With two little ones (age one and four) there’s a few essential things we look for when booking a holiday or ‘stay-cation’.
- Baby and toddler friendly activities, because a lot of the time the sports and activities you can pay to do are for the older kids like snorkeling or hover boards for example.
- Evening entertainment for the whole family, not just a family show until 6 or 7pm and then we’ve got to entertain the girls ourselves until bed time just like being at home.
- Amusements on site, good old fashioned 2p machines, a few arcades, a soft play…I don’t think that’s asking for too much.
We were lucky enough to go to one of the very first Parkdean Tots Breaks at Cherry Tree Holiday Park in Great Yarmouth.
If you’ve got small children and you’re considering going to a Tot’s Break at one of Parkdean’s Holiday Parks, I would fully recommend it. They seem to have had such success with it that some of the activities they now do outside of the Tot’s Breaks.
If you’re children also like Paw Patrol, Milkshake TV, Blues Clues, dancing and running around all day then I think they’ll love what Parkdean as to offer.
Activities for the little ones
Starland Krew – An amazing team of fun character mascots – Sid, Sparkly, Sparky, Narkeey and Lizzie are available for meet and greets, photo opportunities, walking round the parks playing different activities and a character or two take part in the evening kids show every night! When the children take part in an activity they can choose who’s team to be on and win points for the week for that team like Sparkle’s Krew.
Free Swimming Sessions – Swim sessions are included in the price of your Parkdean Tots Break, during the pandemic and still now you can book swim sessions online. However, they have now made it so you can turn up and swim as well. They have an indoor pool that is heated to a comfortable temperature that doesn’t shock your body when you get in as well as an outdoor pool. The indoor pool includes a small baby and toddler splash pool area with a little slide.
Pool Party – For the price of £7.50 per person you can bring your family to jump into splashing good fun with floats, inflatables and a great amount of pool toys. I took my 4 year old to this and she absolutely loved it, they had a giant unicorn inflatable she could sit on and all other shapes and sizes of inflatables. As well as beach balls and floating foam bars, it was great fun.
Paw Patrol Missions – The kids all assemble and are given a sheet on which they have to complete tasks to collect all ‘shield’ stickers. Some tasks are solo challenges involving water guns and others were group tasks requiring team work. There’s a great photo opportunity at the end of the ‘mission’ as well with each Paw Patrol character on a life size board. I’ll have included a picture of Freda on here somewhere for your reference. This fun activity will cost you £8.
Blues Clues Trail – I was not personally prepared for the amount of parent/guardian involvement and running around that would be included with this activity, but it was such fun (wished I’d have worn a sports bra!) Once again, you’re given a sheet and a little book to go through that give you clues to find the characters from Blues Clues like Magenta. You have to go around the park and find these characters, who then have stickers for you to complete your sheet. Once completed you meet back in the main venue for a little celebration.
Pipsqueak’s Tea Party – This has to have been one of my most favorite activities Freda took part in, and of course I got involved to. The main entertainment venue was set up to look almost like and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ style tea party but themed to Pipsqueak. You and your little one sit at a long, beautifully decorated table filled with pretend food, drinks, plates, cups and saucers as you’d hope. They are also given a little treat bag filled with actual food like a sandwich, yogurt or jelly, biscuit or cake, a piece of fruit and some crisps that they can eat or take away with them. All the children’s entertainers got involved and really made the tea party an unforgettable experience.
Unicorn Crafts – This cost £4.50, everything you need for the arts and crafts is supplied as you’d hope. Your little one colors, glues and sorts through feathers and tissue paper to put together a fun unicorn outfit they can make and wear themselves; a unicorn mask and tale to be specific, designed by your little artist.
Milkshake Mornings – For a small cost you can take your child along to a fun breakfast morning where cereal is supplied as well as some coloring and fun activities hosted by the mascots on site. The children get sat together at tables, parents can sit with their child if need be and are immersed into a Milkshake entertainment morning session. It is also worth noting that there is a free Milkshake Morning outside of Tots Breaks that free, probably because breakfast isn’t included. It includes crafts, stories, songs and dancing.
Active Tots Session’s – These sessions also happen outside of tots breaks and are included in the price of your holiday. Every day you’ll find different sports for your kids to try, it’s done in a mini Olympics style setting with races and other challenges. My girls enjoyed playing with the bean bags, bow and arrow and good old football. These sessions were a great way for the kids to run off some of that steam!
Is Parkdean Tots Break for You?
If you want to go on a break in the UK where all the activities and entertainment’s designed with the children in mind then a Parkdean Tots Break could be for you.
With all the traditional expectations of a ‘caravan holiday’ like an arcade, evening shows and quiz’s as well as Bingo, Parkdean’s Tot’s Breaks are an affordable, fun holiday. We’ve actually been a couple times now and stayed in different accommodation. We’ve stayed in one of their luxury lodges with a hot tub and then we stayed in a much cheaper caravan and found both times that although the accommodation might have made a little difference to myself and my husband, the kids didn’t care one bit! We’ll be returning soon and this time I’ll be sure to get some video footage to share with you.
Parkdean’s Cherry Tree resort is also in a great location because it’s close enough to both Great Yarmouth Seafront and the beautiful always less busy Gorleston beach…worth looking into if you haven’t been before.
Hopefully this post has been informative for you and helped towards making the decision of whether to try a Parkdean Tots Break or not. If you do decide to go…have an amazing time!
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By Leander Rose 
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