If you follow me on social media or have read about our adventure at Bude beach, you will know that I spent the beginning of last week in beautiful Devon and to be more precise at Woodford Bridge Country Club, a branch of Diamond Resorts International, a global hospitality and hotel brand with hotels in over 300 locations worldwide.
We were guests of Travelzoo, who had kindly invited us to trial their website, and after going through all the offers on their site, we decided to book a well needed short break not too far from home. On Travelzoo, you can find everything from restaurant, concert and spa deals as well as short breaks or international holidays – and everything for an amazing price!
Just to give you an example, the stay in our 2 bedroom lodge (self-catering, with Champagne and chocolate surprise) cost £99 for two nights. Regularly, you would pay £220 for this package, so by booking through Travelzoo, you are paying less than half the price. How amazing is that?
Anyway, let me tell you a little more about our stay at Woodford Bridge Country Club.
Accommodation:
During our time at Woodford Bridge Country Club, we stayed in one of their 2 bedroom lodges. The lodge sleeps up to 6 people with the option of adding travel cots for babies and toddlers. It spreads out over two floors and on the ground floor, you find a spacious living room equipped with a flatscreen TV, DVD player and two comfortably three seater sofas. There’s also a dining area with a big wooden dining table and chairs and a small, but well set out kitchen that comes with all mod cons that you would expect at home, e.g. a big fridge-freezer, a washing machine, dishwasher, microwave, kettle, coffee machine as well as a selection of sauce pans, frying pans and cutlery. There are even different sized baking tins available, which is great, if you are staying longer.
On the second floor, you will find a bathroom with bath tub as well as two spacious bedrooms: one of them a master bedroom with en-suite bathroom, the second a twin bedroom. Two more people can sleep on one of the pull out sofas in the living room.
Throughout the lodge, there’s plenty of storage for your clothes, shoes and suitcases and outside, you have a little patio area with a table and chairs – perfect for warm summer nights or dining al fresco when the weather is a little better.
All in all, the Woodford Bridge Country Club lodges (they offer apartments and 1 bedroom lodges too) are the type of accommodation that I would happily stay in again. Clean, spacious and very child-friendly. You can get cots, highchairs and stair gates delivered to your lodge too.
Location:
Woodford Bridge Country Club is literally situated in the middle of nowhere, so you will need a car, if you want to explore the surrounding area. The closest beach is in Bude, which is a little over 15 miles away, the closest supermarket around 8 miles. There are some local attractions such as Lizzy’s Larder, an award-winning farm with a farm shop and tea room or the Gnome Reserve, a collection of over 3000 garden gnomes – yes, really! The resort staff are also happy to advise on attractions or things to do in the area and will happily hand out maps of North Devon and Cornwall. Extra tip: Beware the mean pheasant when traveling along country roads.
Food:
There’s a club restaurant on side and a pub, but we didn’t use either of them as we had two toddlers in tow and thought they might not be very patient at the end of a busy day. We did however use the takeaway service that the hotel’s bistro offers and the food, delivered straight to our lodge, was really lovely. We ordered Thai Green Curry, Chicken Korma, some cheesy chips, garlic bread and salad. The portions were very generous and the food arrived hot and tasty. For breakfast, we just got some bits and bobs at the supermarket. That way we were independent and could eat when the girls were up and ready. There was the option to have breakfast in the bistro though and having a look at the menu, I can say that the choices on offer were great and reasonably priced, so definitely an option, if you don’t fancy preparing breakfast yourself.
What’s on site:
Woodford Bridge Country Club offers a great range of activities for all ages as well as a well looked after playground and a decent sized swimming pool within the fitness centre that also houses a gym, a squash court, a sauna, hot tub and table tennis tables. There is also a beauty studio on site as well as a hairdressers, so you can always look your best when dining in the club restaurant
In all buildings of Woodford Bridge Country Club, you will find a number of posters that inform you about daily activities. When we stayed at Woodford Bridge, you could attend a guided walk, a jewellery making class as well as evening program and quizzes. We only used the pool as we didn’t stay long enough for any activities and preferred discovering the area on our own, but all communal areas were very well maintained and had we spent more time at Woodford Bridge Country Club, we would have definitely made use of them.
Overall experience:
We had an amazing time at Woodford Bridge Country Club. The resort was clean, quiet and very well looked after and the customer service was outstanding. We had a daily call from reception checking in with us and making sure that we had everything we needed and on the evening before our departure, reception phoned to offer us help with our luggage on the next morning. It was lovely to know that we are really valued as guests and that there was help available should we need it. Would we come back? Definitely, I have already recommended it to friends and family who are looking into booking a short break at Woodford Bridge Country Club.
Disclosure: We were guests of Travelzoo and only paid for our internet use and food. All opinions are our own and 100% honest. All images apart from Bude beach courtsey of Woodford Bridge Country Club.
