A few weeks ago, we were very kindly invited to spend the weekend at Woolacombe Bay Holiday Park – one of North Devons most loved holiday parks. We were so excited to visit North Devon as it had been years since we’d last been, and we had heard great things about Woolacombe Bay – we are big fans of a family caravan holiday, so how did it compare to others we’ve tried?
Read on to find out!
First Impressions
Arriving to the caravan park, the first thing that struck us was the sheer breathtaking beauty of the view! The holiday park is nestled atop a hill overlooking the bay and the view across the water is just stunning – our caravan gave us a prime view of the sunset every evening, which we were able to enjoy from our balcony. Just gorgeous!
The holiday park itself was a very pleasant size – big enough that it had that holiday atmosphere that you want but intimate enough so as not to be loud or overwhelming. We were greeted at reception by very friendly staff who chatted to my children about the pools and activities on offer, which really got them excited for the weekend ahead! A lovely welcome to arrive to.
ACCOMODATION
As with most holiday parks, there are various levels of holiday home available for rent during your stay. We stayed in a Gold class caravan – this meant that our beds were made up on arrival and we had towels for use during our stay too, this is an extra you can add on to your booking if you wish or you can bring your own from home if you prefer.
The caravan was stylishly decorated and immaculately clean, with beds that were surprisingly comfortable and a large enough living area for our family of 5 to spend evenings watching movies without feeling cramped. The kitchen facilities were top notch too, and the bathroom had possibly the most powerful shower I’ve ever come across in a caravan – very impressive and spacious too!
LOCATION & LOCAL AREA
As previously mentioned, Woolacombe Bay holiday park overlooks Woolacombe Bay beach which is consistently voted the Best Beach in Britain and it’s easy to see why – the long stretches of golden sand and the beautiful clean waters against the rugged backdrop of the Devon cliffs really are a sight to behold. Woolacombe Bay holiday park is a pleasant 15 minute downhill stroll from the beach, and you can take a taxi back up to save yourself that uphill struggle after a day on the sand!
My 3 kiddos absolutely loved the beach, and the local area but were happiest when at the holiday park! Read on to find out what they loved the most…
Things To Do On Site
There was plenty going on throughout the days to keep families busy, from bookable activities such as segway rides and bungee trampolining to the on site parks and soft play areas – here are some of the things we enjoyed most of all:
The nightly entertainment always started off with a Kids Disco which my children loved joining in with. They’re usually not too confident with taking part in competitions and group games but because this setting wasn’t too overwhelming in numbers they seemed to really love it, and my youngest was absolutely thrilled to win the Best Dancer competition.
After the Kids Disco, there was a nightly game of Bingo – I LOVE a good old game of Bingo but usually my kids complain about having to sit quietly while I play, so I thought it was such a great idea that Woolacombe Bay run a kids Bingo game alongside the adult one where kids can play for some sweets! This kept the kids busy and enabled me to enjoy the Bingo – brilliant!
After Bingo, there was a nightly show – we saw a Girl bands show which was really good fun, and we also caught the Michael Jackson tribute act which my son loved! Woolacombe Bay do a great job of providing entertainment for the whole family to enjoy together.
As well as the entertainment venue, we also spent a lot of time in the games arcade – my eldest absolutely loves to play games that allow him to collect tickets and for once we actually found the prices in the arcade really reasonable, and the machines pretty generous with tickets!
My son managed to collect well over 1000 tickets from just a few hours of playing, and the prizes were actually pretty decent so he was very happy indeed!
Another thing my kids always love is a character, and so they were delighted to find that Woolacombe Bay had its own site mascot – Billy The Beachball! This was a really fun element to the weekend, and something younger kids would also really enjoy.
The Pools
Visiting the pool is ALWAYS my kids favourite thing to do and we were very lucky with the weather during our visit, so although there is an indoor pool available – we were actually there for the grand opening of the outdoor pool for the first time this year! Of course the kids wanted to take full advantage of that and happily spent most of the day on Saturday playing in here.
There are lifeguards on duty to keep an eye on things, and loungers around the pool as well as a bar and ice cream stall nearby. The biggest surprise to me was that there are actually 3 water slides which were much more impressive than I would have expected for a smaller holiday park, and the kids absolutely loved all of them!
All in all, we had a truly fantastic weekend staying at Woolacombe Bay Holiday Park and my kids have made it very clear that it will not be our last visit! They loved it and want to visit again next year – luckily for them, we loved it too so we will certainly be doing just that!
You can find out more about Woolacombe Bay at their website: https://www.woolacombe.co.uk/
