Center Parcs have made a huge investment in to EV charging infrastructure but it doesn't have the best user experience. The Vend Electric app is poorly made and quite hard to use, here is advice for an EV driver on how to use the mobile app so you can take advantage of the electric car charging at Center Parcs.
Before your leave your house
Unfortunately to charge your car at Center Parcs you need to plan ahead. You see the EV charging experience at Center Parcs is a bit convoluted via the VendElectric app so to make it as simple as possible make sure to take these steps even before leaving your house:
- Download the Vend Electric app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store
- Create an account with VendElectric
- Add funds to your wallet, frustratingly you can't rely on payments being taken after the charge session
- Book a charging bay before you leave via Center Parcs Guest Services, it should be reserved for you
- Remember to pack your Type 2 charge cable, the charge points at Center Parcs are untethered/do not have a cable built in
When you get to Center Parcs
- Find where the EV charging site is. At Whinfell Forest for example its hard to miss (they're right after the arrivals lodge) whereas Sherwood Forest it could be easy to miss the charge points in the car park.
- Connect to the wifi. The cell reception can be spotty around the forest, especially in the car park. Connect to the Center Parcs wifi, the charge points typically have good wifi coverage
Charge your car
- Assuming you reserved a charging spot go to your reserved bay. Hopefully it wont be ICEd (Center Parcs do a poor job of policing this). If you have not reserved a spot or your reserved spot is blocked you can use any charging bay that is not reserved
- Plug in your EV and scan the QR code next to the socket you are using.
- Go through the Vend Electric flow to start a charge session
Note charge sessions happen at night time. This is when the grid is in least demand and the energy used can be the greenest so don't be alarmed if the charge session does not start immediately - its meant to be like this.
My advice would be to charge your EV at the start of your stay when you return your car to the carpark and either check your Vend Electric account to make sure it has charged or if you EV has an app give it a check. The electric car charge points at Center Parcs are only 7kW but this is more than enough as the car will likely be sitting stationary in the car park during your stay in the village.
Bonus tips
You don't _have_ to charge at Center Parcs, there are plenty of Rapid EV charge points at service stations across the UK. If this what what you would prefer to do as an electric vehicle driver my final bit of advice would be to download Zap Map and/or A Better Route Planner to help you find the right charge point for your journey to Center Parcs or to help with the journey back home.
This is based on my experience charging at Center Parcs. I've been an EV owner since 2020 and driven to Center Parcs several times, previously using the onsite PodPoint charge points and using the VendElectric charge points in Sherwood Forest in summer 2023 and again using VendElectric at Whinfell Forest in Sprint 2024. I've written up my overall experience of staying at Whinfell (including the experience charging my EV) on the Come Back Soon Tracker blog.
