Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks
Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks is a family-owned group of three self-catering parks on the hillside above Woolacombe Beach in North Devon, a three-mile stretch of Atlantic sand. One price covers all three, so a single booking opens the heated pools, waterslides, activities and entertainment at Woolacombe Bay, Twitchen House and Easewell Farm. Families come for the pools in any weather, the beach below and caravans and lodges you can settle a baby or toddler into with your own kitchen and bedtimes.
On this page
Is it worth it?
The quick read before the detail: who these parks suit, what one price buys and the facts to skim first.
Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks is a self-catering beach holiday with a lot packed into it: three linked parks on one price, heated pools and waterslides you can use whatever the weather, and a three-mile beach below. You cook in your own kitchen and keep your own bedtimes, which suits a baby or toddler, and the parks own and maintain all the caravans and lodges themselves, which shows in the upkeep. It's a hillside site reached by steps, though, with no drop-off childcare, so it's a hands-on family holiday rather than one where you hand the children over. You'll get the most from it if you want plenty to do on site and don't mind the walk, or the drive, down to the sand.
Best for
You want a self-catering beach holiday with masses to do on site, heated pools and slides in any weather and your own kitchen and bedtimes for a baby or toddler.
Maybe not for
You want drop-off childcare, flat ground that's easy with a pushchair or quiet term-time weeks with the full entertainment running.
Best ages
Babies upwards. The flat shallow pools and toddler water-play suit the youngest; most of the paid adventure activities start at five.
What stands out
One price covers all three parks and their pools, and the parks own and look after every caravan and lodge rather than subletting.
What to check
The check-in time for your grade, whether your caravan includes towels and how far your park sits from the beach.
Where is it?
On the hillside above Woolacombe Beach in North Devon, about 1 hour 15 from the M5 at Junction 27.
Quick facts for families
What the parks are like
How the three linked parks fit together, what each one is for and what the setup means for a family.
Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks is a family-owned group that's been running for over 45 years, led by managing director Rudi Lancaster, and it's stayed independent, with no chain behind it and no high-street food names on site. It's three separate parks strung along the same road, minutes apart, and the headline is "3 Parks for the price of 1": book any one of them and you can use the pools, activities, entertainment and facilities at all three.
Woolacombe Bay is the lively, beach-facing park, on a hillside with sea views from most pitches and the shortest walk down to the sand. Twitchen House is the largest and the activities hub, set in a wooded valley around a manor house, with the biggest indoor waterslides and the nature rangers. Easewell Farm is the quiet one, given over mainly to camping and touring, with a sea-view golf course, a traditional pub and the South West Coast Path running through it.
The parks own every caravan and lodge rather than subletting them, and they reinvest heavily: more than £10 million on accommodation in recent years, a rebuilt Woolacombe Bay outdoor pool in 2023, a rebuilt Twitchen House outdoor pool in 2025 and the latest Diamond caravans as 2026 models. For a family, the practical draw is self-catering: a full kitchen and your own bedtimes rather than fixed restaurant sittings, which is far easier with a baby or toddler. Every unit bar one adapted caravan at Twitchen House is reached by steps. There are launderettes on all three parks, which help on a longer stay.
Where you stay
Every caravan grade and lodge type with its official size, plus the apartments, camping and the practical bits for a young family.
Every caravan, lodge and apartment is self-catering with a fully equipped kitchen, owned and maintained by the parks rather than sublet, and there's no shared air conditioning. Bed linen is included and made up for your arrival in every grade. All of it is reached by steps, the one exception being an adapted caravan at Twitchen House. Models can vary within a grade, so the booking photos are a guide rather than a promise.
Caravans, Bronze to Diamond
The caravans climb through a grade ladder from Bronze up to Diamond, all double-glazed and centrally heated. Bronze is the compact entry level; Silver is the most popular, at 12 ft wide; Gold adds decking and a gas BBQ; Platinum, Sapphire and Emerald step up the fittings; and Diamond is the premium tier with a private hot tub. The full range is at Woolacombe Bay and Twitchen House, while Easewell Farm keeps to Gold-grade caravans in line with its quieter character. For a baby or toddler, the Silver 3-bed is the one most families pick, since its third small twin room means the baby can sleep behind a closed door while everyone else has their own space. If you're booking a Diamond mainly for the hot tub, the official line is that children under five shouldn't use it, and the tub is refilled on arrival day, so it may not be warm until the evening.
