A Coach Trip to Llandudno with Daish’s – Travel Review
By Clare Jenkins, August 2026
“It’s the pace of life here,” says Elaine over the leek and potato soup. “It’s slower than the Black Country, where we live. And no wonder there are so many Liverpudlians here – Llandudno must be half the pace of Liverpool!”
The traffic certainly seems slower here than in Sheffield (where my husband and I live) and the drivers more considerate, gliding politely to a halt every time we step outside the Somerset Hotel. The four-storey, cream-painted Somerset is one of a great curve of tall, handsome, discreetly pastel Victorian hotels lining the broad promenade which sweeps round the bay between the two limestone headlands of the Great and Little Orme. You can see why the town, unhurried and gracious, was called The Queen of the Welsh Resorts.
Every evening from our bedroom window, we watch the dog-walkers and -pushers (pet prams abound), the couples strolling hand-in-hand, the families of Hassidic Jews (there’s a significant Jewish community here) and British Asians, the Scousers and Brummies – together with the odd Katie Price lips-eyelashes-nails-and-tattoo-alike in bottom-hugging pants and skimpy top.
Somerset Hotel, Llandudno
“Friendly”
Meanwhile, on the pebbly beach, children build sandcastles, dig holes and search for tiny crabs. Others swim or paddle in the sea. It’s like Five Go to the Seaside with Bhaji on the Beach thrown in. Or, as my husband says, taking in the palm trees, flowerboxes and sunshine, the tans, sunglasses and pretty dresses, like the South of France. It was, after all, once known as The Naples of the North, according to a 1930s publicity film shows in the Llandudno Museum – of which more later.
We’ve arrived by a Daish’s coach, one of a fleet of 35 owned by the Bournemouth-based company, who also own a dozen hotels from Torquay and Weymouth to Blackpool and Scarborough. Picked up at Sheffield’s Interchange at 9am on Monday morning, we enjoy an unexpected tour of Wakefield, Leeds, Bradford and Halifax, collecting more passengers (‘mature’, sometimes not-so-mobile, but a cheery bunch) at every stop.
Eventually: “Right,” says Gordon, our affable driver, who abandoned Bradford 40 years ago for Bexhill-on-Sea, “are we all ready? Then start pedaling…”
So off we ‘pedal’ over the Pennines and Saddleworth Moor on the M62 – “the highest motorway in England” – to the north coast of Wales. Five hours after we set off, we arrive at the Somerset Hotel, where we’ll be staying for the next four nights. We’re met by friendly receptionists Ellie and Luisa, and manager Michael Davies, who’s recently swapped a career in project and site management for hotel life.
A room inside the Somerset
“Flashing colour”
“I wanted to be somewhere where people were happy,” he tells me later. “Some guests say they feel invisible in other places because they’re older and no longer working. But it’s important to see who they really are, and they tell us, ‘You talk to us’.”
Over three weeks in November, he adds, the 86-bedroom hotel will be closed for refurbishment, including upgraded bathrooms – some with more accessible walk-in showers – and a Wi-Fi upgrade, plus new furniture and furnishings. As it is, our bedroom is a 1980s period piece, with large poppy-scattered wallpaper and curtains. The shower room, though, is efficient and the view magnificent.
So off we head into it, making first for the 700-metre-long pier. Last year’s Pier of the Year, it offers a couple of discreet amusement arcades, Zoltar the fortune-teller, kiosks selling doughnuts, dressed crab, old-fashioned sweets and shell ornaments. Looming gaily over it all is the Ferris Wheel, a riot of flashing colour at night.
At a dog-treat shop, I avoid the real reindeer leg bones and buy a Donald Trump squeaky toy instead. Handing it over, Tony Haines explains why he moved here five years ago from Coventry, after spells in France, Spain and Dubai. “My wife’s aunt lived here, so we came to visit her. I parked on the prom, got out and just thought, ‘This is lovely! I’m staying.’ So as soon as we got home, we put our house on the market and came here. And it’s wonderful – especially in winter, when things are closed.”
Llandudno Pier
“Heritage puddings”
It’s a view echoed by one of the attendants at the Mostyn gallery, with its smart café and contemporary ‘artwork’, including a mound of shattered glass and three Towers of Pisa-like stands filled with box files. “I love the town in the winter,” he says, “when it’s so quiet. You can walk for miles without seeing anyone.”
Strolling back to the hotel, we admire the 1890s carvings and lacy fretwork of all the villas and arcades, with their bay windows and cast-iron verandas and balconies. We take tea at Forte’s ice cream parlour in Vaughan Street, where the woman behind us is tucking into three huge scoops of ice cream on a bed of fruity waffle. We’re saving ourselves for the hotel’s heritage puddings, which include jam roly-poly, jelly and ice cream, strawberry gateau and rice pudding. All it needs is Angel Delight to transport us back even further, to the 1970s.
