We had a short break at Center Parcs at Elveden Forest this week. We had booked in for a comfort villa, the same as we had 3 years ago, but the Monday before we went, I had a phone call from Center Parcs offering to upgrade us to an Executive villa. We were moved to a villa 3 doors away from where we originally selected, still an easy walk to the center and a much nicer villa.

You really get the feeling of being in the middle of the countryside, from the moment you get out of the car and walk past the lake to the village center. We had several regular visitors to our patio area on most days including, moorhen, grey squirrels, ducks and ducklings, geese and rabbits.

Although there are several restaurants on the site, we mainly ate at Huck’s Diner and the Pancake House. There is something very holiday like about eating sweet pancakes for lunch.

We planned to visit the Subtropical Swimming Paradise each day, but by Thursday the kids had run out of steam and wanted to stop.

The weather was good while we were there, but there were thunder storms on Wednesday afternoon, while we were swimming and during the night. There were also thunderstorms on Thursday evening while we were eating; I’m not sure if the two things were related, but during this storm, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the restaurant. The staff calmly and efficiently cleared the restaurant. You had to feel for those people swimming, they had to leave the 29.5ºC temperature straight out into the rain. It was a false alarm and we were able to return for rest of the meal.