Isle of Wight Insider Tips please

full-time-mum

We have our holiday booked so I wondered if there is anyone prepared to share some local (mse) info. We are staying near Yarmouth.

I know there are several places that we can use Tesco Days Out tokens. Are there any other ways of getting discounts/money off places to visit.

Where are the best beaches to take children and any tips on where to park (preferably free)?

Where are good places to get good value meals (pubs etc)? (We do a lot of self-catering but I do like to get the odd evening off)
Can you recommend a good fish and chippy?

I need a reasonable sized supermarket to get wheat-free basics from. There seems to be a Tesco at Ryde, Morrisions at Newport and Sandown and Sainsburys at Newport. I'm assuming they will be big enough to get at least my bread, biscuits and pasta.

Are there any farm shops or family butchers, they are often good places to get wheat-free sausages/burgers etc?

Are there any places to avoid (food or activities)?

What is the best place to get petrol? (Hopefully, we won't need too much being on an Island and, of course, the sun is going to shine everyday and we'll just be relaxing on the beach!)

Thanks.

Link to same question on Travel Board

Lady_E

Am interested as well . We got the travelodge deal for £19 a night , for 3 nights at the end of August and I would love to know some of the answers to the above questions .

Hope someone can help.

BG would it be a good idea to move to the travel board or not ?

full-time-mum

Lady_E wrote: »

Am interested as well . We got the travelodge deal for £19 a night , for 3 nights at the end of August and I would love to know some of the answers to the above questions .

Hope someone can help.

BG would it be a good idea to move to the travel board or not ?

I wasn't sure whether to post there or not - UK doesn't seem like travel somehow.

I think I'll post a link there too.

full-time-mum

Just got back from another holiday in IOW and thought I would let you know that we stumbled upon some free parking for the beach in Ryde.

Follow signs for Esplanade, follow the road along the front (from google it looks like North Walk), past pay and display. Go past the boating lake (the oval one with Swan pedlos) keep going until you reach the rowing club (think it was rowing and not yachting). It looks as though you have reached a dead end but carry on past the building and there is parking behind the club. The signs were a little ambiguous and talked about permit holders but it also said that you can park for 5 hours free of charge. I checked with the guy in the pitch and putt kiosk and he said that you can indeed park free for 5 hours and then move you car for another 5. Apparently most people just reverse out of the spot and turn their car through 180 degrees.
It isn't suitable for the town or pier but the beach was nice with an area of grass and beach huts between the car park and prom. Beach was sandy. Toilets. Tower/Folley with some sort of exhibition.

Search for Appley Tower, Ryde on Google Maps, the car park is clearly visible to the West (left)

narabanekeater

we went a few weeks ago
Black gand chime was good and my 4 year old and 19 momth old loved it
A ticket gives you free entry for a week
We also visited needles park which accepted tesco clubcard vouchers and you can use the little tickets needles give you in the shops as well
We foud a lot of the places such as the zoo and dinosaur island could be done in a couple of hours so worked out expensive.
The normal drinks and snacks while out nd about were expensice. Petrol was 1p a litre more dear than mainland
We never did find a nice chippy. The Isle Of White was very clean and we loved it