Ladram Bay Holiday Park — Local services in East Devon

My wife booked us a Monday to Friday stay in the Seaview apartments with our two children, one is five years old and the other 10 months. We paid near to £800 but the experience was very mixed and not worth the money. I feel we were charged extra for going during half term but even if you knock another £200 off the value isn't there.

Overall as a positive, all the staff we encountered on site are extremely friendly, professional and helpful so that is a plus. The apartment was a bit underwhelming with improvements needed to make it worth the money paid. Firstly the apartment only provided one lot of toilet roll, the baby highchair has obviously been repaired several times, no towels are given and the kitchen layout means the dishwasher when open blocks the cupboard where most of the plates and bowls go. I know this isn't the end of the world but you can go on a cruise for not a lot more money and you get to be wined and dined. The balcony does have a great sea view but annoyingly underneath our apartment there was a maintenance workshop which generated a lot of noise. I know it's not illegal to make this sort of noise during the day but its enough to be off putting when you're sitting out on the balcony or trying to get 10 month old down for a nap.

The main tv in the communal space doesn’t have Netflix or apps on it but the bedroom ones do which is odd in an apartment with big open plan social area for a group of four.

The shop onsite is well stocked and reasonably priced with a bean to cup coffee machine plenty of fruit and veggies available and good selection of meat and dairy plus all the usual holiday toys and tat for kids, alcoholic drinks and medication with a few gym related snacks like protein bars and shakes.

We went to the night entrainment venue twice, again not overly expensive with good kids activities and the cocktails were buy one get one half price so £15 for two. Lots of games and things for kids to do on an evening including a pool table.

The onsite restaurant managed to fit us in at peak time during our single visit but asked we book in future which was strange as at least 6 tables were not used the whole time we were there. Food did takes ages to come out over 45 minute's but was tasty and hot. We did visit this restaurant once in the day it was extremely quiet but the coffee was nice and again staff pleasant and helpful.

The arcade and soft play were not the best experiences. Most of the change machines in the arcade needed fixing and the attendant on the counter wouldn't provide me change from a £10 note. He eventually managed to sort one of the machines out to change my note. The soft play is big and very fun for kids but was extremely dirty with lots of rubbish, as pictured.

The swimming pool facilities were a plus part of the experience and being able to use the sauna was great. The life guards on duty were very observant though make sure you take a £1 for the locker with you there's no way to obtain change once you're in the changing rooms. These are manual lockers and cannot be paid for with debit card. The pool is very large with a fun area for kids and a slide.

Throughout the park there is free WiFi but I paid for the WiFi package which gave me 150mb down. Both WiFi networks experienced outages and faults lasting more than two-three hours every day were we there. Extremely frustrating in an area with very little mobile signal coverage.

After returning from a day out in Sidmouth our reserved parking space was taken. There are three spaces for three apartments. When I reported to reception someone was in my space they informed me one of the park owners/managers had taken our spot. To be fair the offender did move their car within 20 minutes but that's not the point.

Upon check out I discussed my stay with reception who were very nice and apologetic and they did refund the WiFi package money in full. Again I cannot praise the staff enough they were extremely well trained and had great customer service skills, they all seem to...

