Wareham Forest Lodge Retreat

Second time we’ve stayed and it’s been ideal for us. Roomy lodge on a quiet park, spotlessly clean. We’re 4 but there are two extra beds - ideal if we mad more kids or they wanted to bring friends. Only down side is that the location (Sandford) is a little far from the main attractions of the area and traffic in the main road is often terrible. Also a little short of cutlery. Otherwise very good and I’d recommend this area and lodges.

Myself and my husband booked a 1 bed lodge for a short break for our anniversary. We stayed in a 1 bedroom lodge. We were pleasantly surprised at the size of the lodge. Its huge! Lovely too. Well equipped, clean and really comfortable. The reception staff were friendly and pleasant. Defiantly would recommend.

Having stayed with Darwin Escapes at Bath (twice), Axminster and Blenheim Palace, we knew what standard we were expecting and the type of facilities and amenities on the park. It didn't disappoint! Where else could you go and have three decent sized bedrooms (one en suite with a dressing room), a washer/dryer, wine cooler, dishwasher, decked area and four TVs? Yes, there's no bar or restaurant and no gym or spa pool but the tranquility is superb. There's a pub next door and Poole is less than 20 minutes drive (Wareham about three miles away). We weren't overlooked and there were no noisy neighbours. The weather was glorious so we were eating on the outdoor patio furniture at breakfast, heading off for the day with a picnic and eating outside again in the evening (accompanied by some alcohol chilled in the wine fridge). Yes, the flush broke on the en suite toilet but the on call person stopped it from constantly filling when she visited in response in the evening and the maintenance man fixed it the following day. We also had one gas ring not working, again fixed promptly. Oh, and we had no cafetiere when we arrived. As we had a cafetiere in other Darwin Escapes lodges, a quick enquiry at Reception resolved this issue. We were able to park two cars outside the lodge without the need to shuffle them constantly and access was easy. If I am getting nit picky then a worktop space either side of the sink to separate clean and dirty dishes would have been nice and a larger drawer for cutlery would have been great. Such lovely problems to have! An option for a later (chargeable) check out, maybe 11am, would be lovely but I can't complain as we were able to check in at 3pm on arrival.

We were initially worried about coming here after reading some of the reviews, but this was eliminated the moment we got there after a arduous 6 hour drive. The lodge was spacious, clean and had all the amenities we needed including washing machine, dishwasher and even a bath. The reception was on site to sort out any problems or give advice with emergency numbers available. The grounds are beautiful, spacious and peaceful. The location is ideal we visited Monkey World,Poole, Bournemouth, Weymouth and Swanage, along with 2 visits to different locations on the Jurassic Coast all just a short drive away. This turned out to be the ideal place for us, relaxing, quiet and peaceful and we will definitely be visiting again,we've now moved on to Cornwall I hope this week proves to be as ideal as the last.

Check in was simple, nice tidy friendly site well maintained spotless and tidy lovely tidy gardens and top quality grounds maintenance. The lodges were clean spacious and tidy would recommend. It’s nice to see people taking a pride in the places they live in everywhere tidy

The 2 stars was for location which was brilliant. Beautiful surroundings and lots to do in the area. We came across so many problems in the premium 3 bed lodge with hot tub. It was grubby and didn't feel particularly clean. The legs of a chair were falling off and would have collapsed should you have sat on it and the sofa needed a really good clean. The frying pan should definitely have been replaced. The oven was dirty and didn't reach temperature and after cooking a chilled pizza for over an hour at 225 degrees it was still cold in the middle. We had to throw our evening meal out and spend £40 on the visiting fish and chip van. Parts kept falling off the hot tub and only half the jets worked. There were no instructions for any of the white goods and the patio door handle fell off. The electrical pat testing of all the electrical goods were out of date. I spent the first 2 hours of our holiday trying to sort this out with a receptionist that had only been there for a few weeks as the supervisor had gone home on probably one of their busiest weekends. We were told that we could go and cook our food in lodge 13 and a door handle was taken off another lodge to replace ours but they couldn't possibly move us to a different lodge as they were full ! My husband went to see the supervisor the next morning to sort the issues out but was met with a reply of what do you want me to do about it the lodges are more than 8 years old and need updating. Come on Darwin Escapes you need to get your act together with this park it is in complete contrast to your park in Newquay.