When the girls heard that we were heading to West Wales for the weekend to stay at the brand new Ty Hotel Milford Waterfront, the first thing they asked was could we visit Oakwood theme park.
Outside of South Wales, many families might not have heard of Oakwood – Wales’ biggest theme park in the beautiful Pembrokeshire countryside, but we think it’s a little hidden gem and it’s one of the girl’s favourite theme parks in the UK to visit.
Oakwood has around 30 attractions at the park including some of our family favourites including Megafobia – rated as one of the best wooden rollercoasters in Europe and the main attraction of the park.
Whilst this theme park is not on the same scale as the likes of Alton Towers or Chessington or there is no theming like Paulton’s Park and Legoland, what it does offer is a good choice of rides for all the family and more importantly for me without the crowds, meaning that we could spend more time enjoying the rides rather than waiting in a queue for them.
It was also good to finally see the reopening of Bounce, which Chloe loved and when comparing it to her recent experience on Croc Drop in Chessington, she said that the Oakwood drop tower was much better.
One of our favourite family coasters is Treetops, a lovely coaster in the trees towards the back of the park – best of all there were hardly any wait times so the girls were able to ride this several times.
The alpine bobsleigh run is another favourite and an attraction not found at many other theme parks. If you are feeling brave then you have to try Speed, its only one of a handful of vertical drop coasters in the world and one of the most extreme in the UK.
Next up was Dizzy Disk and then the Pirate Ship which we often miss out on as its tucked away at the far end of the park.
One of my favourite and best themed areas of the park is Neverland which is great for families. With our kids getting older, many of the rides here are better suited for younger children, but two rides tweens and teens will enjoy are Tink’s Flying School and Skull Rock.
Tink’s Flying school is a unique flying sail boat ride that we haven’t seen at any other theme park and Skull Rock is a water flume ride. If you plan to go on Skull Rock you will get wet! so visit the shop opposite to get some ponchos – £2.00.
There are other water rides in Oakwood you could use these ponchos for (Snake River Falls and Waterfall) but the weather was far too chilly for June and we decided to give these rides a miss.
We ended the day at Spooky Street, which was really quiet so we could try out the Cauldron trampolines and spin on the Witches Brew teacups with no wait time.
Overall
If you look at some review sites it would put you off coming here, and I simply don’t understand the negative reviews or peoples expectations. Granted there are lots of areas of this theme park that need some TLC and I really hope they start investing to refresh and add more attractions and quality dining options to the park – if you look at Paulton’s park and their investment in Peppa Pig World, it has helped transform the park into one of the best in the country and it would be great to see Oakwood have a similar theme.
We had a really enjoyable visit to Oakwood, it’s a great theme park for families and with practically no wait time for the rides, it certainly helped enhance our experience, the girls are already asking to go back.
