The Sun £20 Holidays. Discussion thread

LD39

Since the promotion will be running again in July for the Autumn dates, a few tips -

• When choosing dates/destinations: if you can pick 5 dates/parks, plus 2* extra dates and 2* areas (each area has its own code number), it provides the widest possible perameteres to find an available booking.
• If you can only provide a couple of dates on your application, give the maximum number of destinations (5 parks + 2 areas). If you can only provide a couple of areas, put down the maximum number of dates. (5+2)
• Be careful when filling in your application form to provide correct contact details - its hard to send confirmations, or return cheques and postal orders, when no proper address has been given!
• Please remember to read the terms and conditions - its £9.50/£15 per person regardless of age. And it is a 'no pets' promotion: anyone who takes their dog does so as the result of a private agreement with the park. And remember it is a newspaper promotion, subject to availability: you are sending in an application for a holiday, even if you have a priority order form.
• If possible, send a cheque: if you don't get a holiday, you will have to pay an admin fee to the post office to get the money back on your postal order. If you don't have a cheque book, perhaps you could get a friend or family member to write you a cheque.

(* the system will only process 2 extra dates, and 2 extra area's. If you put a huge long list down of each as extras, only 2 will be processed).

rays1

RobbieD wrote: »

Do be sure to check the total cost of the holiday and try to discover all the compulsory extras and any optional extras you might need. We booked a £9.50 holiday for 6 people so you'd think that's £57. The base cost for compulsory extras brought that to £114.50, then by the time we got enough bedrooms and some heating we paid a total of £178.

Only after confirming everything did we discover we could have booked directly with the park for £174.

Both The Sun & Parkdean holidays said "that's often the case".

I went to Haven camp at Pwhelli and found the same thing. "power charges" then "High season supplement charge" then £38 "entertainment passes"; "linen charges" etc. Upon arrival we learnt that we were called "The Sun People" who were all herded into just one area of the chalet blocks. Obviously, it was the most run down area because the chalet was so battered and STUNK so bad we had to leave early...couldn't stand it a minute longer

Maybe a caravan would have been better but be warned about this location!! Never again for us.....




Ray

blue_monkey_2

Same again here. Both with Butlins and with Parkdean as the dates they offer tend to be out of season. Even last week in August the price drops as kids start going back to school, it would have been cheaper to book direct an then we would have known where we was going and what date from day one instead of having to wait 6 weeks to find out.

Mind you, when we got the conformation we tried to upgrade to Gold but we was told we could not so we got into resort, went to the Gold check in at 2.45pm and asked if they had anything spare and paid £50 to upgarde to Gold as they were empty - so we managed to get a bargain. It seemed no-one else had asked about this and it meant we could check in early too. Check online before you leave, if there are Gold unit available then you'll be able to upgrade when you arrive.

moorhen_2

We had a decent break through this promotion earlier this year. We saved by not paying for the entertainment passes or linen or upgrades. Bring you own sheets & tea towels & so on. A great tip I found was to bring a small electric heater as the basic caravans tend not to have heated bedrooms.

fridayschild_2

We always cancel the other options, they are just chancing their arm

Some of the upgrades they offer are laughable, we went away in May and they offered us the chance to book in an hour earlier for £15!

Admittedly there are only two of us so we have a bit of spare room in the car but we take our own duvet and pillows too that way you know where they have been.

They don't actually take up as much room as you might think. The pillows go in a bin bag and can be squashed in anywhere. The duvet folds up into a zipped duvet bag I bought cheap in Dunelm Mill.

Even if you don't want to go that far, they always supply duvets so two sheets (so that you can put one between you and the duvet) and a pillow case each and you're set.

Oh and don't eat on site - the restaurant prices are horrific. Did anyone see Undercover Boss the other week? They went to Park Resorts and the kitchens were shocking.

I know it was a while ago now that the question was asked, but log cabins are available at Warmwell in Weymouth. We have a fab one the other year, corner bath, extremely spacious. (It took two people very comfortably ) Only thing is the site is a bit far away from anywhere so you would have to drive to places.

butlinsmum

We have a static caravan at Butlins Skegness that we hire out privately and also use ourselves - the cheapest week is £175 for 8 people and includes your Butlins passes so access to 50 free activities for all the family, gas & electric included. I'd always recommend checking if you can book direct with a caravan owner - as we use the caravan ourselves we take pride in keeping it looking nice and sorting out any repairs quickly something that a big organisation may not always do.

Butlinsmum

Forest_Roader

Anybody going on the sun holidays promotion know the words off the vouchers for using online. Forgot all about it until today.I need all the codes if possible. Cheers:D:D:beer:

Rachie_B

Forest_Roader wrote: »

Anybody going on the sun holidays promotion know the words off the vouchers for using online. Forgot all about it until today.I need all the codes if possible. Cheers:D:D:beer:

1.four
2. line
3. year
4. sole
5.beak
6. gray
7. lyon
8. sale

doraexplorer

we are going to grannies home in embo for the 4th time now. you pay a extra 10 pounds for bedding which i dont mind as it saves taking ours. we normally get a bill for about 40 pounds before we go. it does work out cheaper for us as it would be over 200 pounds nomally.

the foods in the chip shop and resturant is disgusting ond over priced. would recrommend the chinese in dornoch about 5 mins away. we always have one its really nice.

entertainment in the evening is fine kids like it, but they do games and sell stuff during it because they know the kids pester will pester you for it. that what annoys me . i end up coming home with inflatable hammers and other junk!

we have never upgraded as the caravan as the ones we have had have been very good.

take everyday things you will need like tiolet roll, washing up liquad, cleaning stuff , tea, coffee, sugar, milk etc if you can as the shop is expensive.

hth

dora x

sharonwebb19

The Sun holidays tokens have started again. Does anyone have the codes for the priority on line bookers? I only have the 1st one which is FOUR.