Stayed there at a youth camp in 1982 and hated it, but then I was only 14
They do have tenting campsites but no caravans. If you dont want to camp the only way to go is fly, stay in a B&B, use the great bus network. Douglas, Peel and Ramsey are the realistic choices. Can be very wet.
Honestly - its an expensive place for all it is tho maybe worth seeing once.
My grandfather, a navy ships writer was evacuated to the IOM during WW2 with the Portsmouth signals training school he was working at to HMS St Georges which was based at a holiday camp with a swimming pool. Would love to know if it still exists as a holiday camp.
Seems not.
Google & you’ll get to a Wikipedia entry for HMS St Georges. People were housed at Cunningham Holiday Park, there’s a lot of history online about that too. The final line of one website says “Post war the family felt unable to rebuild the camp business - it was sold to a Blackpool business man but over the years became developed for housing and holiday accommodation.”
Thank you for your research Fiona, I never met my grandfather, I discovered that he went to Gallipoli in WW1 in an old battleship converted into a troop ship and spent the rest of the war on Malta where the wounded were dropped off on the way back. He wasn't wounded but I guess he was of more value there than on a ship going home to be scrapped.
In WW2 he rejoined the navy and was sent to HMS St Vincent, Portsmouth and then the whole school was evacuated to HMS St Georges on IOM. HMS St Vincent was set up as a response to the number of boys killed at the Battle of Jutland in WW1 when British battleships exploded, (hence the poem "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck"), boys would be trained in signaling ashore in future. HMS St Vincent is now a comprehensive school.