West Wittering Beach

We had another fantastic day on stunning West Wittering beach, however, the food we bought at The Beach Cafe was very disappointing. After a long wait in the cafe queue £26.70 bought us 3 sandwiches, 2 sausage rolls 2 coffees & some crisps. The sandwiches & sausage rolls were made with the poorest quality ingredients and were quite disgusting.
The staff were all working really hard & appeared to be doing a good job during this very busy time.
Sadly we will not be visiting the cafe again, there’s no excuse for serving this awful food, how disappointing & a missed opportunity to serve food to be proud of.

West Wittering is a beautiful stretch of beach. We came for a walk.

The dunes are a lovely place to visit.

Too many dogs - not controlled on short leads as requested - but this is something you get everywhere unfortunately. No one seems to want to enforce it. Dogs running wild and going to the toilet all over the place.

Take your own food. We got caught out. Purchased two very bland but expensive chicken and tuna sandwiches. With crisps, an average sausage roll and two drinks we ended up paying over £20.

Another food stand served fish and chips but the queue was over thirty people deep.

I would recommend they sort it out and organise a proper food offering if the beach is going to welcome thousands of visitors during the summer.

Parking is expensive. £9 flat fee. Fine for all day visits but not for a couple of hours.

Arrived at 1pm after having paid £9 online for a prebooked parking space. We only went as we’d read on the website that parking in the beach car park had been reduced to 2,500 cars (half capacity) to allow for social distancing, you weren’t meant to be able to enter the car park unless you’d prebooked. There must easily have been 5,000-6,000 cars in the car park and as you entered there were signs indicating you could actually pay at the gate. Got on the beach and it was RAMMED, no social distancing, people sitting next to each other like sardines in a tin. Admittedly this was partly because it was high tide and all that was left was the pebble part of the beach, but it was also because the information on the website was misleading and as many cars as possible were being let in. Sat down on one of the small areas of pebbles that were still available and discovered there were swarms of hundreds of flies on the seaweed that went crazy every few seconds and buzzed around everyone. Everyone else on the beach seemed quite content to be packed like sardines in the middle of a pandemic with hundreds of flies buzzing around them but we were off within 10 minutes. I would’ve given zero stars if I’d had the option to do so. Shocking, money-making rip-off by whoever owns the car park and the beach rammed with irresponsible people who seem to think there’s no pandemic anymore

I have been to this beach on a few occasions, the parking has to every booked beforehand and there is no entry unless it’s booked prior (I had to book a week in advance). There isn’t really anywhere else to park locally, so it’s imperative this is sorted before visiting.

Make sure you bring all your bits and pieces (food wise) beforehand as there is very limited refreshments etc.

There is one toilet which I’m aware of but is usually not very clean.

That being said, the actual beach is wonderful. The water is lovely and the sand dunes are great to walk along.

After booking an £8 car slot for Thursday Aug 20th we drove 1hr 20mins from Hove only to arrive to a totally packed beach. Thousands of cars and even more people. It was like arriving at a music festival. There was virtually no room on the beach at all, with thousands of families all crammed in all along the beach. They claim that they are only 50% capacity due to the pandemic (which is why we booked) but this can not be true. After walking around the headland at East Head, we noticed loads of people had pitched up in the roped off (protected) sand dunes, with no body to tell them otherwise. I understand that they probably need to make some money but this was a very bad experience for a day out.

Agree with previous reviews - a spontaneous day at the beach has vanished due to the booking system. I see the point on school holidays and summer weekends - but mid-week out of school holiday season? WTF? Plus why make it so stupidly expensive? Due to the cost you feel compelled to stay there just so you can get some value for money. I think places like this need to take a hard look at how greedy they really need to be. Not all of us can afford such stupid prices just to park a car for a rare day out in almost 2 years.

On an October afternoon we were looking for something to do the kill an hour or two on a Sunday afternoon. So we drove the 20 mins or so from where we were staying. We arrived at about 2:30, but were still expected to pay the £4 day rate even though it was October and would be dark in a few hours, so we obviously weren't going to be there long.
In it's defence it is undoubtedly the best beach in both West and East Sussex, but even so feel it a bit extortionate to charge a full day price for the parking for a couple of hours in October.

Great Beach with plenty of space to spread out , the Blue flag area can be busy but easy enough to walk further along with less crowds. During covid the car park is pre bookable, would recommend you do this as they will not allow you in if fully booked. Some facilities have been reduced but there is still a café . Very clean

We loved our trip here even though it rained half the day! What a lovely beach it is and also nice that it is just a beach (+ cafe, shop, takeaway) and no distractions of fairground rides etc. We will be back. You need to pre-book parking via the Justpark app if you go, you can't just turn up.

Everytime we have visited this beach we have to wait 2 hours or more due to the amount of cars waiting to get in.

So having decided since lockdown to change to pre book system this has made the experience coming here so must stress free.There are signs all along the way to say either the beach is full or to pre pay before you visit.Despite this there were a few idiots that turned up only to be turned away again.

This beach is the best in the UK and is a dogs paradise as there is a designated part of the beach where dogs are allowed.

The beach opens from 08:30 till 8:30pm but you need to state on the booking what start time and end time as there are patrols which keep an eye out.

A great day out with plenty of facilities and snack bars around.