Crealy Meadows with a tween and teen | Mum In The Madhouse

Crealy Meadows with a tween and teen

We were invited to Crealy Meadows over the Easter holidays for a 4 night/5 day break in one of their luxury lodges.  After a long and wet, cruddy winter I thought we all deserved some Devon sunshine and some time reconnecting as a family. Plus the last time we had been to Crealy Adventure Park the boys were about 7! However, I am not going to beat around the bush the boys at 13 and nearly 12 would be quite happy to stay at home and play fortnight all day on their Xbox! So how did our trip go? Read on to find out…

So Crealy Meadows is a good five-plus hours from our home in North Yorkshire which makes for a pretty epic road trip, but for the first time in ages the boys were really well behaved in the car and we arrived in good time for our 4 pm check-in.  In fact, we were early, so the reception took our phone number and we went into Crealy Adventure Resort for a couple of hours whilst the boys made the most of a very quiet time as it was raining and there were no queues until we got the call to say our lodge was ready for us.

We were staying in a two-bedroom Meadow View lodge with a sunken hot tub and oh my goodness it was the nicest mobile home type caravan that we have ever stayed in.  I can totally understand why they call them lodges as they are luxurious, spacious, well equipt and so well designed. Just take a look at my Devon highlight on Instagram to get a real feel for the place.

The boys dived into the hot tub before I even managed to get our bags unpacked and we filled the fridge with food that we brought with us before heading over to the clubhouse for happy hour and the family quiz.  Don’t worry if you haven’t brought everything you need as there is a shop on the site too.  Crealy Meadows has a mixture of lodges, safari tents, medieval glamping tents and touring caravans and nothing is more than a 3 minute walk away even the adventure zone in the theme park which is also open on an evening for residents.

Crealy Meadows is just outside Exeter and the perfect base for exploring the area. We went to Dawlish, Babbacombe Model Village and into Exeter to see friends over our stay and the boys also loved having the ability to pop into Crealy Adventure Park (for free) as when they wanted to.  We loved the fact that as our boys are older they were confident to go in on their own, but Crealy is an ace place with lots to do for younger children (to get an idea take a look at what Bex and her brood aged 6,5,3 and 1 thought here.)

The lodge really was a super home from home for our time at Crealy, especially as we have older children. The beds were really comfortable and it was the little things that really made a difference such as UBS plugs in our bedroom for charging phones and using them as alarms.  The mobile home also had a Bluetooth sound system which the boys made full use of too.

If you had younger children there was also a bath in the main bathroom which is brilliant. The kitchen had everything we needed utensils wise and there was a full-sized fridge freezer.  As you can see Mini was rather taken with the remote control fire, which came in really handy on the couple of cold days we had (although the lodge also had central heating too).

Devon is just such a wonderful place for a family holiday.

The boys loved the water rides at Crealy Adventure Resort and we had some wet days and some glorious sunshine days and they did the park in both.  They even met up with a friend who lives locally and his friends for the day.

They also really enjoyed the Adventure Zone indoor play area as it is huge and perfect for little and big children and this is also open exclusively to residents after 6.30 on an evening with additional entertainment.

We really loved Crealy Meadows as a family. It was spotlessly clean, well run and fun for all.  We took part in the family quiz each night and won some unique Crealy towels. The staff were excellent and made the stay so easy, they cleaned the hot tub regularly, were always welcoming and chatted to us all.  They even played football with the boys in the rain on the fab multisports 3G pitch by the Club House which hosts a load of sports activities for the kids including kwik cricket and basketball. If you have younger children then check out Sooty Land at Crealy.

The park does have wifi, but it was spotty and a little slow at the lodge, but that made for a much more connected holiday (get the pun!). So we played board games, used the hot tub, listened to music and chatted after we returned from the clubhouse quiz night and watched the Welsh Wrestlers on another night.  If the boys wanted wifi then they just popped to the park or the clubhouse where it was super fast.  Only once did they have a little moan and that was when they saw that some lodges games with a games station and were a little envious! Yes, we experienced the ever-present failure to transition (whinging before we did things) but once they were there and doing things they loved it and had great fun.

https://www.crealy.co.uk/short-breaks/luxury-lodges/meadow-view-lodges

Disclosure: We were invited to experience Crealey Meadows for free in exchange for this blog post. All opinions are my own and not influenced in any way.

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