Mini adventures in Devon – Haven Devon Cliffs Review
Travelling anywhere with children takes time and quite often a lot of preparation.
Making sure you’ve packed everything from favourite toys, blankets and comforters to snacks, games, clothes and more.
It can be an almost military operation
When it comes to going on holiday with toddlers – well that’s a whole other story!
I’m a mum to two year old twin girls.
They’re cheeky, adventurous and love running around and having fun!
With this in mind we decided to go on holiday to Devon.
More specifically Haven’s Devon Cliffs Caravan Park.
The caravan park appeared to have everything we needed to keep our girls entertained.
There was a beach just down the road, an indoor swimming pool, kids club and plenty of places to eat.
We arrived at the park around 2pm.
R and M were so excited when they were greeted by Bradley the Bear at the entrance!
I was delighted that we were able to check in straight away. The website did state that check in wasn’t until 3pm.
Our caravan, a deluxe plus, was situated a five minute walk away from the main complex.
It was much bigger than I thought it was going to be!
The caravan was spacious, modern and clean, although we quickly discovered that two year old twins love opening and closing all of the doors over and over and over again!
A handy door stopper or hook at the top of each door would have been great to discourage this!
The deluxe plus caravan has two bathrooms. One with a toilet and sink, the other with a toilet, sink and shower.
It has one double bedroom and two twin rooms.
Then you have your main room and kitchen.
After we’d unpacked we walked to the main complex to have a look around and grab a bite to eat.
The complex has a lot of amusement arcade machines and small rides for children.
There were plenty of places of eat, but the only ones that were open at 3.30pm was Burger King and a restaurant called Mash and Barrel.
We opted for Burger King as our twins were quite hungry. The food was delicious!
From 5.30pm we were allowed into the main room where the children’s show was held.
There is another big room for over 18’s – I think children are allowed in, but it’s just more grown up entertainment – but we didn’t go into this room so I can’t pass any comment on what the entertainment was like.
The children’s show started at 7pm, but before this we got to meet Rory the Tiger!
He came onto the stage around 6.15pm. He was on stage for around 5-10 minutes and then children were invited to have their picture taken with Rory.
The FunStars created a conga-line of parents and children which went around the whole room. I decided to have a picture taken with the girls and Rory. We queued for around 10 minutes to have our photo taken and were then given a token to collect our photo, which was £5.
The show started at 7pm and the girls really enjoyed watching it.
The show consisted of four characters, Rory the Tiger, Bradley the Bear, Anxious the Elephant and Greedy the Gorilla.
I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t any audience participation for the children, but R and M seemed to enjoy watching them.
The characters all had microphones and were telling the children a story.
It was just ‘ok’ in my opinion.
I’m not sure if the people inside the costumes were actually talking or if it was all pre-recorded, but after a while watching and listening to four characters just talking on a stage gets a bit boring.
I thought the show could have had so many more elements to it.
Bringing children up onto the stage, asking the children in the audience questions and getting them a bit more involved would have been great.
Day Two
Day two didn’t start great. We had no hot water for a shower.
We called through to reception who sent out someone straight away.
We let the man know that there was a red light flashing on the boiler. The man advised he would need to call a gasman in, but he did manage to get us some hot water for us to have a shower.
After we’d all had a shower and got dressed, we decided to spend the morning down the beach. Sandy Beach to be exact.
After we’d all had a shower and got dressed, we decided to spend the morning down the beach. Sandy Beach to be exact.
It was a fabulously sunny day!
R and M have never been to a beach before so this was a first for them!
They loved it!
They played in the sand, made sand castles, buried themselves and us and even played in the water!
After a good few hours, we went back to the caravan for some food and so that the girls could have a nap.
When they woke, we went and had some food in Mash and Barrel, but I wish we’d gone back to burger king!
I had a chicken breast burger with chips. The chips were nice, but there was no taste at all to the burger!
After food, we found a little soft play area in the complex which the girls enjoyed.
The soft play area did appear to be a bit of an afterthought. It was plonked by the stairs amongst the amusements and there wasn’t really anywhere for parents to sit other than in the eating area.
We then made our way back into the main room for the kids show.
I don’t know what I expected really, but I was disappointed to see that the show was in the same format.
The first hour was spent watching people queue up to have their photo’s taken with the characters and then the show began, which was pretty much the same as the night before, except a different story.
Day Three
We drove into Exmouth town centre for a wander around the shops, but wished we hadn’t!
The town centre was small and the shops weren’t great.
R and M slept the entire time in their pushchair!
When we got back to the caravan park, we went to one of the two children’s parks.
The one pictured above was on the way to the beach and had two slides, one big, one small, although both were just too big for our girls to climb up onto.
There weren’t any swings in this park and they were just too young for it.
Later in the day, we went to the swimming pool.
The pool was clean and had a lot of different slides, but again the girls were just too young for them on their own and my husband was told off by one of the lifeguards for going down the slide with M.
The lifeguard said M could go down on her own, but not with an adult.
She’s two!
She’s not going down a big water slide on her own!
Anyway, the girls didn’t seem to enjoy the pool much, so we made our way to the second park which was much better than the first!
This one had four swings. Two were giant car seat type swings and then two swings for older children.
The big swings had straps in so we were able to strap the girls in and they loved them.
This park also had a slide, seesaw and was much better suited to two year olds.
We decided to give the girls an early night as they were both really tired so didn’t go to the show.
Day four
Rain!
We decided to leave a day early.
There wasn’t anything to do for two year olds in the complex when it was raining.
Overall
Overall, we enjoyed our stay especially the beach, but I don’t think this Haven park is aimed at two year olds.
I know every business wants to make money, but the shows were just big money making schemes. As mentioned above the same format every night. Having to wait 45 minutes to an hour just watching people have their photo’s taken with the characters is boring.
I would like to see more children’s activities during the day which are suitable for two year olds. Apparently their is a kids club at this Haven Park, but we didn’t see any mention of this at all. None of the staff mentioned it to us and there was no leaflets or posters around the park about it either.
I think the whole park could do with some more pavements as a lot of the time we were forced to walk on the road.
The site itself was clean and the caravan was lovely.
4 Comments
Beth Twinderelmo
August 3, 2014 at 12:21 pm
Glad you had a lovely holiday despite a few problems with Haven. I have found as my son gets older the kids clubs are definitely better for him x #sundaybest
Sarah
August 3, 2014 at 4:04 pm
It's a shame they didn't have more things to cater for 2 year-olds & had the kids shows in the exact same format. I've only ever been to Haven as an 18 year-old so can't really say whether it's the same across the brand. Looks like they loved the beach though! 🙂
#sundaybest
http://nurserynurseconfessions.blogspot.co.uk/
Alex Bumptobaby
August 3, 2014 at 5:07 pm
Great post, interesting review. I've never stayed with Haven before so it's good to hear about them a bit more in depth! x
Chloe Elphick
August 3, 2014 at 7:00 pm
Very interesting review of Haven, will bare in mind as we have a 3 year old. Hope you enjoyed Devon though :). #Sundaybest
Chloe @ http://www.bethbear.co.uk