Our stay at Wild Rose Holiday Park, Appleby-in-Westmorland

Last Updated on 20 January 2025 by Colette

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Last weekend we spent two nights at Wild Rose Holiday Park in Appleby-in-Westmorland, Penrith staying in a Willerby Malton Holiday Home. Our booking was actually for three nights but of course with it being term time we had to get ourselves home and sorted so that everyone was ready for school and work on the Monday!

Despite only being at Wild Rose Holiday Park for two nights, we felt we had been away for much longer and had a really lovely weekend making the most of the onsite swimming pool and a day out at Lowther Castle and Gardens.

I’ve organised this article to share our review of Wild Rose Holiday Park and of course some tips if you’re planning a stay yourself (spoiler alert – I recommend you do!). I’ve written about our Willerby Malton Holiday Home separately as these can be found at holiday parks across the UK!

Wild Rose Holiday Park

Wild Rose Holiday Park is an award-winning holiday park in Appleby-in-Westmoreland, Cumbria.

There’s a whole range of accommodation available with caravans, lodges and “glamping hives” however camping is not offered at Wild Rose Holiday Park. We stayed in a Willerby Malton holiday home which sleeps six.

Wild Rose Holiday Park have recently spent millions upgrading the park and facilities and it shows! Part of this investment was a brand new indoor / outdoor infinity pool – the pool is heated so that even on a cold day (and I’m talking 5 degrees and cloudy one morning!) it’s still usable. The whole pool area feels super swish and, as someone said to me yesterday, more like something you’d expect at a high end spa than a holiday park.

The area around the pool is gorgeous with plenty of comfy sun loungers – I tested them out while Dave and the girls were swimming – though I must admit it’s not the same in a jumper and leggings! I think I’d have been quite happy to curl up with a blanket and a book while the kids were swimming if we’d had more time.

The changing rooms are unisex with a number of family-sized changing rooms. The lockers are free to use with no need for coins or tokens. There’s two showers pool side so you can have a quick rinse before getting in the water and then several shower cubicles to use after your swim (though when Dave and I went to use them on Sunday afternoon, they were freezing!)

The reception area is beautifully decorated with plenty of seating – I especially loved the little booths. The modern styling of the reception honestly put me in mind of a boutique hotel rather than a caravan park! Upstairs is a small farm shop stocking essentials like washing up liquid, toilet roll and plenty of sweet treats. There is also a small soft play for younger visitors.

We booked dinner in the restaurant for 6.30pm on Saturday night, I’d been told we probably didn’t need to book but I was glad I had as the restaurant was actually quite busy. 6.30pm was perfectly timed for us to have eaten and enjoyed our dinner before the Elton John tribute act started at 8pm too.

Kids eat free with one free kid’s meal for every adult meal purchased which meant the girls were happily able to eat from the kids’ menu whilst Dave, Ben and I had adult meals. We were really impressed by both the quality and value of our meals – I must admit that I hadn’t really been expecting them to be up to much but we all really enjoyed our dinner and would definitely recommend eating in the restaurant during your stay.

There is a small play park next to the main reception building – Ben and Chloe were far too big for this but Amy enjoyed spending some time there – mainly because she had quickly made friends with some of the other children staying on site that weekend. Because the play park was next to the restaurant we felt happy that she could play there whilst we were enjoying a drink and singing along to the Elton John tribute!

As well as the Coast & Country Restaurant and Bar, there is the Wild Rose Coffee Lounge which serves coffee, cake, ice cream and sandwiches during the day – we didn’t try this out as we were out all day Saturday and had brought things for lunch with us anyway.

Wild Rose Holiday Park is dog friendly – there is a small exercise space for dogs near the main reception and dogs are allowed downstairs throughout Reception and into the bar and restaurant area. They’re not allowed upstairs to the farm shop and soft play. We didn’t actually take Poppy into the bar with us as she was really settled in the holiday home after a busy day’s adventuring at Lowther Castle but it was nice to know we had the option. There were lots of dogs on site.

In terms of things to do near Wild Rose Holiday Park, we spent much of Saturday at Lowther Castle and Gardens which I definitely recommend you plan in during your stay – the adventure playground is next level and the kids loved it! Otherwise, with the Lake District at your feet I would definitely suggest making the most of the chance to get on a walk and explore. We were only onsite for two nights but would love to go back to spend more time in the area.

You can find a great list of child-friendly attractions in the Lake District here or things to do in the Lake District with toddlers.

You can see more of what we got up to during our stay at Wild Rose Holiday Park here:

Tips for your stay at Wild Rose Holiday Park:

Don’t forget towels, toilet roll, washing up liquid and soap – I say this as these are all things we hadn’t thought to take with us and had to go out and buy (toilet roll, washing up liquid and soap are all available at onsite farm shop, we had to go to B&M to grab some towels).

Take an eye mask if you’re a light sleeper – we found the curtains didn’t do much to keep the bright sunshine out first thing in the morning.

Make sure you’ve got your swimming costume with you and swimming towels! Lockers are free to use so you don’t need to worry about coins. You might even want a woolly hat if you’re planning on using the outdoor pool on a colder day.

Take a speaker if you want to listen to music – we have a Sonos Roam that I tend to chuck in my bag when we’re going away and it was nice to be able to have a bit of background music on rather than the TV. (The only problem was that it doesn’t work when the WiFi is down!)

Have some things to do that don’t involve WiFi – it dropped out for quite a long time while we were there which only really mattered for Amy’s tablet as the coverage was fine for the rest of us to use our data on our phones.

Take bikes or scooters for your children to ride around the holiday park – we saw quite a lot of children on scooters or bikes and I think ours would have liked that if we’d been staying for longer.

It’s worth noting that returning guests receive a 15% discount on their next stay!

If you’ve got anything else you want to know about Wild Rose Holiday Park, drop me a message below or come find me on instagram and I’ll do my best to answer!

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