We recently spent 7 nights at the lovely Bluestone resort with our 17 month old. If you’re heading there with your toddler here’s some of the things you can get up to…
1 – Swim/paddle in the Blue Lagoon
Staying at Bluestone gives you free entry to their swimming pool complex, the blue lagoon. Most mornings we tried to head there for the 9am opening, and W loved it. He would wander as far into the main pool as he could, and then keep running back to the toddler pool where he could steer his ship and explore the ‘rock pools’ – brilliant place, and nice spacious family changing areas too!
2 – Circus soft play
W loved this too, a big playroom in the Adventure centre. Plenty to keep them occupied from a push along train/roller coaster thing, to bubbles, to little teepees, really great and again free to use!
3 – the rest of the Adventure centre
We didn’t really use this as much as it’s better for slightly older kids, but your toddler could use the softplay on the ground floor too, ball pools and a bouncy castle!
4 – throw stones into the stream down at Camp Smokey
This is an outdoor eating place in a little valley, but we actually wondered down there for a walk when it was closed so eerily had the place to ourselves… And precious memories were made with dad showing W how to throw stones into the stream… So cute!
5 – a dinner show at the Wild wood cafe
We loved this, we paid about £20? £25? for the ‘shelby snail’ dinner which involved a lovely fairy telling stories, a platter of food and a chance to meet, and have photos with, the character of the show which in our case was Shelby snail! And we loved that it was an early dinner… Running from 4.30-6pm with food brought out about 5.15 – perfect for us!
6 – eat out at the Farmhouse Grill or Knight’s tavern
We had a meal at the pub, the Knights tavern, which was ok but we much preferred the Farmhouse grill. We had the Sunday carvery there and a mid-week dinner, the food and service was great both times with 2 added bonuses for toddlers.. A fab little indoor play area, and they start serving dinner at 4.30pm!
7 – Book them into the crèche
We used the creche a couple of times and found it great, good staff and facilities, when we went to pick W up he was having a whale of a time! It cost £24 for 3 hours and seems to be on every few days.
8 – go to the Spa while they’re in the creche!
The spa is fab… A big outdoor jacuzzi, 2 saunas, 2 steam rooms, a salt room, and an ice room. Very relaxing 🙂
9 – try one of the toddler classes
We went to a toddler sensory class, which was £7 for an hour. Half an hour of that is ‘free play’ in the free-to-use circus room which I thought was a bit cheeky… The second half was fun though, singing and dancing (the adults… While all the toddlers were running off in all directions!)
They run a few messy play sessions that we missed, would like to check them out next time!
10 – Carew inn
Just a few miles away from Bluestone, we stumbled upon a lovely pub called the Carew inn. Good food, good value, and lovely, helpful staff… Oh and it has this fab outdoor play area….
11 – Carew castle
Just across the road from the pub is a beautiful, derelict castle. Entry was £5 each per adult and W loved running around these magical, eerie grounds with lovely views across an estuary.
12 – a day trip to Tenby
We went to Tenby a couple of times during our week there, I hadn’t been for a few years and had forgotten how lovely it is (especially off-peak!)
We found a cute little park overlooking South Beach (the park with best views ever!) and had a nice cuppa tea in the lovely cafe/bar/restaurant on South beach… after a run around on the sand!
Hope you find this useful if you’re heading to Bluestone… If you’ve already been, what did you and your toddler get up to?!
Small print: unlike most bloggers, I paid for our trip to Bluestone and opinions are my own 🙂
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