| Grade | Beds | Sleeps | Size | Hot tub | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 2 | Up to 6 | 360 ft² (~33 m²) at Woolacombe Bay, 280 ft² (~26 m²) at Twitchen House | No | Compact entry-level caravan. Check-in from 5pm. |
| Silver 2-bed | 2 | Up to 6 | 336 ft² (~31 m²) | No | A master double, a twin and a sofa bed, one shower room, 12 ft wide. At Woolacombe Bay and Twitchen House. |
| Silver 3-bed | 3 | Up to 8 | 420 ft² (~39 m²) | No | Adds a small twin room (2 ft-wide beds) that suits a toddler, and a second WC. The most popular family choice. |
| Silver 4-bed | 4 | Up to 10 | Larger again | No | Twitchen House only. |
| Gold 2-bed | 2 | Up to 6 | 384 ft² (~36 m²) | No | Silver spec plus large decking, outdoor furniture and a gas BBQ. Some have sea views. Check-in from 3pm. |
| Gold 3-bed | 3 | Up to 8 | 432 ft² (~40 m²) | No | Silver 3-bed plus decking and a BBQ. |
| Platinum | 3 | Up to 8 | Larger than Gold | No | A step up from Gold, with a bedroom TV, a dishwasher and bathroom towels included. |
| Sapphire | 3 | Up to 8 | As Platinum | No | Platinum plus an en-suite to the master bedroom. |
| Emerald | 3 | Up to 8 | As Sapphire | No | Sapphire in a premium position on the park. |
| Diamond | 3 | Up to 6 | 12 ft wide | Yes | King master and two twins, en-suite, a secluded outdoor hot tub, in Surf Village or Beach Haven. The Woolacombe Bay units are 2026 models. Check-in from 2pm. |
The lodges
The lodges are all at Woolacombe Bay, terraced across the Surf Village on four levels. Every one is 20 ft wide, roughly 6 m, with a private hot tub, enclosed decking, a gas BBQ, an outdoor surf shower, complimentary surfboard and wetsuit hire, an EV charging point on the plot, a washer-dryer, a dishwasher and allocated parking for two cars, plus priority check-in from 2pm. The Surf Lodges give the most space and the fullest kitchen, and the 3-bed adds a separate children's bath, a small thing that helps with young children. The same under-five hot-tub guidance applies to the lodges.
| Lodge | Sleeps | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Surf Pod | Studio | A small glamping-style studio; the official site gives little detail. |
| Surf Lodge 3-bed | Up to 6 | King master and two twins, the fullest kitchen and a separate children's bath. |
| Surf Lodge 4-bed | Up to 8 | As the 3-bed, with more space. |
| Surf Lodge Plus 4-bed | Up to 10 | The top-tier lodge. |
| Surfscape Lodge 3-bed | Up to 6 | On the upper tier of Surf Village. |
| Surfview Lodge 3-bed | Up to 6 | On the upper tier of Surf Village. |
Apartments, the farmhouse and camping
At Woolacombe Bay only there are also two sea-view apartments, Bay View (a ground-floor 2-bed with a beach-view deck) and Sea Spray (a 3-bed with a roof terrace), plus a larger farmhouse with a hot tub; the official pages carry the exact sizes and layouts. Twitchen House and Easewell Farm take camping and touring, with electric, all-weather "super", basic and tent pitches, and Twitchen House has a Beach Haven section of Diamond caravans with hot tubs in a quieter, sea-view spot.
Check-in, towels and baby kit
Check-in times step with the grade: 5pm for Bronze, 4pm for Silver and the farmhouse, 3pm for Gold, 2pm for Platinum and above, the lodges and the apartments and noon for camping. Whatever you book, you can arrive from noon and use the pools, café bars, shop and play areas while you wait for the key. Bathroom towels are included in Platinum, Sapphire, Emerald and Diamond caravans, the lodges and the apartments, but Silver and Gold don't get any, and pool and beach towels aren't provided in any grade, so pack them or hire a bale of 4 for £20 on arrival. Travel cots, high chairs and bed guards are hired through your My Account, charged and subject to availability, so book early; the cots come without a mattress.
Food and drink
Self-catering by default, plus the three café bars, the pools with their waterslides and the beach below.
Everything here is self-catering by default, with a full kitchen in every unit, so the on-site food is a bonus rather than the plan. The three café bars are casual, beach-holiday places, not formal restaurants, and there are no branded fast-food chains; the menus run to cooked breakfasts, main meals, stone-baked pizzas, veggie and vegan options, kids' meals and Devon cream teas.
