Nursery recommendations in Holywood/Bangor area

[LondontoBelfast]

Hi Belfast parents,

My wife and I are relocating to Belfast from London next month and will start the first year renting in Crawfordsburn so we can take some time before buying a family home. We have a little boy (he'll be 3 in December) who will start pre-school at Inchmarlo in September '21 but we wanted to find a good nursery school for him to get some experience under his belt so its not a complete shock to the system when he starts school. Plus we think he'd enjoy interaction with other kids after months and months of lockdown!
Does anyone have some good recommendations or positive experiences of nurseries in the Holywood/HelensBay/Crawfordsburn/Bangor area that ideally allows for half days? The idea was more for him to experience going to nursery a few mornings a week rather than full day day-care.
Thanks in advance !

[Gherkinbee]

I can recommend Big Red Balloon in Bangor. They are on Facebook. Both my kids there from babies, very friendly staff and a lot of parents from England as well in same boat as you so you could end up getting some social networking with them too. You might get some more responses if you post on Craicnet section here as well

[LondontoBelfast]

Thanks Gbee - that’s really helpful. We’ll definitely check it out and thanks for the tip.

[Carpcrew]

Hi, We also moved to Crawfordsburn from London just over 2 years ago. Its a lovely place to live. The walk through the park to the beach is amazing and you hardly see anyone there.

We've got a 3 year old and he's been going to Tiger Tots in Seahill. Its only a 5 min drive from Crawfordsburn.

I'm sure you know this already but Inchmarlo is the other side of Belfast and the traffic heading into town in the mornings is pretty bad. Expect to spend 45-60 mins heading in at rush hour.

[LondontoBelfast]

Hi Carpcrew - thanks for the recommendation! I'll be sure to check it out. Do you know if they allow for morning sessions rather than full day?

Crawfordsburn was more to allow me my fantasy of living by the sea for once in my life after a lifetime in London. So we have an 8 month lease on a place right by the sea. But the ultimate plan is to buy a family home within walking distance of my son's school specifically to avoid 15 years of sitting in traffic jams twice a day.. We just needed somewhere temporarily while start the rigmarole of buying. But who knows ! Maybe I'll convince my wife to stay there :)