Splashdown Quaywest and Other Family Thrills in Paignton

If your holiday brief from the children is roughly “we want to go on things”, Paignton has you covered. Between Splashdown Quaywest, Paignton Pier, Quaywest’s miniature golf, and Goodrington Sands’ boat hire, you can put together a thrill-heavy day without ever moving the car more than half a mile. This is what makes Paignton tick as a family seaside resort. The infrastructure is right there, on the front, in walking distance of where you have parked or where you are staying.

Splashdown Quaywest: the headline act

Splashdown Quaywest sits at Goodrington Sands, a five-minute drive south of Paignton harbour, and bills itself as the UK’s largest outdoor waterpark. Eighteen waterslides, a heated outdoor pool, a dedicated children’s splash area called Shipwreck Island, and a long sun deck for the parents who have run out of energy. It opened originally in 1989 and has been steadily expanded over the years.

The slides are properly mixed. Black Run and Kamikaze are the headline rides for older children and teenagers, with the kind of drop that produces an honest scream. Rapid River and Lazy River suit the gentler end. Shipwreck Island has seven gentle slides, a tipping bucket and water features designed for younger kids. Everyone is welcome, but the minimum height for the bigger slides is 1.2 metres, so under-eights tend to spend more time in the children’s area, which is no bad thing.

Booking and prices for 2026

Tickets must be booked online in advance. There are no walk-up tickets. You choose a session length (2 hours, 4 hours or all day) and a start time, and you arrive ready to go in your swimwear. Day tickets start at £31 for adults in 2026, with separate child and family rates available on the official site. Groups of 10 to 19 get an automatic 10% discount at checkout.

Opening is seasonal. The park runs weekends only in the shoulder season, then daily during half terms, and switches to daily 10am to 5pm in July and August (often with later closing on the hottest weeks). Check the official Splashdown Quaywest website before you travel, especially if you are visiting outside the core summer holidays.

Parking and practicalities

The Goodrington Sands car park is the closest, a couple of minutes’ walk from the entrance, and it gets busy by mid-morning on hot days. Arrive before 10.30am or use the overflow at Tanners Road. Bring a padlock for the lockers, water shoes if you have them (the steps up to the slides can be hot), and plenty of sun cream. Towels can be hired if you forget yours.

Paignton Pier: free, daft, and reliably good

Half a mile north along the seafront, Paignton Pier is the kind of place where you can absorb a happy hour with a fiver. Entry is free, and the pier is open daily through the year (it is technically open 24 hours, though the rides and amusements close earlier in the evening). The Victorian timber structure dates from 1879 and is now home to dodgems, a carousel, ten-pin bowling, trampolines, a mega slide, crazy golf with a Jurassic theme, an amusement arcade, and shooting galleries.

The genius of Paignton Pier is that it works for any budget. You can wander along it for free, taking the view back towards Torquay across the bay, or you can hand over twenty pounds and spend two hours bowling, slamming dodgems and chasing 2p machines. Younger children love the carousel. Older ones gravitate to bowling and the mega slide. There is a cafe and ice cream kiosk on board.

Goodrington and the rest of the strip

The Goodrington seafront itself adds more to the day. Pedalos and kayak hire on the lagoon, a long sandy beach with shallow paddling, a miniature railway in summer, the Quaywest crazy golf, and the start of the South West Coast Path heading south towards Broadsands and Elberry Cove. If the kids are nine or older, the cliff walk from Goodrington to Broadsands is one of the prettiest short coastal sections in Torbay, and it ends at a very swimmable beach.

How to sequence a Paignton thrills day

Here is a sensible running order. Splashdown Quaywest from 10am to 1pm on a 2 or 4-hour ticket, then lunch on the seafront, then an hour on Paignton Pier in the afternoon. That gives the children physical exhaustion in the morning and lighter entertainment after lunch when blood sugar is finally back. Build in fish and chips on the harbour before heading home.

If the weather is mixed, flip it. Pier in the morning while it is drizzly, lunch indoors, then dash for the waterpark when the sun comes out (the water is heated, so a cloudy afternoon is genuinely fine).

Accessibility and ages

Splashdown Quaywest has accessible changing and pool hoists, and is broadly suitable for visitors with mobility needs in the pool area. Paignton Pier is flat and step-free. The seafront promenade between the two is fully accessible. Children from about three upwards can enjoy a Paignton family thrills day, with the most enthusiastic age range being five to fourteen.

What makes Paignton work as a family resort is that you can have a day this packed, walk back to your guest house with three knackered children, and still be eating supper by seven. For a different kind of Paignton day, our piece on the Dartmouth Steam Railway shows how to slow the gears down without leaving the same town.