 to August 11, 2023. We got the prices for each park from the official Center Parcs UK or Center Parcs EU website, all prices were correct at the time of writing (evening of June 15, 2023).
When looking at fuel costs, we used an online distance calculator to tell us the number of miles between Swansea (our home city) and each of the Center Parc parks, via main roads. We then entered this number into an online fuel cost calculator which used the UK average price per litre to give us the estimated price for how much each journey would cost us in petrol. When asked what type of vehicle we’d be driving, we chose this reporter’s vehicle, a Kia Ceed, from the drop-down list. Of course, different vehicles have different fuel consumptions so the fuel prices given should be seen as an estimate.
All prices correct at time of writing.
A week at Longleat Forest, Wiltshire - £2,726
On the official Center Parcs UK website, a seven-night stay (from August 4 to 11, 2023) in a standard two-bedroom ‘Woodland Lodge’ at Longleat Center Parcs is currently priced at a whopping £2,698.
The price for a stay in a two-bedroom ‘New Style Woodland Lodge,’ on the same dates, is £2,848 - and if you fancied splashing out for a more spacious three-bedroom ‘New Style Executive two-storey lodge,’ for the same week, it would set you back £3,948!
In terms of travel costs, according to an online fuel calculator it would cost around £28 in petrol to drive from Swansea to Longleat and back.
This gives us an overall, minimum price of £2,726 for a week’s holiday at Longleat Center Parcs for the dates we’ve chosen to compare. Of course, this price does not include optional upgrades e.g. upgrading from a two-bedroom Woodland Lodge to more exclusive accommodation, nor does it include food and drink or any of the bookable on-site activities.
A week at Whinfell Forest, Cumbria - £2,228
A week's stay at Whinfell Forest in Cumbria for the dates we're comparing comes to £2,228 for a two-bedroom Woodland Lodge or, for an extra £100, people can upgrade to a 'New Style' two-bedroom Woodland Lodge for the week.
Petrol for the lengthy drive from Swansea to Whinfell would set motorists back around £82, bringing the total for the week's break to £2,310, not including food and drink, activities etc.
A week at Park De Haan, Belgium - £2,016.18
On the Center Parcs EU website, there appears to be a sale with hundreds of Euros knocked off holidays at many of its sites. With this in mind, a seven-night stay (from August 4 to 11, 2023) in a two-bedroom ‘Premium Cottage’ at Park De Haan in Belgium is currently priced at £1618.16 (1889 Euros, previously 2759 Euros).
Alternatively, you could book a three-bedroom ‘Premium Cottage’ for the same week for £1772.36 (2069 Euros, previously 2869 Euros), or you could book a ‘VIP Cottage’ for £1900.85 (2219 Euros, previously 3549 Euros).
In terms of travelling costs, the EuroTunnel would set you back £298 for travel on August 4 and 11, according to the official website, and petrol would cost you around £100, according to an online fuel calculator.
Alternatively, our example family could fly from Cardiff airport to Brussels with Ryanair for around £470 total (£118 per person, changing flights at Dublin, prices from SkyScanner). It would cost them about £30 in petrol to drive from Swansea to Cardiff airport and back, and it would be around £100 for Cardiff airport parking that week, according to AirParks.co.uk. On arrival in Brussels, our example family could take a train to Blankenberge, near Park De Haan, for £68 (£17 per person) and then could get a short taxi trip to the park.
In total, accommodation and travel by car (petrol and EuroTunnel costs) comes to £2,016.18 or it’s £2,186 plus taxi fare if a family decided to fly and then get a train.
A week at Park De Vossemeren, Belgium - £1,784.34
A seven-night stay (same dates as the others listed in this article) in a two-bedroom ‘Premium Cottage renewed’ is currently £1361.31 (1589 Euros) or it’s £1567.07 (1829 Euros) for a three-bedroom ‘Premium Cottage renewed’.
If you chose to go on holiday here, it would cost you around £125 in petrol to drive from Swansea and back again, and it’s £298 for a return ticket on the EuroTunnel on August 4 and 11.
Alternatively, you could fly from Cardiff Airport to Eindhoven with RyanAir for £444 (£111 per person, changing flights at Dublin, prices from SkyScanner). Airport parking would set you back around £100, according to AirParks.co.uk, and you’d also have to budget for the 30-minute taxi journey from the airport to the Park.
In total, accommodation and travel by car (petrol and EuroTunnel costs) comes to £1,784.34 or it’s £1,905.31 plus taxi fare if you decided to fly.
Final thoughts
Travelling outside of the school holidays is often recommended as a way of keeping costs down – but for the tens of thousands of families who aren’t able to do this, it’s great to know that by thinking a little bit outside the box, and being willing to travel a bit further, you can dramatically decrease the price of your family holiday during the school summer holidays.
Of course, in order to venture to the cheaper Center Parcs holiday parks in Belgium, everyone travelling would require in-date passports, which not everyone has or can afford. And you’d have to be okay with travelling abroad and have the relevant travel or car insurance too. Nevertheless, it may be worth looking at the international Center Parcs sites (or international equivalents of other popular UK holiday companies) to see if you can bag a bargain and go abroad for the same price or cheaper than a holiday in the UK.
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