Love2Stay | Meet the Trudgians

Love2Stay

Posted by on Aug 21, 2018 in Featured, Trips & Adventures | 2 comments

Love2Stay

It was sometime earlier this year that I started to see a lot of positive reviews of Love2Stay. It was always a place I wanted to visit and, this year it seemed the time was right for us to visit this new offering

For those that are unsure of what Love2Stay is, it’s a new affiliate club site (Caravan and Motorhome Club) and has been constructed by the team that run Salop Leisure.

The site offers a high specification of facilities, some onsite activities and fully serviced pitches for all who visit the site.

We booked our trip for the beginning of August to coincide with our 21st Wedding anniversary and we also managed to book in some extremely hot weather too.

We did film some of our stay, but be under no illusion, it was a welcome rest for us all. So here are four of the days we stayed, and below I’ll write up our thoughts on Love2Stay.

How did we find Love2Stay?

I’ve noticed that recently Love2Stay has had a bit of a battering with reviews on Trip Advisor, Facebook and social media in general. Is it unfounded?

The good stuff.

The facilities at the site are very good. The pitches are brilliantly laid out, lots of space and with a fully serviced pitch, it takes some of the hassle away from “doing the water” and emptying the waste / toilet.

One of the great innovations was to find that toilet emptying can be completed on pitch providing the toilet chemicals are of the “green” or “eco-friendly” variety. Which is lucky for us, as we recently swapped blue toilet chemicals for green.

The amenities block is again of a high standard, showers, toilets and wash basins all provided with complimentary “White Company” hand wash and shower gel.

Moving away from the camping ground the main block is well laid out and hosts all the on-site activities. Including the pool, hot tubs, springs and lake.

Right, so that’s the positives. Now the negatives.

The pitches do need a maintenance team or wardens to check them between check-in and check-out. Our pitch was littered with cigarette ends mixed in with the gravel. Dog poo surrounded the perimeter of the hard-standing pitch too, so it wasn’t a very welcome start to the holiday.

To do anything on-site, you need a swipe card. To visit the shower block, use the washing up sinks, visit the Laundrette – you need a swipe card. I’m not entirely sure why there is such a high level of security around the site, but in my mind it’s an obstruction. I also wish Love2Stay could supply lanyards for these swipe cards, it makes it far easier to keep cards and somewhere to store the card when using the facilities.

The shower blocks as I have mentioned are of a high standard, but their design does need some alteration. The floors are constantly wet. The showers don’t seem to drain well into the drainage gullies, and instead flood the communal areas. So, when you’ve finished having a shower, you will find you’re standing in a puddle, trying to dry yourself off.

The toilets also need some refinement. The flushes are automatic with a light/dark sensor. So if you sit and lean back or move to the side the flush will go off, while you are still sat down. This happened to all three of us.

The worst part however was the smell from the bio digester. Half way down the hill to the main entrance, the site is particularly smelly. Either caused by campers emptying toilets with the wrong chemicals or there is a design flaw, the stench on some days was quite over powering.

There are a few other issues we had with the site, including advertised breakfasts, pizza delivery – all of which doesn’t exist and the lack of an on-site shop.

All these things however are rectifiable, and it’s important to remember that it’s a young site, it’s still maturing and there will be teething issues as the site grows and finds it feet.

However, there was one issue that I’m not sure how Love2Stay can fix. It was how people treated the facilities. The speed limit is 5mph. I’m pretty sure that the Fiat panda that changed into 3rd gear wasn’t doing 5mph as they ascended the hill to the camping ground.

How people treated and left the showers, toilets and sinks really made me think “im sure you’re home isn’t left like this” there was a complete lack of respect for the facilities while we stayed there and after speaking to fellow visitors to the site, we were not the only ones to think this.

The bottom line.

Would we stay again? Yes, but not in Summer school holiday time. I’m not going to moan that Love2Stay is expensive. Everyone knows that at the point of booking, its not rocket science that it will be a premium cost for a premium site. (2019 would cost us in the region of £64 per night) What I will say however is that for the price that we pay, I wouldn’t expect the issues we had.

We enjoyed our visit to Love2Stay and we do look forward to returning in 2019, perhaps when it’s not so hot and busy.

2 Comments

  1. An interesting review Dan, and one I quite agree with. We stayed for 2 nights when collecting a new van we had purchased from Salop Leisure. I like what they are trying to do, but the shower/toilet block I found frustrating. I noticed that the drain for the walk in shower is almost by the door, so the area you want to get dry/dressed in will always be soaking, a school boy error in my mind. The loo flushed every time I was sat contemplating life at least once. Finally I can’t help but feel the digitally controlled taps were just OTT, and not required.

    As for how people use the facilities the family on the pitch next to us were particularly relaxed about how they did things. They were visited by the wardens on a few occasions (without prompting, which was good) but it made little difference. Not sure how they deal with that one.

    We were sited on the road that leads up the hill to the main area, and the stench from the bio digester was too much at times so we went out.

    We won’t be going back any time soon, but we don’t live too far away so wouldn’t particularly look in this area anyway. Maybe in a few years when the site and how it is managed has matured it will be better.

    Keep up the good work, it’s all excellent stuff.

  2. excellent review, I have stayed there on four occasions now, twice for new year, once in summer and once for bonfire night.
    The facility’s are always immaculate, however I must agree about getting changed after a shower (your going to get wet socks ).

    I have stayed at numerous sites over the country and I do find this to be the best so far for services ,security and meeting nice like minded people.
    I think its appeal and good reputation is going to be very hard to maintain due to its popularity .

    That being said we all have a duty as fellow campers to respect and adhere to the rules set out by the site. my kids are free to play and enjoy the facility’s and like any good parent they are supervised from a distance.

    There is no excuse for dog owners to leave dog waste lying around, I don’t have a dog but I did notice plenty of waste bins that included a bag dispenser for dog doo!

    it might be a good idea when instances occur to review CCTV that’s dotted around and hold people accountable. This in my opinion is the only way to keep this gem of a site five star.

    loving your work Dan
    regards Steve Hanshaw

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