If you’re looking for a caravan holiday in Devon, then you MIGHT just be asking yourself whether Woolacombe Bay Holiday Park is the best place to visit? In this blog post I’m hopefully going to answer that question. Or I’ll fail miserably and you’ll be none-the-wiser. I guess there’s only one way to find out!
Woolacombe Bay Holiday Park
No messing about, let’s just get stuck right in to what we loved about Woolacombe Bay.
First of all, the whole place just felt well kept. I know that should be expected, but we’ve been to plenty of caravan parks over the years and sometimes they just feel like they stopped caring. Everything felt well maintained and the outdoor ball court actually had NETS on the basketball hoops! I was shocked.
The park was great. It obviously had the typical stuff like swings and that round-about thing, but it also had a pretty cool pirate ship that the kids enjoyed.
You don’t have to pay for mini-golf – other than a £5 deposit – and it was absolutely SPLENDID watching three young kids attempt to play mini golf with zero experience. Genuine highlight of my life. Yes, that’s sarcasm, it pained me to watch them aimlessly swing a club and hit nothing multiple times in a row. Alas, I can’t blame Woolacombe for my kids – if I could then I would have a MASSIVE complaint to put in.
I think the activities were reasonably priced, although we didn’t do any of them. Ok, the build a bear one was a bit pricey at £20 per bear – we have three kids – but the bungee thing, water ball thing, and the climbing wall were all just £6 each. Only one of our kids would’ve been able to do it and I’m not in the business of pissing the others off.
Oh, and they have BOTH indoor swimming and outdoor swimming. The outdoor swimming was awesome in fairness and the kids loved the slides. Sure, the water was a tad cold at times, and it’s probably not something you wanna do when it’s cold, but honestly, they probably rode the slides 40+ times.
The Caravan itself: Gold Caravan at Woolacombe Bay
So I should say that we had the gold caravan for our stay, which Woolacombe count as “Affordable Luxury.” I would agree with them there as it is a fairly priced option for what you get. After doing quite a few caravan holidays as a family of 5, it does help having the extra space. We’ve done small 2 bedroom caravans before and everyone just feels on top of each other and it just creates a fairly stressful environment.
Totally random, but I much preferred the fact they had lino as opposed to carpet. We have three young kids, taking them somewhere with carpet is a nightmare waiting to happen.
But yeah, it was spacious, it felt well presented and well kept. No complaints at all – well, maybe one, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
Then of course, if you’re a proper baller, you can go wild and get a caravan with a hot tub.
We got quite lucky with ours as we were also literally a minutes walk from all the action – which again, with three young kids that really does help.
Evening Entertainment
I’ll be honest, I always hate the evening entertainment at holiday parks. But then I’m an adult. I’m gonna guess that a giant inflatable pair of balls – Billy and Betty I believe – wasn’t meant to be enjoyed by me.
We also happen to have kids that aren’t entirely fussed on dancing and getting too involved with stuff, so we do sometimes find ourselves sat there going “why are we here?” – put on top of that the fact I’m not really a supporter of gambling – or bingo – then the evening entertainment isn’t massively for us.
But, they do a good job of it and they do appear to having something on for almost all of the night.
Luckily for us though, the park was clear in the evening so we pretty much had it to ourselves. I’m guessing this might not be the case in the busier periods, but we were there during a good weather weekend in June.
My only real issues with Woolacombe Bay
Of course, not everything about Woolacombe Bay was perfect. I think we perhaps got a tad unlucky with this one, but our WiFi in the caravan itself was basically non-existent. Usually it wouldn’t be that big of a deal – we are away after all, so it’s not like we want to sit on the internet all day. But we do run a home fragrance business so internet kinda helps us be able to run it. Not only that, the caravan did come with a smart TV so we could’ve been able to watch Netflix or Disney+ had the internet actually worked. To top it off, we only had 3G too. I guess you forget how much of a pain it is when you struggle to get any internet.
Personally, I think it would be nice to offer high speed internet as a charge. Extra money for Woolacombe Bay and then a slightly easier life for us.
After that, I do believe the tables are too tightly packed for the evening entertainment – nothing massively new there with most places in general – but if it was a busier period then I would imagine it being a far less enjoyable experience with everyone jostling and bumping just to get through.
Oh, and the indoor pool had ONE lifeguard on duty to monitor what was probably 30-40+ people across two pools and an array of features in the pool. I’d imagine it would be fairly difficult keeping an eye on everyone. Don’t get me wrong, we’re responsible for our own kids safety, but it still felt understaffed.
Is Woolacombe Bay worth the price?
It’s always difficult when you talk about “worth” as everyone has a different definition of the word. Sometimes you just want the cheapest holiday possible and couldn’t care less where you go. If that’s the case, then sure, you can find cheaper caravan holidays than Woolacombe Bay.
But, if you want a little bit of extra quality, a little bit more to do, and have an overall better experience, then Woolacombe Bay is honestly worth a visit.
If you fancy having a look for yourself then feel free to click the following Woolacombe Bay Holiday Park link.
You can’t massively go wrong with Devon
I’ll be honest, Woolacombe Bay has the added benefit of simply being in a lovely area. You’re a VERY short drive to the beach – you can walk if you’re feeling up to it, but yeah… I mentioned the three kids right? – and then you have Ilfracombe a short drive away if you fancy doing a boat trip. We did try, but it got cancelled due to the wind.
At the end of the day, Devon is a picturesque area of South West England so you can’t massively go wrong going there. But, if you’re after lovely Holiday Parks in Devon, then Woolacombe Bay happens to be a very easy and enjoyable way of experiencing the area.
Is it the best caravan site in Devon? That would be a bold statement to say yes, and perhaps we need to test a few more, but we’d certainly go back.
