A Week at Parkdean Resorts Nodes Point Holiday Park

There are four Parkdean Resorts on the Isle of Wight (the others are Landguard, Lower Hyde and Thorness Bay)

Nodes Point ticks a lot of boxes for anyone looking for an Isle of Wight holiday park, and it features in our guide to 10 of the best.

And so, we bit off their hand (not literally) when Parkdean Resorts invited us to stay at the park recently.

We stayed in '1 Seagrove' which is a St Helens Lodge

---

The Location

The reason I often recommend Nodes Point is partly because of its location. It leads straight onto the dog-friendly beach at St Helens, which has massive great low tides and views across to the mainland.

I've never thought of St Helens as a sandy beach (try Appley or Sandown for the best sand) but on our numerous walks we did find some pretty sizeable sandy patches.

St Helens beach is certainly a good one for evening strolls, searching for crabs, or playing ball games if you don't mind the slight risk of falling over a pebble. It is also decent for swimming at high tide.

There are three other Parkdean Resorts on the Isle of Wight, but I personally think this one has the best location. Lower Hyde and Landguard are in Shanklin, which is a sandier and busier beach with lots of attractions. However, the parks are about 20 minutes from the kiss-me-quick seafront so an evening stroll is a bit more of an effort.

The other resort is Thorness Bay, which is in a remote part of the Isle of Wight that many Islanders would struggle to point to on a map. You do get a beach next to the park at Thorness Bay, but I personally prefer St Helens (despite witnessing a lovely sunset at Thorness a few years ago).

St Helens Beach was about 150m from our lodge

Priory Bay is round the corner from Parkdean Resorts Nodes Point Holiday Park

---

Our Lodge at Nodes Point Holiday Park

We were staying in one of the newer St Helen's lodges in a part of the park called Seagrove. I was rather delighted to discover that we had accidentally chosen the closest accommodation to the beach. I may have punched the air, I can't remember exactly.

There are some tents that are even closer but Mrs Guru hasn't yet been convinced of the wonders of camping ("where do they go to the toilet?" she asked me after a couple of days).

Ours was a two bedroom lodge, with two shower rooms and a TV that was bigger than a Subbuteo pitch. The teenage version of me wouldn't have been able to cope with the possibility that I would one day be watching such a vast screen without heading to the cinema.

The LED lights underneath provided ample entertainment for the children (and me) until Mrs Guru pointed out that we should probably unpack.

You can also book caravans, chalets, glamping, camping and touring at Nodes Point. Some of the lodges at Nodes Point come with hot tubs. 

The advantage of a lodge is that they are quite a lot wider than the caravans. Ours had single and king size beds, whereas a lot of caravans tend to have narrower than usual single beds. Generally, lodges are around 20 foot wide, whilst caravans are about 12 to 14 foot wide. I'm not exactly sure why it is always given in imperial measurements, but let's not worry about the small details.

The kitchen had a full size American fridge freezer, which is some step up from a basic undercounter fridge with an iced up freezer section and enough space for two Calippos.

Most importantly of all it had a dishwasher, which I consider to be the one of mankind's most significant achievements, along with walking on the moon and penicillin. 

Our lodge had a TV which was bigger than the third screen at some small-town cinemas

The lodge was only a couple of years old...

...and was considerably bigger than a caravan

We didn't have a sea view (unlike a lot of the park) but we overlooked the camping fields

---

Picking the best accommodation

Nodes Point Holiday Park is on a hill overlooking St Helen's beach and Bembridge Harbour. Our lodge was in a terrific location for walking to the beach, but you get a better view of the sea by being further up the hill (Culver View, Harbour View, Admiral Park, Priory Way on the map on this page).

The entertainment and the swimming pool are towards the top of the site whilst the camping and glamping are further down the hill towards the beach.

The accommodation near the playground, at the very top of the park, tends to be the cheapest as you are further from the beach and only some of them have a 'sea glimpse' (as an estate agent would say). On the plus side, the accommodation at the top is nearer to the swimming pool and restaurant/entertainment venue.

It's a little bit tricky to figure out in advance where the accommodation is on the site, as the names of the caravans and lodges don't match up with the different parts of the park. For example, we stayed in St Helens Lodge, but it was within the Seagrove part of the park.

You might like to read our guide to accommodation grading at Parkdean Resorts to help you make up your mind.

My advice is to look for the 'new on park' badge when you are booking, as you then you get a nice shiny new caravan or lodge. Here's our full guide to finding Parkdean's newest accommodation on the Isle of Wight.

The middle and upper sections of the park have views towards the beach

The chalets don't get a view, but you can pick up some bargain breaks in these

---

First wander round

We had booked a food delivery, so I went for a wander to reception. This required a clamber up the hill, which was a good chance to see the views you get from around Nodes Point.

When I finally reached reception, a chirpy chappy told me that he would send Mr Sainsburys down to the right lodge when he turned up. Mrs Guru pointed out that Mr Sainsburys would have just phoned us when they arrived. However, like most dads I enjoy the opportunity to explore on my own for a few minutes under the façade of doing something helpful. 

Whilst near reception I had a quick look at the resorts' main venue, where younger children were being entertained by one of the Parkdean mascots. This was good fun, but I concluded that a grown man watching on his own might look odd, so I decided to return with the children on a different day. 

