If you read my blog regularly you would know we had originally planned to go to fuerteventura for this year's holiday. What you won't know is that we changed the plan to give us more time to save, so we can go for two weeks instead of one.
We still wanted a little holiday so we headed out to Hayling Island with Park Dean Resorts. Hayling island is on the south coast of England, in the borough of Havant in the county of Hampshire, near Portsmouth.
After a 2 and half hour journey we finally arrived to Havant. We decided to get a taxi to the resort, as we had our luggage and Stuart is currently on crutches due to problems with his knee. The taxi didn't take long to get us there and even though we arrived an hour before our checking time our caravan was ready so they let us have the keys.
I've heard good things about park dean resorts however this was our first experiance with them. We went to camber sands last year with pontins so in my head I was expecting the same kind of thing available. Admittedly the the caravan site at Hayling island is a lot smaller than I expected however it was a good thing as it wasn't too overwhelming for Blake.
Our caravan was fab. It had a good sized living room area which included the dining table then there was the kitchen off the living room. At the back of the caravan there was 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. The twin bedroom was smallish as was the double bedroom however was an ideal size for the 3 of us. There was a great amount of storage for us to use around the caravan and we could use the sofa as a bed if we wished as it pulled out so that 6 people could sleep in there. The caravan had everything inside that we would need, fridge, cooker, a t.v. attached to the wall and the beds were already made giving us one less thing to do on arrival.
Entertainment wise there is a small arcade which I preferred as the one with pontins was large and the 2p machines can be addictive. The arcade also had other amusements such as a ride on boat which cost us a small fortune as Blake wanted to be on it constantly.
Other entertainment includes crazy caves soft play, adventure playground, heated indoor pool, toddler pool, spa bath and outside pool. There are children's clubs available from 0-15 such as Tot stars, star landers and freestyle. There is also evening entertainment as well unfortunately the kids clubs and evening entertainment wasn't something we got around to doing as we wanted to explore what we could of Hayling Island and Havant.
Outside of the resort we visited a few places. One was a trip to Havant where we looked around the shop's and found a small gazebo garden. We also went back to Havant and went to Staunton Farm, gardens and country park which has to be my favourite place we visited. We took a trip to Hayling Island beach we were unfortunately disappointed with as Funland was shut and Blake wasn't keen on the beach of stones however we made the most of it as the view was stunning and we got to enjoy fish and chips.
We ate off resort a few times one of our favourites the Barley Mow where I got to finally eat a carvery and the food was delicous and the service was good along with it being a lovely quiet restaurant.
On our last day we ate at The Ship Inn Langstone where we dined alfresco and enjoyed another stunning view this time of the boats and the sea. The food although pricey (£13 for burger and chips) was delicous and we even decided to fit pudding in which was gorgeous too.
If we decide to visit Hayling island again in the future them two restaurants will be at the top of our list of places to eat out.
Overall we had a lovely time away and will definitely be going with Park Dean Resorts again whenever we have our next UK break as a family.