Center Parcs Sandur Emmen

We had the family house, with (old) toys for younger children, a fenced garden (which was great). Overall, the house was clean, but with room for improvement (doors were dirty, crumbs under the beds, and plenty of dust). Otherwise, we were very satisfied; the activities were enjoyable. Unfortunately, at the bowling alley, the lane is closed after exactly one hour, even if you can't start immediately due to children and the people who played before us, so we couldn't finish our game, which was disappointing and frustrating. At the pirate indoor playground, a child cut their toe and bled; something like that shouldn't happen. Afterwards, they came to me at the gym to be comforted, and I was rudely asked if I had checked in for sports and why the child was there; after all, they were too small. He was sitting next to me, I was almost done (had two sets of the exercise left, and would have left anyway). Nowhere does it say, and no one has said, that children are not allowed in the gym, so I found the reaction a bit uncalled for. Apart from that, we all had a lot of fun and also went to the swimming pool. The food is great, and there's something for everyone, young and old.

We just got back from 4 nights in one of the Comfort Kids bungalows and it was WONDERFUL. We drove there with our 3 kids (11, 9, 5), parked the car and never got in it again the whole time. We rented bikes, bowled, boated in a canoe and a swan boat, the kids did paintball, mini-golf, we rented a Kids Safari truck for our littlest to "drive" around...I cannot say enough good things. The cottage was completely clean. Sparkling. And I am picky. Really picky, according to my husband. Yes, the facilities are not brand new but they are well-maintained and super clean. We had our own dock and tried to fish off it with no success, but it was fun anyway. There are playgrounds and air trampolines, the restaurants were fine if a bit slow with service, and the grocery store was well-priced and well-stocked. Everyone was kind and pleasant and helpful. Totally recommend. It's pretty far from where we live so I can't say for sure we'll be back, but we're excited to try it again or other CentreParc locations. Oh! And the pool slide!! Wow that was fun. The kids and I went down it about 1000 times. Again, I don't know what happened in the other reviews but our cabin was clean, everyone was helpful, it never felt crowded. Try it!

Nice Parc. bungelow falling apart, heating very loud, stains running down the ceiling., couldn't lock the door from the inside. (not good if you have dogs). Not really clean. Lights not all working. Let's get to the service... Absolutely disgusting, in the time we there nobody was prepared to give assistance without showing disapproval... You feel like you are a burden to the staff if you ask for anything. Another problem was most of the Parc just caters for Dutch visitors, hardly anything was in English or German and the staff couldn't (or wouldn't) speak anything but Dutch. I have been going to center parcs for many years and always been reasonably happy, we decided to go to sandur as we wanted to try it out. End result? Disgusting. Never again. Center parcs should definitely get someone down there to sort it out.... Rant over. It's a shame you can't give zero stars.

We came 5 persons to have a good time but It was definitely a bad experience. The house cleaning was BAD, there were dogs hairs everywhere (seems like they didn’t vacuumed at all), the dishes in the cabinet were dirty with old food, we found a ball of hair in one of the bed sheets and there were spiderwebs everywhere. We also did a reservation for catering at home, so they brought a pan to cook everything which it was UNWASHED, the fondue that came with the catering was a bad quality cheese that didn’t melt properly and it was just swimming in its own oil… The place had so much potential, but everything else was disastrous. Not recommended

Before we start: If you find yourself reading this after you’ve already arrived, first up I’m very sorry for the disappointments you’ll likely experience. Take frequent trips to Emmen, it’s a really nice town. I have great memories of this place when I was a kid. I was horrified when I saw how this place looks now. First off: it’s a blast for kids or in our case adults in their 25s/30s who wanted to revisit old memories. Lots of activities, water boating, sports, you name it. But man, was that house ever filthy. Set aside at least one day of cleaning and re-doing the bedsheets. Plus, there’re signs of disuse everywhere. It’s like this place was built at some point and subsequently never once visited by staff or management since. We could see and smell the people who were here before us. There was hair on the bed, the kitchen surface, the toilet and the sofa - the sofa! That in particular really turned my stomach. There were stains, scratch-marks of generations of dogs, a heavy layer of dust and what we assumed to be kitchen grease, mixed with the aforementioned hair. We had to spend a solid day of our holidays just deep-cleaning. Cleaning supplies we had to buy ourselves, mind you. If you come to Sandur, accept the reality of this: nobody cares if you’re living in a dirty home. You can complain, send in the feedback slip, even talk to management - nobody will clean up the mess if you don’t do it yourself. Lastly: Make sure you visit April or later, otherwise many of the activities will be closed to you, particularly water activities. And even then, don’t expect everything to be open. On the positive side, the Sauna and Whirlpool in the VIP house were nice.