A Day out in Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth is a coastal town in Norfolk, England and is located at the mouth of the River Yare, 20 miles east of Norwich and on the edge of the Norfolk Broads.
Over the half term holiday we stayed at Potters Resort which is just a 10 minute drive from the seaside town, so we made sure we paid a visit.
Great Yarmouth is Norfolk’s premier beach resort with a golden mile of sandy beach to explore with plenty of activities to keep the family amused, many of which close at the end of October until the season starts next March.
Our first port of call was Yarmouth Sealife Centre, which is open all year and not only offers fishy fun, but also a good-sized soft play area for the kids.

The Sea Life Centre looks quite small from the outside but it is definitely Tardis like on the inside with lots of displays to see. There is a wide range of native sea creatures, from shoaling species like bass and mullet to sharks and rays as well as creatures from farther afield including penguins, turtles and sharks.

The kids got to interact with creatures in the rock pool displays, search for lettered pumpkins in the #spookyseas game and collect stamps in their passports at each dive station.

Once they had completed their #spookyseas puzzle they earned a token which they exchanged for a turn on the ‘yucky dip’ to win a prize.

We spent around an hour and a half in the Sea Life Centre before heading outside to enjoy the sandy beach between Britannia and Wellington Piers.

Great Yarmouth must be bustling in the summer months and full of activities for the kids but it was deadly quiet and we had the beach almost to ourselves. The promenade runs alongside the beach with a range of shops, cafe’s, arcades and ice-cream vendors. Some of the old buildings were stunning and others were very rundown which was quite sad to see.

There were also horse and carriage and land train rides running along the promenade.

We toyed with a carriage ride until we saw the donkey’s giving rides along the beach. It is a not a seaside tradition we have in Bournemouth so the kids were keen to give it a go. It was so memorable that the kids even remember the names of their donkey’s – Vinnie, Cracker and Willy.
 

There are attractions on both piers but after a look around we decided that it was just as much fun to play on the beach.

We found a jetty that stretched into the sand and spent ages running along it and leaping off again.

We did come away feeling like Great Yarmouth was the seaside town which time forgot. There was the Pleasure Beach and Joyland for younger children at opposite ends of the main beach but it all seemed very expensive for what it was. We did toy with the idea of going to the Hippodrome Circus but at £80 for the family and with a halloween theme we thought the younger ones would be scared.

We had high hopes for a visit to Great Yarmouth, everyone who has visited always raves about what a fabulous location it is, however, it appears to close down this time of year and the buzz just wasn’t there for us.

• donkey rides
• Great Yarmouth
• Norfolk
• old fashioned
• seaside town