Category × County
8 Best Theme Parks In Devon
Which coast are you starting from? In Devon that question decides the day, because the theme parks do not sit in the middle of the county. The north coast group is Milky Way Adventure Park, The Big Sheep, Watermouth Castle and Theme Park and Combe Martin Wildlife & Dinosaur Park, close enough to one another that a family staying up there has a real choice. The south has Woodlands Family Theme Park, Crealy Theme Park & Resort and Diggerland Devon. The two groups face opposite seas, so decide which side you are on before you decide which park you want.
Top theme parks in Devon
Showing 1–8 of 8
Theme ParksMilky Way Adventure Park
Theme ParksThe Big Sheep
Theme ParksWatermouth Castle and Theme Park
Theme ParksDiggerland Devon
Theme ParksWoodlands Family Theme Park
Zoos and Wildlife ParksCombe Martin Wildlife & Dinosaur Park
Theme ParksCrealy Theme Park & Resort
Theme ParksPaignton Pier
Within each group the parks are less alike than the category suggests. Diggerland Devon is machines to drive and nothing else, which delights one sort of child completely and leaves another cold. Combe Martin Wildlife & Dinosaur Park sits under Zoos and Wildlife Parks and behaves accordingly. Paignton Pier is a pier. If you want the full big-park day, with rides and a plan and a map, Crealy Theme Park & Resort and Woodlands Family Theme Park in the south and Milky Way Adventure Park in the north are the ones built for it.
Theme Parks in Devon: FAQs
North coast or south coast?
Whichever one you are already staying on. The parks split cleanly between the two sides of the county and there is no midpoint that serves both, so a family on the north coast should work from the northern four and a family in the south from the southern group. Crossing the county to reach a specific park is a decision you should make on purpose, not one you should back into on the morning.
Is Paignton Pier a theme park?
Filed here, yes, but a pier is what it is, and everyone in the car should know that before hopes build. Piers are pay-as-you-go amusements rather than a gated park with a day's worth of rides, which suits an hour at the seaside rather than a planned day out. Take it as an addition to a beach afternoon rather than the destination itself.
Which suits children too small for rides?
The farm-flavoured and animal-flavoured ones tend to travel best with the very young, because there is something to look at even when there is nothing they are tall enough to go on. The Big Sheep and Combe Martin Wildlife & Dinosaur Park are the north's answers to that. In the south, Woodlands Family Theme Park is the broader of the big parks. We do not hold height limits in our data; the park's own site will, and it is the thing to read before promising anything.
Seven of the eight are flagged indoor. Really?
That is what the data says, and on a Devon theme park the indoor flag usually means part of the site is under cover rather than all of it. A wet day at any of these is still a wet day, because queues and paths are outside whatever else is not. If rain is certain, treat the indoor flag as a reason the day is survivable, not as a reason it will be dry.