Crealy Theme Park & Resort

Crealy Meadows offers four kinds of stay, all self-catering: hot-tub lodges, glamping, static caravans and touring or camping pitches. There's no meal plan, and every unit but a camping pitch comes with a kitchen. One thing to note up front is that Crealy doesn't publish room sizes in square metres for anything, so the guide below describes each stay by its layout and how many it sleeps rather than by floor area.

The hot-tub lodges are the headline. Every one has a private hot tub on its decking, serviced twice a day, along with central heating, a fully fitted kitchen with a dishwasher, bed linen and towels, a Freeview TV, WiFi and allocated parking. They come in two, three and four-bedroom layouts.

A few are themed for children: the Sooty Suite is decked out in Sooty, Sweep and Soo throughout, and the Buddy Explorer follows the park's Buddy Bear. The Beach House, Escape, Cedar and Dartmoor sleep eight, and the Farringdon and Mapleton add a 70-inch cinema screen. Two things families with a toddler mention are worth knowing. The twin bedrooms are small and better suited to children than to a second couple, and in at least one lodge a bedroom opened onto the hot-tub decking, which is a thought with a child who wanders. In high summer the light comes in early, so pack something to block it if you're a light sleeper. Check-in is from 4:30pm and check-out by 10am, with a paid early check-in from 1:30pm if you want to start sooner.

Glamping

The glamping comes in two forms, both sleeping up to six. The Luxury Safari Cabins have two bedrooms plus a sofa in the living area, and they're solid-walled and insulated with lockable doors and carpets, so more cabin than canvas tent, with a kitchen but no hot tub and no en suite, just the shared toilet blocks nearby. The Devon Hideaways have two double bedrooms plus a bunk room with its own toilet and basin, and they're dog friendly. Bedding isn't included with either, so bring your own or add the bedding hire, which is £70 a stay for pillows, duvets and sheets (last checked July 2026).

Caravans and camping

The Havens are static caravans, new for 2025, with three bedrooms sleeping six, a master with an en-suite WC, a fitted kitchen and private decking, and they're dog friendly. For campers there are four pitch types: Standard Touring (10m by 10m grass with a 16-amp hook-up), Super and Premier All-Weather (both 12m by 12m hardstanding with hook-ups) and Back to Basic (10m by 10m grass, no hook-up). Pitches take up to six people and check in from midday. The serviced pitches include a daily electricity allowance you activate by scanning a code on arrival, with anything above it billed on. Barbecues are fine anywhere on the resort as long as they're raised off the ground, though disposable ones aren't allowed.

Shared facilities

Everyone shares the resort's heated toilet and shower blocks, two family bathrooms with baby change and a bath, an accessible bathroom, a covered washing-up area and a coin-operated laundry. The Resort Shop stocks essentials, camping supplies, food, toiletries and souvenirs, though the range varies. WiFi reaches across the site but can drop off at the edges. Paid extras you can add when you book include an extra car space, since the first is included, and a character soft toy, Buddy and Blossom or the Sooty family, waiting in your accommodation when you arrive.

Hot tubs and water rides

One thing to be clear about before you book: Crealy has no swimming pool. There's no indoor or outdoor pool, no children's pool, no splash pad and no paddling area anywhere on the resort. What it has instead is the private hot tub on each lodge's decking, serviced twice a day, which is the evening draw once the children are down.

For getting wet in the day, the water is over in the theme park, as outdoor rides rather than a pool. Tidal Wave is a log flume with a 40-foot drop that soaks you, from 92cm with an adult. The Vortex is a triple-tube water coaster, opened in 2010 as the world's first of its kind, and it closes in heavy rain, thunder or lightning, again 92cm with an adult. Aqua Blasters gets you very wet from 82cm with an adult, and the Soak Zone is an unsupervised outdoor water-play area. All of these are outdoor and seasonal, so a cold or wet Devon day is a soft-play day instead.

This is our read across the guest reviews, both sides.

How it compares

Within Devon, Crealy's pitch is the theme park, not water. If a pool or a beach is what you're after, other parks make more sense: Woolacombe Bay pairs pools with a big sandy beach, Cofton has a pool complex, Finlake has an indoor waterpark and Haven Devon Cliffs combines a waterpark with clifftop rides and a beach nearby. What none of them has is Crealy's park, with more than 60 rides and Sooty Land a walk from your door. So the choice is straightforward: come to Crealy for the rides, and look elsewhere if you mainly want swimming and the seaside.

Getting there and when to go

Most families drive: Crealy is three or four minutes from Junction 30 of the M5, five miles east of Exeter (postcode EX5 1DR), with free parking. Exeter Airport is about five miles away, roughly ten minutes by car, and there's a bus stop just outside the resort on the Exeter, Sidmouth and Jurassic Coast routes, with Exeter's mainline stations about five miles off. There are three electric-car charging points, but they're in the lower car park by the theme park entrance only, not on the accommodation side, so plan around that if you'll need to charge.

On when to go, the park runs daily from around May half-term to the end of October half-term, opens for Easter and the spring and then on selected weekends and over Christmas, with January usually closed; standard hours are 10am to 5pm, with last entry at 4pm. In term time, outside the school holidays, some months (June, September and October) only open on Thursdays and Fridays, and rides start running in stages through the morning rather than all opening at once, so a midweek visit outside those two days may not be possible at all. For toddlers and young children the quieter, cheaper weeks in May, June, September and October are the easiest, with shorter queues, while July and August are the busiest but have the fullest programme of shows and entertainment.

Weather

Devon's weather is famously changeable, and rain can arrive on any day, including in summer, so pack waterproofs whatever the month. The indoor soft play is the reason a wet day still works here, giving you a full day inside whatever the sky is doing. The figures below are long-term averages for the Exeter area, the nearest weather station, across the park's main season.