Finding your own rhythm at Watergate Bay

Family holidays can be full – in the best way. Surf lessons, sand castles, one more game, one more ice cream. But while younger ones race off to Kids’ Zone, spend hours on the beach, or tire themselves out in the surf, there’s space for you too – with everything you need right on your doorstep.

Here are five ways to find your own rhythm at Watergate Bay this summer.

1. Early morning light

The beach feels different first thing. Wide open, quieter, a different light.

Head down with a coffee, take a dip in the ocean, walk barefoot along the shoreline, or simply sit and watch the horizon shift colour from the Swim Club terrace. 

Whatever pace you’re looking for, let the ocean horizon ease you calmly into a new day.

2. Heat, cold water and sea air

Sometimes the best reset is an elemental one.

A bracing swim in the Atlantic that leaves you feeling more awake and alive than you have in a while. Fifty quiet minutes in the heat of the sauna, watching the weather roll through across the bay. A yoga session on the beach with salty air in your face and sand beneath your feet.

At the Bay there are plenty of ways to let your head quieten, your shoulders drop, and your sleep deepen.

At the Bay there are plenty of ways to let your head quieten, your shoulders drop, and your sleep deepen.

3. Move differently

And once you’ve slowed down, it’s easier to say yes to things you normally wouldn’t.

You climb rocks with the children. Try surfing for the first time. Head out along the coast path with no destination in mind.

Days here tend to pull you into the water, onto the sand, up the cliffs and into the sea air.

And somewhere between the movement, the laughter and the horizon stretching out ahead of you, things begin to feel a little lighter again.

And once you’ve slowed down, it’s easier to say yes to things you normally wouldn’t.

4. Time to reconnect, with yourself and each other

As the day slows, some of the best moments happen when there’s nowhere particular to be. And when somebody else is keeping the children happily busy for a while.

Time stretched out on the deck with a book. A second coffee. Watching the tide come in from the windows of The Living Space – or the pool, or the sauna. Long lunches that drift into late afternoons, and dinners that stretch on beyond the light (knowing the children have already had early supper and are watching a film in Kids’ Zone, or hanging out in the games room). Time to properly talk, reconnect, and remember what slowing down together feels like.

And from sea wall suppers at Zacry’s to a bowl of Cornish mussels at The Beach Hut, food here is designed to be lingered over. Good ingredients, good drinks, good conversation – and nowhere else to be.

5. Evenings that soften at the edges

The best part of summer at Watergate Bay is often the hour when the day starts to wind down.

Music drifting across the beach. Golden light stretching across the bay. Children still barefoot from the sand.

A glass of something cold outside The Living Space. A sunset swim. Silent discos on the beach. Long table suppers with the Atlantic beyond.

The sort of evenings that don’t ask much from you, other than to be there for them.

Space for everyone

Children tend to find their freedom quickly here. Which means parents do too.

Maybe that’s an early morning swim before everyone wakes up, an hour with a book, or simply sitting still long enough to listen to the ocean.

And sometimes, it’s seeing your family completely at ease – sandy, salty, tired from the beach, happy in the way only holidays by the ocean seem to allow.

However you holiday, there’s room for both adventure and pause at Watergate Bay. And time just for you.

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Make the make of Kids Go Free (when sharing your double room)

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