91–100 of 124 posts
> which is why it’s spelled in the somewhat Francophile Center Parcs, and not Centre Parks. (I thought this is why we did Brexit?) Pardon me? The French for center/centre is centre - the 're' ending of British English spelling is either taken from the French, or sometimes a direct reference to French spelling (i.e. 'prestige' spelling - like how some American publications will use British English spelling because the…
Stopped reading after the euro bashing as well
This is just market mechanics. School holidays is when families with school aged kids are looking to get a place so the demand is higher. This happens to everything. It’s not some dark conspiracy to gouge out people. If some folks are willing to pay TWICE what you want to pay, just to get the same place then they are allowed to do so and you can’t complain that you don’t get it for half the cost, you could just book your stay outside the school holidays if you want it cheaper.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Four couples eight ways?! Nah, that four-bedroom lodge spends much more time occupied by two parents with three children.
Based on the three YouTube tours of four bedroom exclusive lodges in Woburn I skimmed through prior to making my comment to be sure I understood the context of the lodge, it appears to me to be configured for adult use. Each of the four "bedrooms" is more like an attached suite, the dining room is configured for eight adults, and three children and their parents do not seem to require a sauna that large. Children can…
Also, you can tell it's aimed at children, because the price doubles in the school holidays!
PE is terrible, but this isn't a good example as there's plenty of competition for Center Parcs. Plus they raise their prices during school holidays when there's greatest demand, that's not an unfair practice, that's rationing out a limited resource when demand is greatest, economics 101. Bad PE looks like private equity trying to corner the market in vets[1] and dental practices[2], services that you don't really ha…
If the government want to help (and the new government has shown a strange attraction to price interference), they could simply let schools choose their own holidays, as long as they have the right number of school days in the year. It would be a bit harder for families with kids in different schools, but probably most schools would be _more or less_ the same, with just a bit more variation to spread it around a litt…
You’ll never get a system where demand for vacation options is independent of period.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I await the inevitable news story about a family getting blown-up when their 18 month old accidentally turned on the gas oven... What do you mean "accidentally turned on the gas oven"? Do they not have flame failure devices? > We went "off season" in Jan when prices were reasonable. ... This is the UK - it rains all the time! Now you see why off season is off season. > there were a lot of service vehicles and the l…
First time I tried to preheat the oven at Center Parcs I nearly blew us up.
Basically I'm asking this because I'm trying to understand. I see two options:
option 1: the oven is lacking several expected safety features and it is actually dangerous.
option 2: the oven has the usual safety features, you (and your toddler) were perfectly safe, you just didn't know this because you don't understand how gas ovens functions, and what safety features they have.
On any modern oven if you turn the gas on and the flame goes out (or does not light at all) the gas flow stops. You have to keep the knob pressed in to start the flow just turning the knob does not on itself enables the gas to flow. At the same time the action of pushing in the knob starts sparks which light the gas flowing out.
For a toddler (or you) to blew up the oven they need to turn the knob, push it in, and the ignitors need to fail to ignite, and you or your toddler need to keep pushing the knob. Are you saying that the ignitors failed? or that the thermistor failed to shut off the glass flow?
PE is terrible, but this isn't a good example as there's plenty of competition for Center Parcs. Plus they raise their prices during school holidays when there's greatest demand, that's not an unfair practice, that's rationing out a limited resource when demand is greatest, economics 101. Bad PE looks like private equity trying to corner the market in vets[1] and dental practices[2], services that you don't really ha…
The reason PE is often viewed as terrible is that it seems to be strongly correlated with short-term-optimized business practices which end up being destructive to most stakeholders. The general playbook: Borrow a bunch of money and use it to buy an existing company, pay yourself a bunch of money, extract a bunch of profit by ripping off customers and not reinvesting in the company, sell or go bankrupt. Everyone lose…
If CPUK was just spun off and IPOed, the money from the sale of shares, and/or loans with shares as collateral, could have been used for the capital investments needed.
Instead, there's a private equity firm providing nothing of note, taking profit and saddling the actually productive enterprise with debt for the privilege. For another popular example from the UK, check Manchester United. That's the other big issue with PE, other than the fatal short-termism.
would not happen to you at pontins
PE is terrible, but this isn't a good example as there's plenty of competition for Center Parcs. Plus they raise their prices during school holidays when there's greatest demand, that's not an unfair practice, that's rationing out a limited resource when demand is greatest, economics 101. Bad PE looks like private equity trying to corner the market in vets[1] and dental practices[2], services that you don't really ha…
You will never get people to understand this concept. Never. People genuinely think that they would be able to causally login a month before holidays and book a cabin at normal pricing for a week.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
First time I tried to preheat the oven at Center Parcs I nearly blew us up.
Could you be more concrete please? What did you do? What did you experience? Basically I'm asking this because I'm trying to understand. I see two options: option 1: the oven is lacking several expected safety features and it is actually dangerous. option 2: the oven has the usual safety features, you (and your toddler) were perfectly safe, you just didn't know this because you don't understand how gas ovens function…
Was I dumb? Yes, but I’d just driven for hours and was trying to unpack, handle the rest of the family and cook dinner all at once and was still in the mindset of the electric oven I had at home.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the government want to help (and the new government has shown a strange attraction to price interference), they could simply let schools choose their own holidays, as long as they have the right number of school days in the year. It would be a bit harder for families with kids in different schools, but probably most schools would be _more or less_ the same, with just a bit more variation to spread it around a litt…
You can change it up slightly, but there is just no way to go from a delta distribution around the same weeks to a uniform distribution around the year. People want to have summer vacation in summer, and they often want it to overlaps with the vacation of relatives and family. You’ll never get a system where demand for vacation options is independent of period.
Well that's just kind of truism. It is forced by policies and not some innate behavior of people in all places or of all classes.