Our first holiday with a baby to Haggeston Castle

Hola Senors and Seronritas!

No I have not been to Spain as my introduction might indicate, but instead have travelled far and wide all the way to sunny Haggeston Castle in Northumberland. I hadn’t been to Haggeston Castle before but we picked it as it’s a relatively short drive for us (an hour and a half) and we didn’t want to go too far as car journeys with young babies aren’t that fun. It’s fine if they go to sleep but juggling bottle feeds and trying to soothe a crying baby in their car seat is a bit of a chew on. Anyway, me and Andy thought Haggeston Castle would be a good choice as it’s in the middle of Alnwick, Berwick and Holy Island (Lindisfarne) so we would have plenty to do. Haggeston Castle is a Haven caravan site where you can hire a static caravan from Monday to Friday or Friday to Monday. It’s called Haggeston Castle as it used to house a real Castle but all that is left today is the main tower which now forms part of the entertainment complex at the park.

The caravan we stayed in was lovely and I’m not 100% sure but I think we were moved to one of the newer style caravans even though we didn’t book one of them. We were in number two, lakeside North, right next to the entertainment complex which I thought would be really loud but it wasn’t too bad actually. We could hear the music on a night but it wasn’t enough to keep me awake. The living area had a nice comfy couch which pulled out into a double bed, a fancy glass fire, a smart TV, a table and chairs and next to the TV housed the central heating controls. Note that there was also a boost button for the heating in the main bedroom that will put the heating on to 23 degrees for 2 hours then 18 degrees for 10 hours – very clever ey? The kitchen was part of the open plan living room and had a hob and oven, dishwasher, kettle, microwave and toaster plus all cutlery and cookware you could need. The main bathroom had a toilet, a heated towel rail and a shower plus there was also an ensuite toilet in the main bedroom. There was a small bedroom with two single beds and then the main bedroom had a very VERY small double bed. One nice little touch I was impressed by was when you opened the wardrobe doors in the main bedroom, they lit up!

Okay so I’ve said some nice things, now it’s time for the not so nice stuff. I’m not going to slag it off too much as we did actually have a nice time and I don’t want to taint Holly’s first holiday with my anger BUT Haven might as well give their staff black and white stripy uniforms and balaclavas as they are genuine thieves (Haven, not the staff). For the amount of money you pay to stay at this park, you should get more activities included in your package. Expect to pay extra for everything: to play golf (adult golf and mini), archery, shooting, arts and crafts, to hire bikes, carts, the Swan boats…the list goes on. They offered three free activities: live lounge entertainment, swimming (an hours slot each day) and an RLNI Water Safety Talk… nuff said. Luckily we were limited to what activities we could do with a baby so we avoided extra charges but if we had older children, we would be well and truly skint right now. We booked in for the live lounge entertainment suite but which we didn’t end up using it as covid measures onsite were not managed at all. In the main entertainment complex, social distancing, masks and hand sanitising were out the window – no one else seemed to care or remember that we have just been through a bloody pandemic! Yes I know that covid restrictions are no longer a legal requirement but I thought people would still be exercising caution around crowds of strangers, apparently I was wrong.

My main bugbear with Haven though was the fact that we were given a 7pm check-in time. Yes. You read that correctly – 7pm at night! Normal check-in times are around 2pm or 3pm in the afternoon but in all of my hotel and holiday stays, I have never EVER been given a late check-in time like that. We booked the Friday to Monday package so it meant that by the time we had checked in (we actually checked in at 6.45pm) and fed Holly, unpacked and got ourselves sorted to go and get some food, it was after 8.20pm; the takeaway app for onsite food ordering had stopped taking orders and we struggled to find anywhere bookable to eat. We headed over to the entertainment complex to see what we could get in person but the queues for the takeaways were huge and not moving. The main restaurant was also packed but I asked if they had any tables free, hoping there had been a cancellation. She said that someone had a table booked but as they were late, if we waited another 10 minutes we could have it. So we waited and tried again and were shown to a table. There wasn’t a huge menu on offer but we picked what we wanted and waited. Twenty minutes went by and no one had even been to get our drink order despite quite a few members of staff standing around talking… anyway when the guy eventually came to take our order, I asked if I could have salad with my fish and chips and he said something incomprehensible. I asked again and I heard him say ‘sweet potato fries’ but still didn’t catch what he said. After asking what he said a third time, frustration got the better of me and I gave up. We left and headed to the shop to try and pick something up from there. This was also a fail as it turns out, the shop gets cleared out on check-in day so we grabbed what we could and headed back to the caravan. Andy ended up with a bacon sandwich and I had a measly bowl of Weetabix. A very sad tea for our first night but by this point it was after 9pm so we just wanted anything to fill our bellies.

