Pontins Southport Holiday Centre, Southport

We booked pontins as a last minute, end of summer, why the hell not, type of holiday. I had fond memories of childhood holidays at pontins parks, my 2010 experience of pontins southport .... Upon arrival the reception staff were dismissive and generally waved us in the direction of what was our chalet. the park is set as a large circle of 2 story chalets with the activity centres in the middle. from the outside the chalets looked weather beaten and badly maintained. Inside our chalet was dirty, dark and smelled musty. the mattresses were stained and old, the wallpaper chipped and dirty and the cutlery and crockery inside the kitchen unclean. we promptly complained about the state of our chalet and a cleaner was sent in, they reported the chalet was fine and upto standard. despite the state of the room, we decided to give pointins a chance. the children @ 4 & 2 were quite excited to be there. we took the kids to the playground, which they enjoyed, they were keen to try the karting, but were too young, then they wanted to try climbing, but were too young, we settled for the mini golf...but were told, the kids were too young. the attractions on offer were the indoor play area, the (closed) swimming pool, the paid for fair rides or the amusements. we opted for the indoor play area. my youngest @ 2yrs 11 months was used to wacky warehouses and indoor play, however was not allowed into the main play areas because he wasnt 3. the baby area offered him teddy bears and crayons and a nice view of his older brother running around and having fun. I asked if i could supervise my youngest in the play area, or sign some kind of waiver to say i take full responsibility for him to play there, i was told no. day 1 was unsuccessful. day 2 first thing in the morning was a "Scooby Doo show", it was labelled as free, so we went along. 25 minutes after the advertised start time someone came out dressed as scooby doo and the reps announced that your child could get their photo with scooby doo for £8... no show, just a photo. later day 2 we tried the swimming, and actually that was nice, it was a pool with a toddler pool, you cant go far wrong with swimming. swimming opening times were limited so we stayed for maybe an hour. after that we headed out into southport, to escape pontins. which was a beautiful day out. sunset on ainsdale beach is a beautiful experience but pontins southport, we will never ever go to again.