Woolacombe Bay has the Bait Ball Bar & Restaurant, an all-day café bar with sea views from every seat and a rooftop terrace, which doubles as the evening entertainment venue. Twitchen House has Bar 51, glass-fronted with one wall that folds back onto the sun terrace by the outdoor pool and the Wavesurfer, with a log burner for cooler evenings and its own entertainment nights. Easewell Farm has The Easewell Arms, a traditional Devon pub with Sky and BT Sport and Bristol Channel views; its food is delivered over from Twitchen House rather than cooked there, so it's bar food plus what comes across. All three have dog-friendly areas.
Both Woolacombe Bay and Twitchen House run a Billy & Betty Beachball pancake breakfast, a paid, 60-minute character meet with a short show and a colouring pack for children up to nine, and each has a kids' bar or tuck shop inside the entertainment venue for sweets, popcorn and slushies. There's a poolside pop-up bar at the Woolacombe Bay outdoor pool in summer, and Bar 51 sits right by the Twitchen House pool all year. Each park has a Nisa convenience store, open 8am to 8pm (Easewell's hours can vary), stocking Co-op products, a bakery, fresh food and the off-licence basics.
You don't book the café bars; you turn up and order at the table or take it away. Woolacombe Bay and Twitchen House will also deliver food to your accommodation for a £10 minimum, free and card only, though Easewell Farm doesn't. During shows the entertainment venues do table service, and the bingo ticket books sell out ahead, so buy those early if you fancy it.
Five heated poolsPools and water play
There are five heated pools across the three parks, all kept at 28°C, three indoors and open all year and two outdoors that run from mid-May to mid-September (10am to 6pm, weather permitting). Entry is included; you show the wristband you get at check-in, the pools are for guests only and at the busiest times there's a staggered entry system at the gate. The slides and flumes run in advertised sessions alongside quieter general swims.
At Woolacombe Bay, the Castaways indoor pool is pirate-themed, 13 m long and a flat 1.2 m throughout, with slides, a water cannon, a dumping bucket and a shallow pirate play area for the youngest. The 2023-rebuilt outdoor pool, heated by air-source heat pumps, is 18 m and 1.2 m deep, with a flume through to the indoor pool, a twisting speed slide, a three-lane racing slide and a dry SplashPad. There's also a water-sports lake here for coached kayaking and paddleboarding (age 12 and over, paid).
At Twitchen House, Jungle Falls is the indoor pool with a three-storey flume tower: the Duo Tunnel, 67 m and ridden by an adult and child together so it suits smaller children, and the Aquatube, a 72 m single speed slide. The pool itself is 16 m and a flat 1.2 m, with a separate toddler area of mushroom fountains, bubble jets and squirters. The 2025-rebuilt outdoor pool, 18 m and 1.2 m, has an adjustable floor for aqua sessions, a twisting slide and a three-lane slide, with Bar 51 alongside.
Easewell Farm keeps it simple with a calm 10 m indoor pool at 1.3 m throughout and a small toddler paddling area, no slides, which is a good place to build water confidence. Those three shallow toddler zones, at Woolacombe Bay, Twitchen House and Easewell, are all flat, shallow and heated to the same 28°C.
A few pool rules matter with young children: under-18s are supervised at all times, non-swimmers and under-8s must be with an adult in the water, one adult can watch up to three children and the waterslides need users to be toilet-trained, with no nappies or swim nappies and height and weight limits. Phones and cameras aren't allowed in the pool areas. There are paid pool activities too, the Aqua Inflatables obstacle course (eights to fifteens), Aqua Paddlers (fives to sevens) and Aqua Roller (eight and over), all needing swimming ability and an adult.
The beach
Woolacombe Beach, described on the parks' own site as "Britain's best beach", is a three-mile sweep of sand on the North Devon coast that has regularly held Blue Flag status over the years. It's a well-known surf beach, the heart of the UK's first World Surfing Reserve, so it's a vast flat sandy expanse with room for toddler play, digging and rock pools, but the Atlantic waves are a real feature rather than a still, sheltered cove. RNLI lifeguards patrol through the summer, so swim between the flags and keep an eye on the surf; Barricane Beach, a quarter of a mile along the coast, has no lifeguards. Dogs are welcome on Woolacombe Beach year-round in the designated areas.