As there wasn’t a lot to do for those with small babies, we ended up driving to Alnwick on the Saturday afternoon and planned to visit the castle but as we hadn’t booked ahead, there was no chance of us going in so instead we settled for Alnwick Gardens. This was very expensive at 16 pounds an adult but as we had nothing else lined up we thought we might as well. We were handed a leaflet on our way in which told us that the finals of Mr. Gay UK were being held in Alnwick and told that there would be filming going on. There were catwalks on and various stalls selling rainbow plastered merch but we didn’t really look at it as we didn’t have much time before closing. We spent a couple of hours exploring the grounds and different gardens; There is a forest of swing seats, plenty water features for kids to play in, a poisonous plant garden and a cool, dark bamboo mini maze. It killed a few hours but it was very expensive – you can upgrade your ticket to a yearly one for a few quid more per person but it’s not somewhere we would rush back to to be honest so we didn’t bother. It was nice to wander about in the sun and I enjoyed the poisonous plants but as I say, it’s a lot of pennies! After a trawl around Alnwick, we found somewhere for tea and went back to the caravan.

The next day we went to Berwick and after walking down the main street, we came across a small set of steps that a few people seemed to be heading towards so took a chance and carried the pushchair up. After we emerged from a narrow passage, we found a walk that went around the old guard walls of Berwick. It was a nice little stroll and was dotted with information signs explaining what each mound and ruin were once used for. It lead down to the ‘beach’ (the river banks) and then we once again trawled about for somewhere to have something to eat. There aren’t many options around those parts to be honest but I can get past that as the scenery makes up for it.

All in all, we had a lovely first holiday and I wasn’t going to let Haven ruin it but going forward (hehe blog name drop), we will be renting somewhere privately whether it be a caravan, a cottage or a wigwam. I would definitely rather pay my money into someone local’s pocket than into a big money maker like Haven as I think they are all about the profit. Despite contacting them through the main customer line, haggeston castle directly and then a third time through Facebook, no one would help me with our check-in time situation despite me explaining that Holly was only 5 months old. I thought that a company like that was aimed at family visitors but again, I was wrong.

Now that’s quite enough complaining from me, lets get into my top tips for a static caravan holiday with a baby:

1. Check what the layout of the caravan is when you are booking it. Try and find out if there is room in the main bedroom for your babies moses basket or travel cot? If not, where will you sleep? Is there a pull out bed in the living area? Think about this BEFORE you book as customer services may not be able or willing to move you to another caravan with a different layout.

2. Think about where will you bath your baby? Is it worth bringing your own bath? We washed Holly in the kitchen sink as we didn’t have room in the car for her baby bath and the caravan only had a shower.

3. How will you prepare their milk/food? Do you need a feeding chair? We took our Tommee Tippee prep machine as it’s so much easier and quicker (especially through the night) than messing on with the kettle.

4. Take more clothes for baby than you think. Take warm clothes, summer clothes, plan for every scenario as you know as well as me what the British weather is like! Its a flip of the coin whether it snows or the sun shines.

5. Take squeeze travel bottles as they are handy for things like suncream etc to put in your pram bag so you don’t get caught out. I also took washing up liquid with us in one of these little bottles to save space.

6. Don’t waste your money on souvenirs and toys for your baby – they don’t need them! You will spend plenty of money of crap for them when they are older so save your money. Take lots of photos instead and make memories, not purchases.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and if you have any tips of a caravan holiday with a baby, please leave them in the comments.

As always, thanks for reading guys 🙂

Catherine x

EDIT – I also made a YouTube video to accompany this post, check it out here.

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