Lodge in the Forest

Advantages: Central location in New Forest, swimming pool
Disadvantages: kids not like food

...The Forest Lodge Hotel was built in 1820 and was used as a hunting box by King George IV. The hotel retains much of its Georgian architecture and stands in its own grounds. It is located on the outskirts of the village of Lyndhurst in the heart of The New Forest in Hampshire. It is part of a chain of 4 hotels that come under the banner of New Forest Country House Hotels. This means that each hotel can be centrally booked and have the same cost and promotions. The guests have use of the other hotels' facilities but this is not that relevant as, even though they are all in The New Forest, they are not exactly round the corner from each other and anyway the facilities are much the same in them all. My family, including two small children, stayed half board within a midweek break promotion. This meant that the children were accommodated...

imogen49 21.09.2006 · Read review
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Review of Forest Lodge Hotel, Southampton

Queen of the Forests

Advantages: Gorgeous location, so much to see and do
Disadvantages: None!

...or a nice meal out and the Forest definitely has a huge selection of both old style and more modern pubs and a great variety of restaurants. Just ask a local for advice (make it a younger person though, as the strong Forrester dialect can sound like another language!). Here are a few of the attractions worth visiting: Speech House. 17th century hunting lodge and home of the verdeers court. (where they passed all the Freemining laws) Now a very well appointed 3 star hotel in the heart of the Forest and very popular for weddings which are held on the grounds in a Marque. Close by is a lovely little aboretum, a popular picnic area and Bechenhurst. Bechenhurst Lodge & The sculpture trail. This is a large picnic area partly surrounded by the woodland but situated just off the main Cinderford - Coleford Road. There are...

watkins11 29.04.2008 (30.04.2008) · Read review
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Review of The Forest of Dean

Magical forests

Advantages: idyllic, beautiful......plenty of woodland!!!
Disadvantages: quiet for those party people!!!

...claim to fame was that i nearly ran over Billie Piper whilst speeding through Ellwood!! Well i didn't expect a great big film crew round the corner did i!!! For more info on Clearwell caves please visit their website www.clearwellcaves.co.uk - Puzzle Wood Again this is in Coleford, and a very fun day out for all the family....as the name suggests it's a very enchanting 14 acre wood featuring mazes and a pre roman open iron ore mine. There are also farm animals of all kinds for the kids to pet and drool over!!! - Beechenhurst Lodge This is one of the very many popular sites in the forest. As the name suggests it's a lodge (cafe and art gallery) in the middle of the woods!! The main fetaure of Beechenhurst is the "sculpture trail" This is a series of trails featuring amazing sculptures from vaious artists at certain points. It fetaures...

wellibelli 19.11.2006 (26.11.2006) · Read review
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Review of The Forest of Dean

Give Castle Lodge the Dodge

Advantages: A historical building
Disadvantages: disappointing and spoilt by the owners

...CASTLE LODGE It was a family day out in Ludlow and whilst I was sitting resting on the bench, waiting for my hubby to return from checking the car and the parking fees, I noticed this really old Tudor style house opposite and on closer inspection discovered that it was open to the public. We didn?t go in straight away, but I did drop a big hint like, ?I want to go in there before we go home? to the family, so that they would not be surprised after the visit to the castle that we went in here. After we had a lovely lunch in the café situated next door to the lodge after a amazing trip around the castle. We were all in high spirits and enjoying our food and refreshments, I dropped the bombshell that I wanted to see the house, they did try to dissuade me as they were now getting slightly tired and wanted to do a little retail...

arnoldhenryrufus 13.06.2009 (18.06.2009) · Read review
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Review of Castle Lodge, Ludlow

Disney's Wilderness Lodge: Welcome Home

Advantages: A hotel brimming with personality and themed to perfection
Disadvantages: Expensive. But you get what you pay for.

...I consider myself lucky in relation to a lot of things in my life, but especially so when it comes to holidays. When I was six my parents took my to Disneyworld in Florida for the first time. Such was the impression that was left on us from that fantastic holiday, that my parents have taken me back there too many times to count since. In 1998, when I was fourteen years old, we stayed at Disneys Wilderness Lodge for the first time. Even by the standards of Disneyworld this phenomenal hotel raised the bar clean out of site, and since then we haven't even contemplated staying anywhere else. Read on to find out why. FIRST IMPRESSIONS From the moment you arrive at Wilderness Lodge you get hit with this feeling that you've arrived somewhere special. The hotel design is based on the Pacific Northwest, and is certainly the best...

