We were fortunate enough to win the Silver Travel Advisor’s September prize; a four night break at Away Resort’s Mill Rythe Holiday Village on Hayling Island. As this was the type of holiday that we had not been on for many years, if at all, we wondered what it would be like. We were booked centrally from Away Resort’s Head Office into standard accommodation which on reading reviews did not seem the best. I emailed the site to politely query this and within 30 minutes received a reply stating that this had been a mistake and that we were now booked into an Ambassador room.
The room was quiet, warm and modern with even USB ports. There was also a smart large shower room. With Ambassador rooms come a number of goodies and these included a bottle of wine, bottles of lager, packets of crisps, chocolates and a packet of biscuits.
The break was billed as ‘The Golden Age of Variety’ with two very professional shows from the in-house entertainment team plus Jimmy Cricket and Brotherhood of Man appearing on successive nights. We very much enjoyed the entertainment though some of Jimmy Crickets jokes can be seen on a youtube clip of him performing on BBC’s Old Time Music Hall in the 1970s. There is also an excellent house band, Jet Set.
The only disappointment was the food really. Holiday makers have an allocated table for breakfast and dinner each of which is served in a one hour window, to everyone, in a busy restaurant. Inevitably this means that much of the food is buffet service where it was often cold and unappetising. I think the key here is to have your (overworked) waitress deliver your main course direct from the kitchen, which is an option, rather than joining the long queues at the buffet. We tried to order wine with dinner but without success.
We used Mill Rythe as a base to visit Portsmouth’s Historic Docks, the Spinnaker Tower and Fort Nelson so did not have time to use the smart swimming pool.
Everybody was friendly and helpful and we enjoyed our stay and would certainly visit an Away Resort again.
