Cavendish Beach

Very lovely park- we were taken there on a bus tour. It's really scenic but do NOT be stupid and go over the fences! People have died here as the cliffs are unstable. Take your pictures from BEHIND the safety rail.

Cavendish Beach is located inside of Prince Edward Island National Park. For Canada's 150th anniversary, visits to all parks are free in 2017. We visited this place as a part of our pre-arranged excursion through Disney Cruise Line. We were here on October 24, 2017. The weather was great here on that day, as temperatures were in the low 70s at the time and was sunny and not humid.

Since we were there in late October, the beaches and other amenities here had already closed for the season. However, that was quite fine. There was a lot of beauty to take in while visiting. You can see the red clay, dunes, and the cliffs that are part of this place. This beach is along the shore of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Although many things were closed, there was a wealth of knowledge here too. There were informational signs about Cavendish Beach, the sand dunes, the sandstone foundation of the grounds there, and so forth. I personally did not try to feel the water to gauge how cold it was, but others did and they said there was a bit of a chill, but not bad.

Overall, this was a nice beach to visit. It wasn't too crowded since it was just our bus that was there at the time. There were a few other buses coming in as we were getting ready to leave for our next stop on the tour. If you are in the area, it is definitely worth visiting Prince Edward Island National Park and Cavendish Beach.

This summer we visited Cavendish Beach as part of a weekend side trip to PEI (we were visiting family in New Brunswick). I had hear lots of nice things about the beach, but little did I know it was part of a really cool national park! I'd love to come back on a future trip and explore other areas, and maybe even camp.

The beach is pretty no frills: a big parking lot, a small bathroom/shower/change room area with adjacent canteen, and a big boardwalk leading down to the beach. Perfect for a low key beach day. The beach itself is wide and sandy. The day we visited in late July was busy but not terribly so. There was still lots of place for everyone to do their own thing.

This was my favorite place to hike on the whole island. Multiple trails with different landscape. Really a beautiful day.

Deducted a star because the bathrooms were all locked. I'm not sure if that was in response to Covid or it being later in the season (October), but it made it difficult to stay as long as we would have liked. If you walk around the back of the bathrooms on one of the trails it was evident people were just going outside, with lots of dirtied tissue paper on the ground. Pretty gross. Not sure how locking the bathrooms solves anything as people obviously found a way to "go" anyway. We ended up driving to the Green Gables Heritage Site to use their bathroom.

The beach and dunes were beautiful. The beach was very crowded but we were still able to enjoy our time there.

I can't swim, and I haven't owned a bathing suit since high school, so I don't often go to beaches. However, I love to be near the water, and the weather on our PEI vacation was perfect, so we stopped in at Cavendish Beach.

A lot has changed since I was a wee lass and the beach was ... just a beach. Now it has real washrooms, a canteen (not open when we were there because off-season), bike racks and real boardwalks. You can go straight down to the beach or skirt along the edge on the dunes. Mike and I took off our socks and shoes and went on the sand.

The nice thing about going to touristy places in the off-season is fewer people. There were some families on towels and in the water, but only a few. The bad thing is that it's too cold to really enjoy the water. Mike stuck his feet in and quickly turned blue. :-D I don't know how the others were able to frolic in the freezing Atlantic.

The sand was warm between our toes, but holy seaweed, Batman. It was everywhere and difficult to avoid. And of course it attracts All The Flies, so they were everywhere as well. Still, during the summer proper Cavendish Beach is a great place to enjoy the sand and surf.

It is a nice small beach. When I visited, it was on a weekday and it was literally empty.
There are some fields around it, but other than that it really is just a beach, nothing much.