Our meals are served at impressive speed, from soup to cottage pie to cheese and biscuits. There’s bingo to get to, after all, and the evening entertainment in the bar. But we’re heading back to the prom, where the Town Band are playing medleys and marches in the bandstand, while people lounge in deckchairs. Nearer the Cenotaph, teenagers from the Christian Beach Team are singing hymns and telling their life-and-faith stories, to a permanent soundtrack of screeching seagulls.
View along the pier
image: Stephen McClarence
“Narrow pavements”
With three days at our disposal, the following morning we take the No 5 bus to Conwy, one of the best medieval walled towns in Europe with its landscape-dominating 13th Century castle and town walls. As my husband’s knees aren’t up to the steep steps and uneven cobbles, we visit instead St Mary’s grey-slate parish church, admiring its re-Raphaelite windows and fine, intricately-carved 15th Century rood screen, marking the wedding of Henry VII’s son Arthur and Catherine of Aragon. I’m less impressed by the early 10th Century floor slab memorial to Nicholas Hookes, ‘41st child of his father and himself father to 27 children’. No mention of the mothers.
We make our steady way along the narrow pavements crowded with families (it’s school holiday time) past a host of historic buildings, including the 15th Century merchant’s home of Aberconwy House, and the huge Elizabethan townhouse of Plas Mawr. At the other end of the space spectrum, the Smallest House in Britain on the harbour front overlooking the estuary, measures just 6ft wide and 10ft high.
The No 5 bus takes us all the way back to Llandudno’s West Shore, famed as the place where Lewis Carroll visited his friends the Liddells and their daughter, inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. The White Rabbit sculpture by the bus terminus (unveiled by David Lloyd George in 1933) is part of a trail that also includes a manically grinning Cheshire Cat and a sinister Mad Hatter.
Mad Hatter sculpture on Llandudno’s West Shore
image: Stephen McClarence
“Vertiginous ride”
The next morning, we join the queue to board the 1902 tram up the Great Orme. It’s worth the wait and the vertiginous ride for the views at the top: the Little Orme, the sea, the town down below, the distant misty mountains… Sadly we don’t see any of the famed Kashmiri goats, just a few disinterested sheep.
Next on our list is Llandudno Museum & Gallery, which celebrates its centenary next year. Its displays of social history trace the development of the town from Victorian resort through the 2nd World War to modern holiday town. As well as Angela (Nicest Girl in the School) Brazil’s bicycle, there’s an exhibition devoted to the history of Llandudno’s railway, including two 19th Century rail disasters.
With transport in mind, it seems a good time to say another word or two about the award-winning Daish’s. The company was started by Jeanne Wilson, who bought her first hotel on the Isle of Wight back in 1979 and then, six years later, her first coach. Now run by her two sons, Daish’s offers a range of self-drive and coach holidays.
The cliffs above Llandudno
“Nothing’s too much trouble”
Although two of our fellow passengers have their teenage daughters with them, most are older Daish devotees. Christine, for instance, has been on more of these trips than she can remember. “They’re value for money, aren’t they?” she says over her dinner of roast pork. “And the more you do, the better the value. They send you flyers with the latest offers, and if you can book quite last-minute, you can get some real bargains. In the winter, it can be cheaper than staying at home!”
“You can also do back-to-back trips with them,” says her sister Yvonne, just back from Switzerland where she celebrated her wedding anniversary. “And you don’t have to worry about driving on motorways or parking. It’s all done for you. And nothing’s too much trouble here at the hotel. The staff will do whatever you ask them to do. You’ve got everything on these trips.”
In some cases, that includes love. One late middle-aged couple who asked not to be named met on a Daish’s trip to Scarborough 18 months ago. “I just fell head over heels in love,” says ‘Elaine’, a divorcee. But with her living in North Yorkshire and ‘Paul’ in the West Midlands, chances for meeting up were limited – until they hit on the idea of booking regular Daish’s coach trip: half-a-dozen so far with plenty more lined up. “It’s just our way of being together,” she says. “I always feel sad when we have to part. But we text and talk all the time. And this way I know we’ll be seeing each other again very soon.”
As one of the songs on the coach put it: “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”.
Daish’s Holidays Ltd – daishs.com, run breaks from £259pp self-drive/£279pp coach to £569pp self-drive/£589pp coach, including bed, breakfast and evening meal and an optional day trip. Tel: 01202-638840
Llandudno TIC: Venue Cymru, The Promenade, Penrhyn Crescent, Llandudno, Conwy, LL30 1BB – https://bit.ly/4w8HRlG. Tel: 01492 577577
Clare is a journalist, former BBC Radio broadcaster and co-founder of the independent radio production company Pennine Productions. She and her national newspaper travel writer husband Stephen McClarence have been regular visitors to India for different work commissions.
Two years ago, their book, Teatime at Peggy’s: A Glimpse of Anglo-India, was published by Bradt: https://www.bradtguides.com/product/teatime-at-peggys/, and is now in its 2nd edition. They are currently working on a sequel.
Clare’s also written a number of books based on personal testimony, and is currently compiling an oral history of Sheffield Newspapers for Sheffield Archives and the British Library.
