If the rain's too heavy for camping, why not try a holiday village? Bernice Harrisonvisits a Pembrokeshire resort that should take your mind off the weather
THE PLAN HAD been to round off the summer holidays with a few days' camping, but, with each August morning giving a new meaning to the word "washout", plan B had to be found. There is, after all, a fine line between giving the kids a fantastic time in the great outdoors and giving them pneumonia.
Plan B turned out to be far more luxurious than any canvas holiday, just as adventurous and definitely more varied. We hit on a long weekend in a comfortable log cabin at Bluestone, a new holiday village in Wales. Of course it was raining there, too, but with so many indoor activities on offer it didn't really matter. Well, not too much, anyway.
Holiday villages are a world of their own, pretty much literally. At Bluestone you check in for your self-catering holiday at a large security cabin and leave your car at a long-term car park. After that everything you're likely to need for your stay is on site.
Built on a vast plot on the edge of Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, Bluestone is a car-free zone where holidaymakers are encouraged to rent bicycles to get around. That should have been ideal for me, Will and 11-year-old Harry, but, at eight, Ellen decided she was too big for the really tiny bikes and too small for the next size up, and she didn't want to know about the tag-along attachment Will put on his bike for her.
Instead, and slightly mortifyingly, she insisted on running after us as we cycled along, and we could only hope that our fellow residents could spot a cyclephobic rather than suspect her parents of being too cheap to put out for another bike.
So we walked around Bluestone as much as we cycled, which wasn't exactly a hardship, as everything from the sports centre to the shops was only a five-minute walk from our cabin. Staff move around in golf buggies, so there's a reassuring feeling of being able to leisurely cycle and stroll without the usual fear of being mowed down by a thundering 4x4.
Our modern, well-equipped cabin, nicely distanced from its nearest neighbours, was a mid-range model, with two bedrooms downstairs, both ensuite, an open-plan living room and kitchen upstairs - and solar panels on the roof.
It's a hilly site, and although the brochure told us there are 182 cabins at Bluestone, they're so spread out and dotted around the rolling hills and woodlands that it didn't seem crowded. Mostly the only sign of occupation in the other cabins was the bikes parked in the bays outside each house.
Our schedule of activities was ambitious. We pretty much had activities planned for every hour of the day (and, yes, when you're on holiday a facial - for me - and a massage - for him - does count as an activity).
The welcome pack in the house included a Plan Your Stay booklet, but we'd already done that online and booked a few things we felt were too good to miss. The price of a stay includes use of Blue Lagoon, an impressive indoor water park on the site, and admission to Oakwood Theme Park, next door.
The water park, which looks like a giant upturned timber boat, is brilliant, with loopy slides that were just scary enough, a wave pool, outdoor heated pools, a lazy river and several lounging areas to enjoy the tropical heat provided by a biomass energy centre that burns miscanthus grown by a cooperative of local farmers. We visited Blue Lagoon every day of our stay, getting braver each time when it came to trying the slides and battling the waves in the wave pool.
We were less brave at Oakwood, managing only a couple of hours wandering around, myself and the kids huddling under the trees out of the rain while Will had a go on some of the most vertiginous, puke-inducing roller coasters and water slides I've ever seen.
Parents we chatted to said with obvious relief that they had packed their teenagers off to Oakwood for a whole day and that the normally nonplussed teens returned begging to be allowed back for another day.
There are plenty of adult activities, such as golf and yoga, on and off site but as it was a last break before school we were keen to mostly do things we could all do together. Children's activities are age specific, which is smart, as kids hate being sent to do things they feel too old for. The Off-Road Safari (for ages eight plus) turned out to be a big hit. It takes one and half hours, and children drive their own mini jeeps along a rough woodland path - accompanied by two fantastically enthusiastic young guides. While they were doing that, we were able to nip-off to the spa for our beauty treatments.
Archery was rained off, and it was too wet for riding horses, which was a disappointment, but Harry and his dad were so keen to try laser clay- pigeon shooting that they did it in teeming rain, loving every minute. When the rain got the better of us we wandered over to the huge sports centre for a game of table tennis and snooker.