It's a 15-minute walk downhill from the Woolacombe Bay park, 20 to 30 minutes from Twitchen House and Easewell Farm, and the return is uphill, so plenty of families drive down and use the paid seafront parking instead, especially with a loaded pushchair on a warm day. Two local surf schools, Woolacombe Surf Centre and Surfing Woolacombe, teach all abilities with wetsuits and boards included and a discount for park guests, and there's kayaking and coasteering locally with kit hire.
Babies and toddlers
How the parks work with the youngest children, everything there is to do on site and the days out beyond the gate.
There's no crèche and no drop-off kids' club here and no supervised childcare: every activity, show and character meet needs a parent alongside. That's normal for a UK holiday park rather than a gap, and it's the main way these parks differ from an all-inclusive abroad, where you might leave a child at a club. No babysitting service is advertised either, so evenings are planned around the children being with you. Self-catering helps, since a full kitchen and no fixed meal times mean you can eat once they're asleep, and a caravan or lodge with a separate bedroom makes that far easier than an open-plan unit.
The parks' own characters are Billy and Betty Beachball, who turn up at the meet-and-greets and the paid pancake breakfast, and there are free Sensory Tots discovery-play sessions for the youngest children. Indoors, the café-bar restaurants at Woolacombe Bay and Twitchen House have multi-level soft play for children up to eight, free with your stay, and all three parks have outdoor play areas with swings, slides and climbing frames. The shallow toddler water-play zones sit within the pools described above. Pottery painting takes all ages and Make a Bear takes threes and up, both paid and both needing a parent; the pottery studio doesn't take pushchairs or dogs.
Baby kit is hire-only and limited, so book a travel cot, high chair or bed guard through My Account as early as you can. The nearest A&E is at North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple, about 14 miles or half an hour away, open 24 hours for all ages; there's no medical provision on the parks themselves.
On the parksThings to do
A lot is included with your stay, and the paid activities are pre-bookable from 14 days before you arrive through My Account, paid by card at the time. Most of the included things just need your wristband. Outside the school holidays some activities and the entertainment programme are scaled back.
The evening and daytime entertainment at Woolacombe Bay and Twitchen House runs the parks' own ParkStars stage shows, visiting tribute acts, party dances, an all-season pantomime, cash bingo for a small charge and the Sensory Tots sessions, with extra acts in the school holidays like a science show, a silent disco and a pool party. Each of those two parks has a 50-seat cinema showing new releases daily, with pre-school films midweek in term time; that one is paid, at £8 for adults 15 and over, £7 for children and £4.50 for an early showing, with tickets from reception. There are amusement arcades on all the parks with 2p pushers and prize games, and a prize shop at the two bigger parks.
Free sports vary by park. Woolacombe Bay has pirate-themed adventure golf, disc golf, foot golf, a multi-use games court, short mat bowls and a floodlit tennis court. Twitchen House has jungle-themed adventure golf, coarse fishing (over-12s need a rod licence and their own kit) and table tennis. Easewell Farm has darts, traditional West Country skittles and table tennis. Twitchen House is also home to the free EXplorers nature sessions, a Ranger Ramble wildlife walk and a ranger-led EXplorienteering course.
The paid activities are where the extras add up. On the water there's the covered, heated Wavesurfer surf simulator at Twitchen House (from age eight, minimum 1.1 m) and kayaking and paddleboarding on the lake at Woolacombe Bay (age 12 and over, and you need to swim 25 m). On dry land, across the two main parks, there's a bungee trampoline, a climbing wall, inflatable axe throwing and hover archery (all from five), Crazi Bugz electric buggies for fives to elevens, WaterWalkerz on the pool and a Segway Safari for over-twelves. At Easewell Farm there's a paid 9-hole par-33 sea-view golf course, affiliated with the English Golf Union, with clubs available to hire. The EXplorers rangers at Twitchen House also run paid bushcraft sessions: den building, a bug hunt, pond dipping, survival bracelets and nature craft. Creative activities cover pottery painting and a Make a Bear party. There's also a spa at Woolacombe Bay, a 90-minute thermal suite session for the over-twelves (accompanied by an adult), with dry and UV saunas, two steam rooms, an indoor jacuzzi, heated loungers, a plunge pool, an ice fountain and an outdoor terrace; swimwear is required and phones, cameras and alcohol aren't allowed inside. There's also a solarium sun shower for over-eighteens and a sea-view gym for over-sixteens. Every paid activity carries an additional charge, so check the current prices when you book.
