Surfside, Beach Retreats

I have to say I'm a bit loathe to share this with everyone, Porth beach is so lovely and quiet, but share it I must!! Surfside is an amazing house in a holiday village in Porth, Cornwall, that we took our DCs (4) to during the Easter holidays. We found the house through Beach Retreats (they have quite a lot of fab houses). There is a hotel, and then quite a few houses, some owned by the hotel and some owned privately (we had one of the private ones).

The photos on the website are pretty impressive, and we were quite surprised on arrival to find they didn't actually do the house justice. First of all it's massive! When the DCs got into the house, they were running up and down stairs, screaming in delight - opening doors, counting bathrooms!

Upstairs is the master bedroom (huge!) with ensuite, and stunning views of the cornish coastline and Porth beach. There is another bedroom with two singles, with truckles underneath and another ensuite. Downstairs is another bedroom, with bunk beds and a double bed, and another bathroom!!

The living room has the most comfortable sofas I've ever sat on, and again great views. The kitchen - really well turned out with a big dining table and all mod cons (as they say!). Both living room and kitchen lead out on to a big patio with seating, a BBQ and even a hot shower! The only negative things I'd say is the outside area could do with a bit of sprucing up, and there isn't any privacy from next doors outdoor area, but the views and proximity to the beach more than make up for it.

The holiday village is set on the cliff and so you are looking over the stunning Porth beach, where the tide goes out for absolutely miles. We immediately took off and found steps by the hotel which took you right down to the beach. When the tide is out you just walk straight onto the beach, but when it's in you can't get on to the beach, but you can just dive straight off the rocks into the sea (well my DD did anyway - you won't catch me in the sea in April!!).

The beach is beautiful and at this time of year, relatively deserted. Our holiday coincided with the first few days of this fabulous weather we have been having, so we spend all our time on the beach. We did venture out to Crantock Bay, as we'd had quite a lot of recommendations from friends. It is beautiful there - incredible views and acres of sand, with huge sand dunes to run down, but we actually preferred being on Porth beach, which is much smaller, and felt like our own.

We only ate out twice, fish and chips and a fab meal in the new Pizza Express in Newquay, which look straight onto the beach. We preferred picnics on the beach, and dinners cooked at home (plus made the holiday a little bit less expensive!!).

Traveling to Cornwall is always a bit of bind for us, as we live in Surrey, but we got the kids up at 5am on our way there, so they slept most of the 5 hour journey. On the way back, we were going to stop of at one of the hundreds of attractions there are in Cornwall, to break the journey for the DCs, but with 6 of us - the cost just gets ridiculous, so we did the full run straight home and the DCs where fine with their Nintendos and Ipods!!

A truly fab holiday - we're already planning next years trip