We didn't spot the "village" at first. It was down in a mini valley, about a five-minute walk from our house. It turned out to be a dinky, pretty affair with a line of pastel-painted shops, including a bakery and a grocery as well as a toy shop, gallery and clothes shop. The prices and limited selection in the grocery store made us sorry we hadn't done the sensible thing and stocked up at the Tesco we spotted when he got off the ferry in Pembroke, although on a three-day break we didn't intend cooking much anyway. The village has three restaurants. We tried the two informal ones, serving mostly pizza, pasta, steak and kebabs, and although they are in beautiful cut-stone buildings and the food was good they were weirdly lacking in atmosphere. If we were staying for a week we definitely would have investigated the well-equipped kitchen in the cabin. Everything on site closes at 9pm, so it's an early-to-bed type of place.
Bluestone is a half-hour drive from the ferry at Pembroke. We travelled with our car from Rosslare with Irish Ferries - a first for our family and a bit of revelation when it came to packing. We usually fly to holiday destinations, and as check-in bag charges have gone through the roof we have a strict one- carry-on-bag-each rule, so at this stage bringing more than two pairs of shoes each on holiday is a wild luxury. It was a bit of a thrill to ditch the minimalism and load up the car boot, though in fairness we needed several changes of outdoor clothes, boots and shoes to really enjoy the trip.
The kids loved the holiday village, and we could see that it would really work for families with older children - teens who are well able to go off for the day and do activities on their own - so parents have the security of knowing they're in a safe environment. And there are so many activities on offer, although they'd need quite a bit of extra holiday pocket money, as most cost extra.
Now that our two children have been introduced to the luxury of upmarket Little House on the Prairie-type cabins, next year rain won't be the only thing stopping us pitching our tent.
• Bernice Harrison and her family were guests of the Welsh Tourist Board.
Where to go in Pembrokeshire
There's something about staying in a place where a security barrier has to be lifted before you can get out that makes you feel that when you do leave, even for a few hours, you're in some way escaping.
We left Bluestone only twice, once to go on an organised wildlife-spotting canoe trip down nearby Cleddau Estuary - which was a bit of a flop, as there wasn't a lot of water in the estuary (making paddling murder) and very little wildlife around - and once when we fancied seeing some real
Wales. That time, after a short drive we found the most picture-postcard pub you could imagine. A large yellow sign in the tiny porch proclaimed "NO DOGS, NO CHILDREN". We went in anyway and the dour-looking landlord behind the bar just glowered at us, so that was that.
We should have walked along Pembrokeshire Coast Path National Trail (www.pcnpa.org.uk) - a Walks in the Park guide is available from tourist offices. The walk takes in rugged cliffs, sweeping beaches and just about every type of coastal landform.
We also could have visited nearby St David's, Britain's smallest city, with just 2,000 residents, and full of character. A good place for a traditional Welsh clotted-cream tea is the Sampler, a tea room on Nun Street (00-44-1437-720757).
Then we would have moved farther along the coast, to Solva, a village that has become a magnet for surfers. Pembrokeshire's beaches face the Atlantic swell on three sides, so surfing has become huge in the area. Short surfing courses, suitable for beginners, are organised by TYF Adventure Centre (00-44-1437- 721611, www.tyf.com).
Go there
Irish Ferries (www.irishferries.com) sails from Rosslare to Pembroke, the nearest port to Bluestone; midweek from €268, weekends from €328. Stena Line (www.stenaline.ie) sails from Rosslare to Fishguard, a little farther away. Sail into Holyhead, in north Wales, and you'll have a drive of nearly 300km on the other side to get to Bluestone (Narberth, Pembrokeshire, www.bluestonewales.com, 00-44-1834-862400)
A midweek stay in a two-bedroom Caldey lodge from October 27th to 31st is €838. A week-long stay in a Caldey from October 24th is €1,341.