After tea, the sun started to glimmer through the clouds so we took a wander down to the beach. The tide was low enough to get round to Priory Bay, which is one of my favourite beaches on the Island (my top five changes regularly, but it currently includes Compton Bay, Freshwater Bay, Priory Bay, Whitecliff Bay and Steephill Cove).

---

Further exploration

On our second evening, we decided to sample the entertainment and headed for the main restaurant. Mrs Guru chose a table at the back of the restaurant, about half a mile from the stage to reduce the risk of audience participation.
​
The children made sad faces and said they couldn't really hear what was being said on the stage, so we headed on down to an area where the risk of participation had greatly increased.

Things have moved on a little at holiday parks, so participation involved scanning QR codes rather than sticking your hand up or being picked on for a knobbly knees competition.

The entertainment session we were attending was called the Happy Holiday Gameshow, with the general idea being that you could take on challenges to be entered into a draw for another holiday.

Names were picked at random from the people who registered, and they were told to come on stage and do things like sucking ping pong balls from one plate to the other.

I am 90% sure that I misunderstood the registration process and accidentally opted out of taking part. I decided to keep this quiet from the children who were desperately hoping that I would be called up on stage to do something silly. I gave my best anxious face as the names appeared on the screen but secretly knew it was never going to be me.

We went along to the evening entertainment a couple of times at Nodes Point

---

Splashing around

On one day at Nodes Point, the Isle of Wight suffered from an almighty deluge of rain. The weather was mostly very good, but this was a day when we saw a big increase in traffic to our rainy day guide.

We headed for the Nodes Point swimming pool. It is free for guests but you are advised to book. We chanced it and turned up and found that there was enough space but they do have a limit on numbers.

​The depth of the pool ranges from 80cm to 120cm, so child one and child two were able to stand up in the whole thing. There is also a four line slide and several paid-for sessions where you can lark around on inflatable things.

Of course, I had a few graceful trips up and down the slide.

Child one and child two loved the swimming and we ended up using the pool four times in a week. One session was a pool party, which was an extra £7 (whereas normal swimming sessions are free). I pushed them up and down the pool on an inflatable llama and they concluded it was one of the highlights of the week. 

My love for the pool was shallow at first but it soon deep-end

---

Early mornings

I have a habit of waking up ridiculously early, thanks in part to several years of child-related-broken-sleep.

I refer to this every time the children say they are tired, with a reply along the lines of "Tired? That's nothing compared to how I felt for the first two years of your life".

This early morning habit has its advantages when you are staying near to a beach.

On a couple of occasions I headed down to St Helens Beach at around 6am or 7am. The sun was blazing but wasn't hot, the wind hadn't yet woken up and there were only three other people on the beach.

The highlight was a low tide walk round to Priory Bay which looked absolutely stunning. I would highly recommend it if you can cope with an early morning and can read a tide timetable.

Another terrific stroll involves turning right and reaching Bembridge via the causeway. You can then return via The Duver.

---

Out and about

If you're staying at Nodes Point, you will mostly want to visit the East Wight. We did end up doing a trip to the Needles, but that is at the other end of the Isle of Wight. Mainlanders can probably cope with the 55 minute journey but Islanders would consider you barmy to attempt such a thing without breaking up the journey with an overnight stay in Newport.

If you want quieter days out and simpler entertainment in close proximity to Nodes Point then you've got quite a few options. Our guide to days out in Bembridge and St Helens, covers a lot of them including crabbing at low tide, visiting the lifeboat station or going for a horse ride along the beach. St Helens is a particularly good beach for paddleboarding and kayaking. We wandered down on a sunny day and spent a good chunk of time falling off a paddleboard.

If you want a bit of a busier beach day out then I would head for Shanklin, which is 20 minutes from Nodes Point. The seafront manages to cram in three minigolf courses, a decent amusement arcade, dozens of flavours of ice cream and a few small fairground rides.

On our week at Nodes Point, we did the following:

• The Needles and Alum Bay, where child two braved her first ever ride on the chairlift
• Horse riding along the beach with Sally's Riding School, which is based at Nodes Point during the summer
• Several trips to St Helens beach, either for a wander, early morning droning, early evening paddleboarding or a swimming trip with 13 bags
• Four trips to the Nodes Point swimming pool, including a pool party (which were paid about £7 extra for)
• A trip to the playground and Puckpool park, followed by a coffee at The Dell café in Appley and walk towards Seaview and Springvale Beach
• Lunch and a swim in Shanklin
• A short walk from Sandown to Hinks Pioneer Café in Lake for an ice cream

The paddleboarding trip to Priory Bay was a success, despite a bee landing on the board

We enjoyed our trip to the beach with Sally's Riding School, which is based at Nodes Point in summer

I fulfilled my ambition of riding a horse along the beach

---

Finally...thanks to the Nodes Point staff

This is a good opportunity to say that we found all the staff at Nodes Point Holiday Park to be exceptionally smiley and helpful. 

We didn't have any notable problems to deal with but the reception, swimming pool and restaurant/entertainment staff were all excellent. 

As mentioned earlier, we were given this stay for free by Parkdean Resorts. However, they didn't tell us what to write and this site remains completely independent.