What is SeaSpace?
Opened in 2024, this design-led coastal stay has quickly become one of Cornwall’s most talked-about new openings, attracting everyone from surfing families and multi-generational groups to creatives escaping London with laptops in tow. Yet despite the buzz, it never feels like a place trying too hard. Instead, it has the relaxed confidence of somewhere that knows exactly what it wants to be. That begins with space.
Unlike the traditional hotel room where everyone ends up perched on one bed by 8pm watching television, SeaSpace gives families room to live. Studios are cleverly designed with proper kitchens and generous living areas, while larger family studios and apartments include bunk rooms and separate bedrooms that allow children to disappear into their own worlds while parents reclaim a little of theirs. It’s amazing what a door between adults and children can do for everyone’s holiday!
The interiors are playful without feeling gimmicky. Expect warm timber, bold pops of colour, soft curves, contemporary artwork and floor-to-ceiling windows framing either Atlantic waves or rolling Cornish countryside. It feels unmistakably modern but never precious. Wet wetsuits, sandy feet and board games all seem equally at home here.
What is there to do at SeaSpace?
Families are encouraged to get outside and to slow down rather than fill every minute. Children can dart between the gardens, playground and maze while parents linger over coffee on the terrace. The indoor swimming pool and large jacuzzi, with its almost Wes Anderson-like palette and huge windows overlooking the ocean, has become something of an Instagram favourite –Â do take your camera poolside!
There isn’t a booming entertainment programme or endless timetable of organised activities, and that’s exactly the point. Here you can shape your own days. Some mornings may begin with pancakes in the café before heading to Watergate Bay. Others start with breakfast in your apartment before borrowing bikes or joining the South West Coast Path directly outside the hotel. If surfing is on the agenda, Wavehunters can deliver everything from wetsuits to paddleboards. Fancy trying something new? The five-court padel centre has become one of Cornwall’s liveliest places to play.
Back at the hotel, life revolves around good food rather than fixed meal times. The café effortlessly moves from morning pastries and good coffee to leisurely brunches and lunches filled with local produce, while evenings belong to Tallo, the lively Italo-American restaurant serving oversized pizzas and comforting pasta dishes (pre-booking recommended). Of course, if everyone is too tired after a day on the beach, your apartment kitchen makes fish fingers and pasta just as acceptable. Perhaps that’s what SeaSpace understands best modern family holidays often don’t always need more activities or more entertainment – they simply need more flexibility.
Parents want somewhere they can enjoy a proper coffee while their children play safely nearby. Teenagers want independence without disappearing entirely. Younger children need space to run. Everyone wants to feel welcome whether they’ve arrived in walking boots, wetsuits or carrying a laptop.
And while its thoughtful design, generous accommodation and enviable location certainly make an impression, it’s the atmosphere that lingers long after you’ve left. There is a genuine sense that this is a place built around how families actually live today – not how hotels think they should.
Junior Says: “Cornwall is filled with beautiful places to stay, and this one just feels refreshingly different and so very now!’
Junior Fact File
Where: SeaSpace, Watergate Road, Newquay, Cornwall TR7 3LX
Getting there: SeaSpace is 10 minutes from Newquay Airport, 15 minutes from the A30 and around 10 minutes from Newquay railway station. There is parking available on site.
Prices: From £179 per night for a Large Studio sleeping two adults and two children. Two-bedroom family apartments (sleeping up to five) start from £273 per night, with three-bedroom apartments from £378 per night. Seasonal offers, including savings of up to 20% on longer stays, are regularly available.
