Glamping with CRE8 Glamping at Redricks Lake

This summer, Kai really wanted to go camping. He had never been camping before, so I am not sure what he had in mind, but I am not a camping person. I do not enjoy camping very much, and had done quite a bit of camping as a child. So, as a compromise, we booked up Glamping with CRE8 at Redricks Lake.

To be honest, right from the start we had a rocky experience. The website for CRE8 doesn’t work on mobile and seems to be generally broken on PC. I booked up a night’s stay, based on the images. We picked a large bell tent that would accommodate all of us. This tent had a bed in it, as well as three couches that fold out into beds. On the image, this tent had far more decorations and lights, but in reality it just didn’t – which was fine. The real issue with booking was that we selected our check in time. I picked about midday.

At midday, we showed up to CRE8 Glamping and found that there was a strange dirt road with a locked gate. You then need to call the owner to get the code to unlock the gate. The owner quickly stated that 3pm was the check in time, and when I mentioned I had picked midday, he had stated that he didn’t know why the website lets you pick a time, but that the time didn’t matter, it’s 3pm – even though I couldn’t find that anywhere. Thankfully, we weren’t far from home, so we just headed back and waited until 3pm (but at 3pm, we had booked up the Aqua Splash Inflatable Course at Redricks, assuming we would have actually been settled in).

Due to these plans, we ended up checking in at 5pm, which wasn’t ideal at all. Each time we went down the road, Dann had to get out of the car, open the gate, get back in the car, drive forward, close the gate and lock it – which felt like a needless process – especially as there were so many cars coming in and out. Often we ended up in queues or had to get out and talk to people who didn’t know the code or who had remembered it wrong. We ended up going up and down this road several times in our one night stay, due to being too early, needing to go out to get a few things, and leaving the next day.

When we did check in, the staff at CRE8, which seems to be primarily one person, was quite kind. She showed us our tent and gave us our add-on extras in the form of a wheel barrel of wood, some kindling, a fire starter and some matches. Our tent was decked out with a single light in the middle, which changed colours using a remote, and a bluetooth speaker, apparently, but we couldn’t see one and couldn’t see how to use it anyway. None of these tents come with bedding, so you do need to bring your own. I do feel for the price they should have come with bedding. There was also a small dresser, but it held the wire in place for the light, so if you put anything on top of the dresser it just fell off.

On the outside of our tent at CRE8 Glamping, there were three picnic tables, a BBQ and a fire pit. We did not end up using the BBQ and didn’t know it was included as there was an option to rent a BBQ for an added price, which we did not pick. The space inside the tent was really generous and it was easy to set up the couches, creating beds out of them. Walking around the area, there was a woodlands place, which had fairy lights all set up inside it, allowing kids to mess around and pick up sticks. It’s a nice little walk, though there are lots of signs saying if you go past this rope you will be in a shooting range, which is terrifying as a concept, since it’s clearly a place where kids go and explore. On the other side of the camp, there is a small beach on the lake, which is very cute. It seemed like there use to be seats made out of hay too, but they were completely destroyed by the time we got there.

Another thing to note about CRE8 Glamping is that all of the tents are really close together and the area has no curfew. This means that at 1 or 2 am, there was still just as much noise as 6 pm. It’s just loud, all night. Music blasting, people chatting, loudness. If you do not like loud, you probably will not like it there. The other issue we ran into was the toilets. Though CRE8 Glamping doesn’t say you need to bring toilet paper, you do need to bring some. At like 5 pm, there was no toilet paper left in any of the stalls, and so Dann had to go out and get some as the office was closed. These bathrooms weren’t well maintained anyway, and were pretty gross generally.

Though I wasn’t the biggest fan of CRE8 Glamping, Kai, Amelia and Robin had a really lovely time for their first every camping trip. They enjoyed their little beds, sleeping in a large tent, and playing little games. Amelia and Robin found a rope swing near one of the other tents and Robin enjoyed an early morning woodlands walk where we tried to spy Robin birds. Kai, the one who wanted to go camping, seemed to enjoy building fires, cooking food, and reading his book at night by the stars. He was particularly excited about ghost stories by the campfire, which we did plenty of in the evening, but not too scary, as he’d say. It was relaxing and peaceful, however after one night, everyone was ready to get back to their Xbox and PC, if I am honest. We did bring a bunch of games too, but I guess our family isn’t a big camping family after all.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!