We stayed here for a week in July. Weather was lovely, so nice and warm, just perfect! |Weather came with 3 kids - 4, 9 & 14 plus 6 adults.|We stayed in the sea view apartment. My other family stayed in the Otterton caravan. |Here’s my honest review of our stay:||Sea view apartment -|Lovely apartment, 2 bedrooms with en suites & showers. Showers are really good. Bedrooms are lovely and nice soft beds. Tv comes in both rooms. |A sofa bed in the living room, a note to the cleaners - they should clean the sofa beds. When we took it out so many crumbs came out and food bits. ||Kitchen - Nice kitchen, under counter fridge with a small compartment freezer. Not many cutlery but we had what we needed. Could do with bigger bowls for cereals. They gave us wine and a complimentary cleaning kit. |Balcony is nice and has sea view. Near to the entertainment, can get noisy but isn’t too bad. |Negatives for apartment:|The apartment is located on top of the maintenance building. One bad thing about this apartment is the smell. Due to its location ( above the maintenance) it absolutely stinks most of the time. First thing in the morning the smell appears and lingers around everywhere. It’s very strong and sewerage, damp smell. Another thing this apartment could do with is a sweeping brush. We had a hoover in there but when we used it, it absolutely stank. Could do with a clean out. Also just had a dustpan and brush. Really needs a long broom so we can clean up more efficiently. ||Caravans -|The caravan which my family stayed is was really nice. Had no decking but was spacious and had 2 separate toilets with showers. Was only around 40 seconds walk to the sea view apartment.||Arcades - |Has a lovely arcade place with soft play inside which my kids loved. We gathered so many tickets by the end of the week when we went to go exchange them for gifts we were a bit shocked to see that they don’t have sweets available. But it wasn’t too bad, kids had fun playing lots of games and getting tokens. The toys weee absolutely shocking quality, broken within seconds. ||Entertainment - |Probably one of the best entertainments I’ve been to before. Very interactive for kids, bingo games everyday, game shows, different music shows. So much fun!! Perfect timings too. Very pleased with the entertainment, the workers do an amazing job and very enthusiastic. ||Swimming - |You have to book swimming the day before and it’s a 1 hr slot. Bit annoying especially when you just wanna come and go on holiday as you please but understand why they do it this way. They have an outdoor splash area. |A play area nearby too which the kids loved. ||Food - |Food is very inexpensive here as you’d expect. We must have spent over £70 on ice creams!!!! They have some restaurants however we didn’t eat out as we did a Lidl shop on the way. ||Beach - not a sand beach. Full of pebbles but we still enjoyed it. Very nice and calming. ||Walks - lots of places to walk. We went for a scenic walk and really enjoyed it. Looking over the sea and climbing up high. ||Overall - |My best bit? Entertainment |Worst bit - smell |Would I come back? Maybe. We usually go butlins every year and they have a lot of stuff on site which always keeps the kids busy. So comparing this to butlins, I’d probably go butlins again rather than drive 4 hrs here. |However, give it a go! It is a...

We had a lovely holiday/time away. Especially, as we were able to take our dogs with us.

We stayed in a lodge and it was spacious, comfortable and quiet. We would/will be booking again. However, hopefully for a slightly different style this time.

Jeff & the other reception staff were helpful and friendly. Also, the security guards always welcoming and kind.

Pebbles food even though you had to wait a bit of time for it. It was great! Brilliant portion sizes and a good amount of options. (Slightly pricy but that is to be expected)

Towels supplied were soft. Bedding was all clean. Additional duvet and pillows provided. Large decking area. Fully equipped kitchen with high range appliances.

Great arcade area. Plenty of space. However, I expect it will get crazy in peak/summer time.

The reason for the 4* instead of 5 is because there are some niggling things which are just irritating.

1 - There was no fan in the lodge. (We didn’t ask for one) however I do think it should just come as standard.

2 - None of the ‘dog walking fields’ are closed in. At least 1 closed in would be ideal and used specifically for dogs would be great.

3 - The water pressure wasn’t good and due to there only being showers in our lodge. It was annoying. (Personally, couldn’t wait to come back to my own shower & feel properly clean)

4 - The draining of water in the shower was extremely slow. There was always a puddle ankle deep after having a shower. And due to this it would bring dirt up from the drain. Also, leaving the shower dirty & having to be cleaned before use again.

5 - Information says the hot tub SHOULD be checked before 9am. However, it should probably say before 12pm as the earliest they actually came was 10:35am and latest was 11:45am.

6 - There is no parking further up the top by the lodges. Which means one of our cars has to be parked down the hill near reception.

7 - The path way down from the lodges and down the hill were covered in moss. Which made them very slippery. This should have been cleaned beforehand.

8 - The APP that you’re asked to download. Is not accurate. It hasn’t been updated for the correct opening and closing times for the takeaway and/or the shop. Leaving us all disappointed when we wanted to go there to then realise it was closed.

As you can see I do have some issues. However, the fact I am willing/wanting to return is because the top information. I would recommend this place & in fact already have.

P.S - More caravans/lodges with their own garden enclosed...