CrazyJamie 11.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of Disney's Wilderness Lodge, Orlando

Lovely lodges and amazing hot tubs!

Advantages: Nice lodges, fantastic hot tubs!
Disadvantages: Surrounding area not so good

...Drummohr Lodges are situated on the Firth of Forth, near Musselburgh, Scotland. The park is approx 8 miles from Edinburgh. I came across Drummohr Lodges while browsing through the Hoseasons brochure last year. I was looking for somewhere new to visit for a short break with my partner for his birthday in November, and having stayed in a few Hoseasons holiday parks previously and always finding them to be really nice, I didn't really want to look elsewhere. We do like to stay in lodges, preferably ones with hot tubs! So this was a particular requirement when looking through the various holiday parks in the brochure. We decided on Drummohr Lodges as we thought it looked nice and was also not far from Edinburgh which we wanted to visit. Plus, some of the lodges also had hot tubs! So we booked a Mon - Fri break. We drove up the A1 from...

JEFFJEN 24.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Drummohr Lodges, Edinburgh

I saw some Monkey Business in the Forest!

Advantages: Fascinating to watch monkeys at close quarters
Disadvantages: Poorly designed facilities, cafe expensive, not a whole day's experience

...With two kids and a mother in law to entertain during the Summer holidays we decided to take our little monkeys out for a trip in the forest. Trentham Monkey Forest in Staffordshire is within half an hour's drive of my home town, so it's a place that we've visited on several occasions now. The concept is apparantly unique within the UK as the forest is home to over 140 Barbary Macaque monkeys who are free to roam as they please, within the grounds of a 60 acre enclosure. On arrival On previous visits, we've just walked straight through to the kiosk and purchased our tickets but on our last visit (mid-August, so at the peak of children's summer holidays) we found two lengthy queues at the entrance. Even more annoying was the discovery that we'd joined the 'cash only' queue which was indicated by a sign that was only visible...

jo-1976 28.11.2009 · Read review
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Review of Trentham Monkey Forest

Monkey Forest is Fantastic

Advantages: Different every time you visit, good for kids
Disadvantages: Uphill, not suitable for people with walking difficulties or wheelchairs

...I've been to Trentham Monkey Forest on three occasions and now and I am so looking forward to going again when the weather warms up a little this year. Its a little to cold to wander round at the moment. Initially when I went to the Monkey Forest for the second time, I did actually wonder why I was bothering as I had been before and at the end of the day what's going to be different the second time from the first but it is actually a different experience every time. Trentham Monkey Forest is a 60 acre forest, home to over 140 free roaming Barbary macaques. The Barbary macaque, normally would be found in the mountains of ALgeria and Morocco, possibly Gibraltar and is a tail-less Macaque. The animal is classed as a monkey as opposed to an ape, there is normally confusion over this due to it being tail-less. At the moment there are...

blondgem 12.01.2008 · Read review
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Review of Trentham Monkey Forest

Reign Forest

Advantages: A compelling and interesting read
Disadvantages: It's 883 pages long

...I have read many of Rutherfurd's books and have rarely been disappointed. "The Forest" is no exception and covers the period from 1099 to 2000. The New Forest wasn't touched by all of the historical events of England but Rutherfurd has managed to use the key events that shaped its progress. If you are familiar with the New Forest you will recognise many of the names of villages such as Boldre, Lymington, Brockenhurst and many more. This familiarity adds to the atmosphere of the story. The skill of Rutherfurd is that he creates fictional families that are then woven into the historical facts and legends of the period. In this way you are both entertained and also learn a little of the history of the area. There is always a link from one period to the next, which makes you care about the fortunes of the various characters. You...

silver40 21.06.2006 · Read review
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Review of The Forest - Edward Rutherford

The Sunflower Forest - Torey Hayden

Advantages: Gripping, Informative, Easy To Read
Disadvantages: Slow To Start

...For those of you who read my last Torey Hayden review "Overheard in a Dream - Torey Hayden," you will know I am a huge fan, so huge infact that I have every single one of her books and am in the shop as soon as the new one is released. So after reading Overheard in a Dream and loving it I decided I would definitely buy her second novel "The Sunflower Forest." I had high expectations as I always do with Hayden's work, however after reading the first 3 chapters of this novel I was disappointed that it wasn't matching up to its predecessor and thus I wasn't really feeling very involved in the book. By that I mean I couldn't really picture the places being described and I couldn't really indulge in the scenarios being portrayed. This worried me and I feared I wouldn't get into the book enough to enjoy the content. However my fears were...

carysb 12.01.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Sunflower Forest - Torey L. Hayden