I’ll be completely honest my loves, staycationing at a caravan park has never really been for me – I have nothing against it but unless I got on a big boat or a plane, I’m not really on my holibobs am I? Then along came the kids and to be honest it’s become one of my new fave holidays over the last few years. Last year we headed over the channel to Vendee region in France to stay at Siblu holidays which is a very popular French caravan park, and we had a wonderful time, so this year when family run Beverley Holidays got in touch to ask us if we would like to try their caravan park in the English Riviera, we said yes and made the 6hr trip down south.
When we arrived we headed straight to reception to check in, where we were met with really friendly staff who handed us our keys and explained all of the details as well as giving us an information pack and entertainment schedule for the whole family. We were really impressed with the welcome and even more impressed with our “villa”. We stayed in a platinum caravan which was just opposite the main complex where the entertainment, food and shop could be found. Our static caravan slept 6 people and had two toilets, a shower and a fab kitchen/living area – there was everything you could need for self catering, the only thing I would recommend that they add is a couple of tea towels as I never thought to bring these along and it made pulling our pizzas out of the oven tricky! Each platinum villa has towels, bedding and even coffee, tea, milk and sugar so you can grab a brew before you top up the supplies at the shop!
Once we dropped our things off we went to have a little look around (as you do!) where we discovered a really fun play area that the kids loved.
The kids busied themselves playing whilst we planned dinner. We took a little dip in the kid’s pool beforehand though – they were so excited they didn’t care that it was chilly and drizzling. Beverley has an indoor pool with sauna, steam room and hot tub, they also have a kids pool, main pool and pool over the road at Beverely Bay (which we didn’t go to as there was just so much to do!)
After a play in the pool, we agreed that as we’d been travelling for about 6 hours we would take it easy and head over to The Jetty restaurant where we were met with the BEST views! There is an outdoor rooftop area for warmer weather and a glass front so you can look out over the sea even if you’re inside, it was gorgeous. What a lovely way to spend the evening if you wanted to have a drink in the fading sunshine! We weren’t there for a drink though, we were hunter gathering and looking for dinner!
The menu is great and every night they had different offers, so I opted for the burger meal deal, the kid’s all enjoyed the kid’s menu options and Adam had a steak pie. Adam and I shared a tapas style starter where you can pick three dishes for £10 and this was delish – unfortunately the main dishes weren’t as good for the adults but the children loved their meals and I think if we had had chance we would have just eaten the tapas style bits and gone for 3 each.
After that we headed downstairs to the Starlight bar where the kids had the Beverley & Sandy Shakedown – an evening party from 7.30-8.30pm just for the kids. The entertainment team was absolutely fantastic, each evening that we did the shakedown, Edith and Toby were absolutely enthralled by Brendan who was running the show. He was an absolute credit to the company and we saw him every day doing some for of activity or other.
After a great night’s sleep we woke up and bickered over who was going to throw clothes on and walk 100yards to the shop to buy Pan Au Chocolat – naturally I won and Adam headed out whilst I fed the offspring. Within minutes he was back in the villa with 4 of the nicest fresh pastries! DAY MADE by 8.45am. The weather wasn’t too bad so we headed 8km down the road to Babbacombe model village which came highly recommended from lots of local followers on Instagram. It was so much fun and the perfect stop off for the kids to enjoy, we really could have spent the whole day there! The boys especially loved the house that was “on fire” and the Superhero mansion. I’m going to write a post about a weekend in Devon with kids I think because I have lots to share that we really enjoyed!
We spent about 2.5hrs at Babbacombe and then headed back for Reuben’s absolute fave moment at the park – an afternoon swimming! We’d booked the boys onto water walkerz at £5 per child and it was the best £10 I think we spent all holiday – they LOVED it. There were so many wonderful activities for the kids to do too, you could just enjoy the free amenities or you could book activities throughout the week for the kids to get involved with (and some for the grown ups too). On the evening we chose to head into Paignton to go to the pier – it took us around 10 mins to drive there and once parked up we ate fish & chips on the pier, spent farrrr too much money on arcade games and came away with three very excited and pleased kids.
Heading back to the villa, we popped the kids in bed and then curled up on the sofas for a bit of a chill out. Sometimes its just nice to snuggle up together and watch different programs on your phones ha! The villa did have a TV but there was nothing we fancied watching and the sofa was so comfy, I dozed off whilst Adam catch up on some sports news.
The next day was awful weather so we had to ditch our plans to head down to the Quayside water park – and we headed out to another highly recommended location, Paignton Zoo. 15 minutes down the road and easily one of the best zoos we’ve ever been to (and we’ve been to a lot) we had a wonderful day, despite the drizzly weather. The best part of the zoo was that there was so many stopping points to view the animals under shelter, so even when the rain picked up a bit, we didn’t mind. After a lovely day at the zoo we went back to the villa with pizzas from the Morrisons next to the zoo. It’s worth noting at this point that if we hadn’t bothered with that, Beverley Parks has a wonderful takeaway where you can grab fish & chips or pizza! We chose to cook the pizzas in the oven though and, despite dropping Adam’s and only just managing to catch it and save part of it, they were lovely.
Toby really wanted to play bingo (not something that Adam or myself have any interest in!!) so we headed over to the Starlight Bar at 6.45 to play a game – the prize is cash, so although Toby loved playing along, I had to score off the cards whilst Edith and Reuben made friend’s with some other children. We stayed for the shakedown again and Edith has done nothing but talk about it since! She really loved it.
The following (and final) morning we went to a wonderful Character breakfast with Beverley and Sandy, Reuben was delighted to have a cooked breakfast whilst the two little ones loved the games, characters and playing.
All in all our experience at Beverley Holidays was fantastic, we’ve already agreed that we would love to travel back some time, maybe during the summer months when the weather is likely to be better!
H 🙂
Everyone seemed to be in Devon recently – us included! Glad you had a lovely break x
Ah this place kind of reminds me of how holidays used to be when I was little xx