Off the parkThe area and days out
The parks are in Woolacombe itself, a small seaside village a 15-minute walk downhill from the Woolacombe Bay park, with a handful of independent restaurants, cafés, ice cream and gift shops and surf hire. The South West Coast Path runs through Easewell Farm, with the dramatic Morte Point headland walkable from the site.
Within about 20 minutes by car you've got Combe Martin Wildlife and Dinosaur Park, the harbour town of Ilfracombe (boat trips, a seasonal Lundy ferry and Damien Hirst's Verity statue) and the surf bay at Croyde, with the huge Braunton Burrows dune system, a UNESCO biosphere, around half an hour away. Braunton, about 20 minutes on, is the nearest place for supermarkets and a pharmacy.
A little further, the Milky Way Adventure Park near Bideford is an all-weather theme park with coasters and birds of prey, roughly 50 minutes, with North Devon Wake Park next door, and the Big Sheep, a farm park for younger children, about an hour. Barnstaple, 14 miles and half an hour away, is the nearest sizeable town, with its Pannier Market, shops, the hospital and train links. Lundy Island, out in the Bristol Channel with its puffins and seals, has a seasonal ferry from Ilfracombe.
On the Exmoor side, Lynton and Lynmouth (about 40 minutes) have the water-powered cliff railway and the Valley of the Rocks on the edge of Exmoor National Park, where you'll find moorland walks, wild ponies and red deer around 45 minutes away. Westward Ho!, the seaside resort spelled with an exclamation mark, is about 50 minutes down the coast.
Loves and gripes
What guests rate and what they flag, how it stacks up against other parks, the journey in and the weather by month.
What families love
- The scale of the pools and the choice of them across the three parks.
- Having all three parks on one price, which reviewers say feels like several holidays in one.
- Cleanliness and upkeep, helped by the parks owning rather than subletting the accommodation.
- Friendly, welcoming staff.
- Value for money given how much is included.
- The hot tubs in the Diamond caravans and lodges.
- The hillside setting, the sea views and the beach below.
Common gripes
- Accommodation can vary within a grade, with the odd tired fitting reported (a broken hot-tub jet, curtains that let light in).
- Park-wide WiFi is casual-browsing standard, and the signal can be patchy at edge-of-site pitches.
- The paid activities add up if you want to do a lot of them.
- Peak school-holiday pricing is much higher than term time.
- The hillside is tiring uphill from the beach with a loaded pushchair, and every unit bar one adapted caravan at Twitchen House is reached by steps.
- Less entertainment running in term-time weeks.
- No pool or beach towels in the Silver and Gold grades, so you bring or hire them.
- The pool changing rooms can bottleneck at busy booked sessions.
How it compares
On the parks' own booking system the group scores 8.5 out of 10, with Woolacombe Bay at 8.5 (from 3,335 reviews), Twitchen House at 8.5 (from 4,746 reviews) and the quieter Easewell Farm at 8.1 (from 452 reviews). All three parks hold a TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice award for 2026, the tenth year running, and the Devon Tourism Awards named Woolacombe Bay Holiday Park their Holiday Park of the Year at Silver in 2024 and Bronze in 2025.
Against Haven's Devon Cliffs on the south coast, the difference is independent versus chain: Woolacombe Bay is family-owned and tends to score higher for staff, cleanliness and food, and its three-mile surf beach has more character than Sandy Bay, though Devon Cliffs sits right by its own beach. Center Parcs is the nearest thing in scale, and it does have a drop-off kids' club and a big enclosed subtropical waterworld, but it costs more and has no beach. Cofton Holidays near Dawlish in South Devon is quieter, smaller and lower-key, a better fit if you want calm rather than a packed activity programme, while Parkdean's Challaborough Bay sits directly on a sheltered horseshoe cove that's easier for a toddler paddle, set against Woolacombe's bigger beach and far denser facilities.
Between the three parks themselves, you get the same facilities wherever you stay, so the choice is really about grade and location. Woolacombe Bay is closest to the beach and has the outdoor pools, the water-sports lake, the spa and the gym; Twitchen House has the indoor waterslides, the Wavesurfer and the nature rangers; Easewell Farm is the quiet one, built around camping, touring and the golf.
Getting thereGetting there and when to go
Most families drive. From the M5 it's Junction 27 and then about an hour and a quarter on smaller roads; Bristol is two and a half to three hours and London four to six. The three parks have their own postcodes for the satnav: Woolacombe Bay EX34 7AH, Twitchen House EX34 7ES and Easewell Farm EX34 7EH.
