I would like to start by saying that this place is more suited to take kids on a picnic, because of the variety of attraction and amenities available.But at the same time it may not interest the grown ups as the place lacks in beauty, even the beach is not that great.
The first time I went there I was kid, 6-7 years old and I really enjoyed it. Entry to the place is by means of ticket and the place is near the meting point of veli-sankhumukhan road and veli perumathura road, almost near the kochuveli station.
The tourist village consist of a picnic spot and garden, there is large sculpture of a reclining women made by kanahi kunhiraman in the lawn of the picnic spot, there are also gooses and smaller birds near the garden. One corner of the picnic spot has a man made pond, there is large structure of a conch in this pond, when I went there the first time there were small pedal boats for kids in it and me and my cousin had a trip around the pond, but when I went there currently that was not present and also the pond was filed with plastic bottles on one side, it was sorry sight.
There is a restaurant and various other smaller eateries here, the restaurant on the first floor is of poor quality. You could get packaged snacks and ice creams from the various smaller shops.
One side of the picnic spot is the lake and boating is available here. There are speed boats and larger boat that takes on a trip across the lake. there are also pedal boats on rent. The area by the side of the pond has now benches facing the lake and you can sit by here. he breeze is quite soothing.
Another side of the spot is the beach, you have to walk through a floating bridge to get here, after crossing the bridge on the way to each there are couple of horses available to e ridden, kids will surely enjoy this. The beach is also quite okay, during low tide there is quite some beach front available and you can spent time here. There are couple of shops here, they sell tender coconut and also packaged drinks and snacks.
Near the side of the floating bridge there is a floating restaurant run by ktdc(kerala torism development corporation), menu is limited, when we went there was only tea and sandwiches.
Overall this is good picnic spot to take your kids, if you go in the afternoon you can spent some quality time till evening.