Life at the Bay

Children are always stressing their parents about whether or not their friends will be attending summer camp with them. Most kids actually miss out on this incredible experience if they cannot be in the company of their buddies. This is unfortunate since there are so many benefits and opportunities that come with attending summer camp solo.    Here are 5 reasons why you should send your kids to summer camp solo: 1. Learn new skills solo The opportunity to learn new skills is always gaping at summer camp. However, it’s greater when you send your child to camp by himself/herself. When you send your children to camp solo, they are forced to try out multiple new things by themselves, without the influence of a friend. This opens a new door, allowing them to try things they never had before and possibly discover new skills and talents.    2. Shatter limitations When your child goes camping with a friend, they know that they always have someone to depend o...

One of the greatest concerns parents have, is based on what their kids are being fed at sleepover camp. Summer camp requires kids to be energetic and on-the-go all day long, therefore, kids need to be well-fed and eating fresh, healthy and balanced meals every day. Having been running successfully as a holiday camp for kids and teens for the past sixteen years, Sugar Bay Resort has specially designed their camp menu to serve fresh, healthy, balanced and hearty meals on a daily basis.    After some research, we have compared Sugar Bay Resort’s menu with other summer camps in the area and here are some interesting things that were noted;    Breakfast Menus: Breakfast is undoubtedly the most important meal of the day, and, at Sugar Bay Resort, campers are spoiled for choice. The camp works on a three-course system for breakfast and dinner. For example, there would be a starter option of cereal/yogurt/porridge/oats, the main course would be a warm meal such a...

In celebration of Sugar Bay’s super sweet sixteenth, Sugar Bay Directors, Zoe & Nic Ellender gifted camp with another fabulous feature, as they do every year.    This year, however, they felt generous and decided to gift Sugar Bay with not one, but two incredible features; 1. New Indoor Sports Hall  What was once just an empty, sheltered room with sports equipment was transformed into a brand new indoor sports hall. The Directors had a longing to renovate this space in order to accommodate outdoor sporting activities indoors on rainy days. The sports hall has been fitted with beautiful, marked sprung flooring, 25 by 15 meters in length and will be perfect to host a multitude of sporting activities and campers at once.    The new indoor sports hall will feature the following activities: Indoor climbing wall Indoor basketball Indoor soccer Indoor volleyball Indoor ultimate Frisbee In the pipelin...

We bid farewell to winter and promised that our August holiday camps were going to be amazing, and we delivered. We hosted four holiday camps which hosted a total of 351 campers. We stepped into spring in style as we always do, however, this year, by celebrating our super, sweet sixteenth at Sugar Bay!    X-Factor week : 6-13 August We rolled out the red carpet and gave all our 77 talented campers a platform to showcase their talents this week at camp. We hosted our very own version of the X-Factor, called the S-Factor at Sugar Bay, where campers competed for the ultimate prize of a free holiday camp to Sugar Bay. Our Sugar Bay Superstar was Shawn Li, who won the judges over with his spectacular break dancing. The campers participated in many fun activities integrated around the theme such as; Capturing the X-Factor, Lip Sync Battles, Carnival night, Karaoke, The S-Factor Show and a Red Carpet Party night and Awards evening. They also went on an exciting excursion to...

Summer is here and we're super excited! We've opened one holiday week for the upcoming October holidays and we're about to turn things upside down!    Upside-Down week: 1-8 October   Get ready to take a look at the world from a whole other perspective! Come join the madness as we switch up and turn things upside-down at Sugar Bay!    Highlights: Stunts & Skits Show Night (Instead of Skits & Stunts) Evening Programs held in the Morning Lunch for Dinner Wear your Clothes Inside-Out all week Inverted Party Night (Thursday instead of Friday) Excursion to Jump for Joy - Indoor Trampoline Arena How much will it cost to see things from another angle?     Book now & prepare to turn things upside-down!    Become a subscriber to our Sugar Bay YouTube Channel and check out our Holiday Camp Highlights to get you excited for this camp.

We caught up with one of Sugar Bay’s very first counselors, “Hoova”, formally known as Baden Dowie. Hoover was with us for seven years and helped turn the Sugar Bay dream, into a reality. This fun and fantastic counselor is now happily married for seven years to Catherine Dowie, and they are parents to three children; Jack (4), Mackenzie (2) and Ewan (6 months).    Q & A with Hoova – Baden Dowie 1. How did your journey at camp begin? “ I arrived at Nic and Zoe’s home one rainy Sunday morning in March 2001. I turned up with a backpack, guitar and in an insecure, playful, bold and nervous twenty-year-old body. However, so excited to be part of building South Africa's first American styled children's holiday camp. Sugar Bay was just a construction site when I arrived; there was only an empty hall, steal frame structures, no pool, no grass on the sports field and no cabins either. I was privileged to have seen camp in its early stage. I worked at camp full time fr...

Having turned the dream of creating a ‘children’s paradise’ into a successfully running business, Sugar Bay’s Founding Director, Zoë Ellender, shares why the benefits of American summer camps inspired her to start her very own camp in South Africa. “As a child, I was given a lot of opportunities to go on holiday which didn’t require spending a lot of money. We would go to our grandparents on a little farm in the Free State, in Clocolan, which is along the Lesotho border. I would be surrounded by my older cousins who were great role models and we would be busy from sunrise to sunset; climbing mountains, building forts, jumping off cliffs and just going on escapades. When I began soul searching after realizing I was unhappy in my legal career, I cast my thoughts back to these moments in my life when I was happiest. I began recapturing my youth and parts of these holiday experiences. This is how my love for camp began, in a healthy environment, without any distractions, ...