| Product: |
Crealy Adventure Park |
| Date: |
04/08/01 (272 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: lots to do there, most attractions are free, good refreshment and toilet facilities
Disadvantages: not so good in wet weather, can be a bit boring for the adults, not so good for teenagers
If, like us, you have quite a few kids and quite a few ages to please, the school holidays can be pretty hard to organise and fund. Our youngest is five years old and her ideal day would be spent on a bouncy castle; our eldest is almost eleven and she’d like to go to Alton Towers.
My in-laws came to the rescue and suggested we go to Crealy Adventure Park, which they described as a kind of cheaper, toned-down Alton Towers without the scary rides. Just to swing the vote, they offered to pay! So off we went to Devon today and spent over six hours at Crealy Adventure Park near Exeter.
This is definitely the sort of place you can easily spend the day at and it would amuse most children, from very young to early teens. There is plenty to do, both indoors and outdoors, but it would be better to go in fine weather to take advantage of all the things on offer.
The attractions are situated at various points on a large piece of land. This means there is enough room to find a quiet spot if you prefer, and you don’t feel it is crowded even when there are obviously loads of people there. This is definitely an advantage, as it is filled with kids and headaches go with the territory. But there are enough places to sit down and although there are walks if you like to do that, you can get away with doing very little walking if you prefer.
We arrived there around 11am, having driven two hours or so to get there. We parked the car, noting there were lots of cars there, but still lots of room for more. We paid to go in, where we were given our tickets (keep these in case you need to nip out to the car later) and a fold-out map of the park, plus a leaflet giving times of special events.
We headed straight for the loos – there are three blocks of toilets and we never found ourselves too far from one. After this, we went to the Adventure Zone. This is basically a huge building containing a large adventure play area, with bal
l ponds, walkways, ropes, tunnels, three large slides (colour coded for scariness!) and so on.
There is a restaurant area there too, where parents can sit with a cuppa, while keeping half an eye on their little ones. Luckily, we have four and three of them aren’t so little anymore, so we could let them go off and play in the area, while sipping tea and chatting.
The restaurant was reasonably priced, with a coke costing 90p, tea at 85p, coffee at 95p and a veggie meal (burger, chips and coke) costing £4.14. There were also vending machines, including one for Pot Noodles!
The rest of the building included a gift shop – there is another one near the rollercoaster, but following a different theme – and a simulator ride priced £3 for two people.
After we’d spent an hour or so here, we went and ate our lunch in the picnic area outside. There were horses nearby and plenty of benches, bins and even a barbecue area.
After this, we were dragged to the Treetops and Woodentops Outdoor Playground. This is basically a fort design, with slides, a tyre swing, covered walkways and so on. This is more for older children than the little ones, but ours enjoyed it. They also had a brief play in the Magical Kingdom, which is another smaller version of the Adventure Zone.
We sat outside the Magical Kingdom, again sipping teas. The train rides start from here, so my other half (migraine and all, bless him) took the kids on this. It is free too (as most of the things are) and lasts about ten minutes, taking you around the back of the park area, behind the Dragonfly Lake and back to the café.
The kids then had a look round the Children’s Village, which is a few rows of miniature houses, a church and so on, all scaled down to child size. My eldest found this boring, lamenting there was nothing to do inside and only one had stairs (If anyone’s been to Sundown, they are much better there than C
realy), but the others thought they were okay.
We then bought ice-creams, £1 each for special swirly ones with a flavoured sauce added. You can choose from butterscotch, chocolate, raspberry, blue goo (!) or peach and the sauce actually swirls round the ice-cream as it comes out of the machine. Hard to describe, but we’d never seen any like it before and they were obviously very popular and didn’t taste too bad either.
The kids had been nagging to go on the bumper boats, but little ones had to be accompanied by an adult and none of us four grown-ups wanted to go on, so we quickly steered them in the direction of the rollercoaster instead. My other half bravely offered his services on this one and here we encountered our only real queue of the day.
The rollercoaster looked quite scary to me, but then again, I hate the things anyway, but the three eldest kids went on and all enjoyed it. It is a train, designed to hold sixteen people at once, so the queue goes down quite quickly. It is free, but afterwards, you can buy photos of you on it for £3.50 each.
By the time we’d done all that, it was past 3pm and the ferret handling session began at 3:15pm. It was me nagging this time, as I had been looking forward to seeing all the animals and hadn’t managed it yet! So this was my hour and definitely the best bit of the day.
The animals are situated in the block to the right of the Adventure Zone. This comprises the Animal Nursery and Show Ring and the Miniature Shetland Stud and Riding Ponies’ Stable.
At the far end, there are lots of animals to see – baby chicks, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, chipmunks and so on. Throughout the day, there are arranged times where you can handle them, so we all got to stroke the ferrets, who were very sweet and sociable.
Then the kids queued for the pony rides at £1.90 a go. This is probably the most professionally organised pony rides I have e
ver seen, with children having to wear correctly sized hard hats, being put on horses that match their size (so my five year old went on a tiny Shetland pony, my nine year old went on a 14hh horse), then being led around a soft sandy kind of arena by staff who were friendly, reassuring and very capable. My kids loved it and it was a pleasure to watch, as I complete confidence in them in such ideal surroundings.
We then walked round the stables looking at the other horses, before returning to the Adventure Zone for a last play and more cups of tea, before leaving just gone 5pm for the journey home.
There were plenty more things there that we didn’t get time for – go-kart rides, football, sandpit area for the youngest kids, various walks and trails, the Cardew Paint Pottery (where you paint your own design), etc.
What impressed me most about Crealy Park was the spaciousness of it all, I never felt hemmed in or that it was too busy or too noisy. Most attractions are included in the entrance price and if you bring a packed lunch with you, it helps to keep the costs down.
There are plenty of cafes and refreshment kiosks, also the facilities for babies and the disabled seemed good, with special toilets, ramps instead of stairs and a fast-track system for any disabled people wishing to go on the rollercoaster.
We certainly had a good day out and we all enjoyed ourselves. I would recommend Crealy for any families and we will probably be making this trip again.
INFORMATION (Boring Bit At The End!)
Situated four minutes from Junction 30 of the M5, on the A3052 Sidmouth road near Exeter. Exeter – Sidmouth buses regularly pass the entrance.
Open every day from April to October, 10am to 6pm.
November to March - closed on Mondays in term-time, closed Dec. 24-26, 31. When open, from 10am to 5pm.
01395-233200
www.crealy.co.uk
£5.99 per person or £5.79 if four
people or more, £4.59 for senior citizens, reductions for groups of more than twenty, under 3s are free. (Winter = £4.59 for adults, £4.20 groups, £4 OAPs)
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