Our Bluestone Break – Activities

Ad disclosure: We were provided with a lodge and use of the facilities free-of-charge in order to review Bluestone, and paid for all additional activities, food, travel etc ourselves. This post reflects my unbiased opinion of the holiday park.

Before you get to Bluestone, you get access to an excellent online booking system which details what activities are available on different dates during your stay, and allows you to pre-book places and pay online beforehand. You can also book onto these activities while on site, but you do run the risk of some activities filling up if you leave it too late. The Bluestone TV in your lodge is also great to find out what is going on, activities-wise.

We pre-booked three things before getting to Bluestone; a Space Explorer creche session for the girls, a Secret Village “beast hunt” adventure, and the Woody Wild Dinner Show at the Wild Wood Cafe.

Space Explorer creche session

A session where your little ones will explore the wonders of space. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1… blast off!” Fly to the planets in a rocket ship and play under the starlit sky, Land on the big yellow moon and watch the galaxies pass-by.

This session ran from 9am to 12am on the Tuesday morning, and cost £24 per child. This included a very good snack, and several activities including a craft activity – the girls are now proud owners of a pair of very glittery space rockets. The staff were really friendly and immediately put both us and the girls at ease, and the creche room was a warm & welcoming place, located inside the Adventure Centre on site.

There was space for naps if needed, plenty of nappy changing equipment to hand, space to leave our pushchair for the session, and lots of things to play with and do. We had to fill in a form with the girls vital info & our contact information, as well as where we were planning to be while they were having fun.

It was lovely for James and I to have time together (in daylight!) to relax, knowing that the girls were being entertained and well cared for. We spent the morning strolling around exploring Bluestone, taking photos of flowers and so on without being rushed, and just generally enjoying our child-free morning of peace & quiet! We even managed to squeeze in a sneaky cider at the cafe before picking up two very tired girls.

Georgie had been a little tearful missing her Mummy (most unlike her but she was incredibly tired from a long day beforehand and disturbed nights sleep), but Lydia had been absolutely fine. The staff let us know what they had been up to, what they had eaten and whether they had napped, and it was clear that despite a few wobbly moments on Georgie’s behalf that the girls had really enjoyed themselves. We were regaled with tales of playing in the moondust and painting their rockets, and then they both zonked out for a nap on the sofa back at the lodge for a few hours – definitely a success!

Beast Hunt – Secret Village

A session of pure wonder, voyage to the realm of the Hobbit & Fairy and see their Secret Village. In this mysterious adventure learn about these rare beings and then collect different magical dust to take away and grow your very own Fairy or Hobbit village. An incredible session keeping the excitable imagination and magic alive.

This was an accompanied outdoor session, 1 hour long, costing us £7 per child. We met our Hobbit guide in the lobby of the Adventure Centre, and spent an hour on a magical adventure hunting for Hobbits and Fairies.

The adventure started right there in the lobby, with the girls being marked with a secret symbol that identified them as either a hobbit or a fairy, rendering them invisible to normal beings – as long as they stood still whenever a human was near! The adults were all given a mark too – I was a fairy to match Lydia, Grandma and James were Hobbits like Georgie, and Grandad was a fairy. A hunt in the lobby for secret maps, and we were off.

I won’t reveal all the mysteries of the Secret Village, but suffice it to say there was a lot of glitter involved, in a magical hidden world, with a sleeping fairy to wake up, rescue missions & raspberry blowing at hobbit traps, and sparkly stones to convert to fairy dust. Each child got a little bag of “fairy dust” to take home and sprinkle to make a fairy village in their own garden.

Georgie and Lydia absolutely loved this activity. They both got involved – Georgie more than Lydia, who was a little young for it – and they had a great time. Georgie, sometimes shy and clingy around new people, was holding the Hobbit’s hand and right up there at the front of everything getting well into it. It was a lovely creative and imaginative adventure, which the girls definitely found to be a magical one.

Woody Wild Dinner Show

Nestle in the comfy giant cushions of the Wild Wood Cafe and watch as these enchanting stories come to life before your eyes. Which of our Woody Wild characters will come out to play today? Will it be Huwie Hedgehog, Shelby Snail, Lola Ladybird or Buzby Bee. With unique games, adventure and dance your children will be a part of a delightful dinner party.

We were welcomed into the Wild Wood Cafe with a friendly smile and shown to our allocated table. We started off by getting ourselves some drinks at the bar, and then the fairy hosting the dinner show came round each table greeting every family in turn – a nice touch, I thought, and one that helped set Georgie and Lydia at ease. Each child has a helium balloon waiting on the back on their chairs.

As soon as everyone was settled in and happy, the fairy welcomed us all and invited the children to come forward and snuggle down on the beanbags at the front, while she sat in a chair (more of a throne, really!) and told the kids the story of Buzby Bee, the Woody Wolf character that would be joining us that evening.

Following the story the kids had a bit of a dance and then welcomed Buzby Bee into the room, before having a dance with Buzby Bee with lots of different fun actions. Next up the kids were sent back to their tables to eat.

The food was great; chicken goujons, sausages, beans, chips, corn on the cob, coleslaw, and various dips. Although it tasted good, we were a little disappointed at the size of some of the portions. For example, the beans portion for the six of us was the same for a table of two adults & one child, and it ran out pretty quickly. On my way to the bar I saw waiters with bowls of sausages offering extra to various tables – but they didn’t get around to our table, and I wish they had, because we would have accepted immediately. We felt a tiny bit rushed at the end of the meal to move onto dessert but other than that & the portion sizes the meal itself was very nice.

Once the kids had finished pudding it was time for Buzby Bee to come out again and after another quick dance the children were invited up in turn to have the opportunity to have their photos taken with the Bee & fairy. Georgie is usually scared of people in costumes so I thought her going up to the stage and having her photo taken and even high fiving him was a great achievement!

The dinner show lasted from 4:30 till 6 and the girls both had a great time. The price for the meal & entertainment was £12.95 per adult and £7.95 per child. I don’t think this was too bad when it includes the food as well as everything else, although drinks were extra on top of that. My parents treated us to the meal, and Mum also bought the Buzby Bee book on the way out of the Adventure Centre for £4.99 as an extra treat for the girls, which we had to read to them every evening for the next few nights.