Every year since the kids were old enough to go on fairground rides we’ve kicked off the Summer Holidays with a trip to Ocean Beach Pleasure Park in South Shields and this year was no exception.
I’m trying to find the right words to describe Ocean Beach to you and I’m honestly struggling because it’s a bit of a cross between a theme park and a travelling funfair. It has all the traditional fairground rides and games you’d expect to see at a funfair and it certainly has the loud atmosphere with each ride blaring out it’s own theme tune. Where it differs from your normal funfair (apart from the fact that it stays on the same site) is that you can pay once and ride on the majority of the rides all day which is brilliant when you’re trying to stick to a budget.
Ocean Beach Pleasure Park is open 11-5 during the week in the Summer and on a weekend it’s open until ‘late’ whatever time late actually is. 😉 A £15 wristband will let you ride all day during those times which makes it great value for money for the older kids as it includes rides like the go karts which my two could spend hours on! It doesn’t include the dodgems which is a shame or the younger kids rides but you can buy tokens for those so they do work out quite good value for money.
The reason I think I struggle to explain the charm of Ocean Beach Pleasure Park is because as much as we love it, there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a little scruffy and way overdue a bit of a modernisation – it doesn’t take anything away from the day though and safety wise it seems to be top notch which is the only thing I’m really bothered about on days out like this.
Just a word of warning, don’t leave at closing time or you’ll have a nightmare getting out of the car park!
Oh and just to be clear, we bought our tickets to Ocean Beach as we always do. We’re just sharing it with you because it’s a great value fun day out. 😉
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