By train, the nearest station is Barnstaple, 14 miles away, roughly two and three-quarter hours from Bristol and three and a half to four from London, both changing at Exeter. From Barnstaple the number 31 bus runs to the parks, or a taxi covers the last stretch. You don't need a car once you're on site, since everything is walkable or a short drive between parks. There's EV charging in the main car parks at all three, every lodge has its own in-plot charging point with the electricity included and each unit gets space for two cars. Getting between the parks is a few minutes by road; the walking paths work too, though they can be uphill coming back.
For when to go: July and August are the warmest and busiest, June and September the balance of warm, quieter weeks with the outdoor pools still open and the May and October half terms bring extra entertainment. Term-time weeks are cheaper and calmer, with less going on.
When to goWeather on the North Devon coast
Woolacombe faces the Atlantic, so the climate is mild and damp, warmer than inland in winter and cooler in summer, with the wettest stretch from October to January and a south-westerly breeze that's part of the North Devon coast at any time of year. The parks stay open for accommodation all year; the outdoor pools run from mid-May to mid-September and the indoor pools are open the whole time, so a wet week has the pools, cinema, soft play and café bars to fall back on.
| Month | Daytime high | Overnight low | Rain | Wet days | Sea temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 9.5° | 4° | 132 mm | 15 | 10° |
| February | 10° | 4° | 99 mm | 13 | 9° |
| March | 11° | 5° | 86 mm | 12 | 9° |
| April | 13.5° | 6° | 69 mm | 10 | 10° |
| May | 16° | 8.5° | 64 mm | 9 | 12° |
| June | 19° | 11° | 63 mm | 9 | 15° |
| July | 21° | 13° | 67 mm | 8 | 17° |
| August | 21° | 13° | 76 mm | 10 | 17° |
| September | 19° | 11.5° | 70 mm | 9 | 17° |
| October | 16° | 10° | 130 mm | 14 | 16° |
| November | 12.5° | 6.5° | 129 mm | 15 | 14° |
| December | 10.5° | 4.5° | 145 mm | 16 | 12° |
Typical monthly averages from weather-station records. Sea temperature is the open-water figure, so a sheltered bay can feel a degree or two warmer.
Questions
The things families ask most, the official page worth a bookmark and when this guide was last refreshed.
Is there a babysitting service?
No babysitting service is advertised, so evenings are built around the children being with you, or the two of you taking turns. Self-catering makes that easier than a hotel with fixed dinner sittings, since nothing ties you to a set time at a table.
Do I need to bring a travel cot and high chair?
You can hire travel cots, high chairs and bed guards through your online My Account, but stock is limited, so book as early as you can. The cots come without a mattress, so bring one or hire it separately. Pool and beach towels are never supplied whatever grade you book, so pack those too.
What time can we get in, and can we use the park before then?
Check-in runs from 5pm for Bronze down to 2pm for the top grades and lodges, and noon for camping. You can arrive from noon whatever you book and use the pools, café bars, shop and play areas while you wait for the key.
Is Woolacombe Beach safe for toddlers?
It's a vast flat sandy beach with room to play, and RNLI lifeguards patrol in summer, so swim between the flags. It faces the Atlantic and gets real surf though, so it's paddling with an eye on them rather than a still, sheltered cove. Barricane Beach round the coast has no lifeguards.
Do we need to book meals or activities in advance?
The café bars take no reservations, so you turn up and order. Paid activities like the Wavesurfer, the climbing wall or the spa can be booked from 14 days before you arrive through My Account, and the early-evening slots go first. Bingo ticket books also sell out, so buy those early.
Can we bring the dog?
Yes, in selected pet-friendly caravans and lodges, up to two dogs (three in some), with a Woof Pack waiting on arrival. The café bars have dog-friendly areas and Woolacombe Beach welcomes dogs year-round in the designated areas.
Is the WiFi good enough to stream?
Only in the lodges, which have superfast in-lodge WiFi. Across the rest of the parks the WiFi is casual-browsing standard for emails and social media rather than video, and the signal can be patchy at pitches on the edge of the site. Download anything the children need for the journey before you go.
Can under-fives use the hot tub?
The official guidance is that children under five shouldn't use the hot tubs, so if you're booking a Diamond caravan or a lodge mainly for the tub, the youngest shouldn't be going in it. The tubs are the private, secluded sort on your own plot rather than a shared spa.
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Useful links
- Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks: the parks' own site for grades, prices and what's included.
- Devon with little ones: our guide to the wider area, its beaches and when to go.
Last updated 17 July 2026.
