Day out at Heatherton World of Activities

N’s getting to the awkward age where he’s too old for lots of tourist attractions and days out, but does still need to be ‘doing stuff’ rather than just walking around. So it can be a challenge to find suitable places to visit on holiday which suit for pre-teens. A chance drive past a packed looking crazy golf course on our way back to our holiday hotel saw us finding out about Heatherton World of Activities, And our final morning in Tenby was decided.

If you’ve got active children who want to try lots of different activities, and want to give them a go yourself, then Heatherton is the perfect day out. It reminds me a bit of our visit to Wicksteed Park, but there’s more to do for older children and teens.

They recommend booking during holidays or busy periods although it didn’t feel too busy when we were there. Certainly not as busy as I’d expected and we didn’t have to queue for long for any of the activities we wanted to do. It helps going early though, especially if you just want to play adventure golf which is something that can be paid for as a single activity.

Heatherton World of Activities is in St Florence just outside Tenby, south Pembrokeshire. It’s just along from Manor Wildlife Park.

Tickets at Heatherton World of Activities

Entry to Heatherton World of Activities is free, then you either pay for credits – either as a family or season, or for individuals – or you can pay for individual activities in some cases. It works out a lot cheaper paying for credits.

Individual activity passes can be bought for different levels depending on how many activities you want to do or how long you’ll be there. We were only there in the morning, so paid for 6 credits each (under £15 each). You then pay for activities with your credits, with activities ranging from 1 credit to 4. Most are 1 credit, adventure golf is 2, go karting (senior) is 4. You can add more credits during your visit if needed with some passes able to be used on different visits.

Activities at Heatherton World of Activities

We’d already planned our activities we wanted to try and they were mostly in the same location. Unfortunately go karting wasn’t really an option as N was too short/young for the senior go karts, so there was no point us doing the different versions. But most of the other activities, we were able to do together.

Most activities say over 6 years, with some having a maximum age. Some activities say when younger children need to be supervised. There are some which over 3s can take part in.

As well as activities that are under the credit system, there are also some paid for options like tree tops trail, escape rooms, paintballing and the golf driving range amongst others. If we’d had more time at Heatherton we might have done a couple of paid activities. It did mean there’s lots of choice.

Some activities won’t run in bad weather, so you’d need to check on arrival (or possibly in advance as some are mentioned on the website) which aren’t running.

The activities we did

We started off with the adventure golf as we knew that would get busy. It’s always good to be first on the course so you don’t get held up – especially annoying if you’re a 2 and behind a group of 5. But we were lucky and got the place to ourselves before anyone else came along behind us.

It’s a Pirates of the Caribbean theme and the scorecard tells you the story around Blackbeard and what he and other pirates got up to.

It’s 18 holes and was challenging in areas, with a need to avoid the water, but a lot of fun. I won by a lot (and under par) as N had a shocker. It was nice to be back winning as the last few times we’ve played crazy golf, he’d won.

Find out the other crazy golf courses we like across the UK

There was only one activity N wanted to try over the road which was the 4×4 land rovers around an ‘off road’ track. This turned out to be the only activity that wasn’t worth the credit. It didn’t help that there was a younger girl ahead of N and another girl who was petrified and wouldn’t drive her vehicle, so she blocked the route around the whole of his 1st lap. It turned out it was only 2 laps round the track so not good value at all.

That compared to the bumper boats which were petrol powered boats on water where they had 10 minutes, and it seemed to last ages. He loved the bumper boats – even with all the friends being silly with each others and bottlenecks that happened

We’ve both done archery before and N has his own bow at home (although rarely gets it out). For 1 credit you get 6 practice arrows, and 6 scoring arrows in the second round. I was the only adult in our group, so it was me aiming at 20 yards with all the other boys going for 10 metres. N did ok with 23 scored, I only managed 3 in the scoring with 19 but I was pleased they all got on the board! One child only a little older than N scored 43 – and got his name on the over 30s board.

We decided to also try and laser clay shooting. Now, I’ve only done clay shooting once, and I didn’t hit anything, so I wasn’t surprised when again I missed everything. I just have no idea what I’m lining the guy up with, and how to aim. It’s pot luck vaguely pointing the gun in the right direction. I reckon it’s a girl thing because the girls in the group N shot with for his second go, were saying similar, whereas the boys seemed to have a better idea of what they were doing (not that most of them hit any either).

N does a bit of air rifle shooting on the farm, so he’s used to sight and shooting. Although the guns were a lot heavier than he’s used to, he loved it. When we had a go together, he shot 3. When he went round again with another group of kids, he scored 13, hitting 5.

They set up 20 shots, and you get 2 shots with each loading, in 3 different types of games, rapid fire, scoring competition, and just straight shooting. It was fun even though I didn’t hit any, and makes me think maybe we should get N some lessons.

We did want to try the pistol shooting as well, but it looked quite hard to load the pellets into the pistols, and that wouldn’t have worked well with me having to help him as well as shoot.

I quite fancied a go on the softball pitching where they fire balls at you to hit. But we only had 1 credit left by that stage which would have meant N sitting around waiting for me. So we didn’t bother heading up that way, as we were happy with the activities we’d done.

We totally missed the maze, but they do a different themed one each year which would have been fun.

Lunch

Food is the usual fast cafe style. We ate near the activities as we finished at lunchtime. Basically the choice was hotdog, burger, nuggets etc, or ice cream. N had a chicken nugget meal which he said was ok, and very crispy. The french fries were fine. It would have been nice to have a bottle of water option – it only seemed to be fizzy drinks. I had a cheeseburger which was palatable. There are tables you can use for picnics too.

We had a really great time at Heatherton World of Activities. I wish we had something like this nearer home, although it does need a car to get there as it’s well outside any towns. There’s plenty of parking and I can see it getting really busy in summer holidays – although at the moment they are managing numbers through recommending booking in advance.

Other facilities are reasonable. We found the toilets clean which is always good for a family friendly attraction, and there’s plenty of parking. We’d go again like a shot if we were in the area.

Have you ever been to Heatherton? What activities would you want to take part in?

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