days out

A family trip to Warwick Castle and our tips for a great day out 7

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e also did Merlin’s Tower, which was short, but AMAZING and the boys were smiling about it for the rest of the day and still keep telling everyone about it.

The adventure playground is great and perfect for larger children, not just the littlest one.

We had a great day, the only down sides for us where that we couldn’t fit it all in and that the food and service at the Coach House Family Restaurant was really poor. Our meals were not brought out together and everyone had finished before mine was delivered to the table, inspite of us asking where it was three times (it was only soup and a roll, so I do not understand why it was so hard). It was even more infuriating, as there was only three tables in use and all the rest were left with the detritus of precious visitors.
Our Top Tips

Get their early and book your tickets (free but timed entry) for any thing like the Princess Tower
Do the same for any paid activities, including Merlin Tower and the Dungeons.
Buy a refillable hot drink voucher. It was £7, but my boys love hot chocolate and it cost £2.25, so soon paid for itself with that and our teas and coffees.
See the free shows, they really make the castle come to life.
You can not do it all in one day if you see the shows. We didn’t get to do the dungeons or the Kingmaker exhibition, but are looking forward to returning
Book in advance online, that way you get a discount.
Keep an eye out for the special events online – We are really looking forward to the Horrible Histories Stormin Summer event, which runs from 20th July to 1st September.

Tips for LEGOLAND WIndsor with 7 and 8 year old 10

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We love LEGO and we are also huge fans o0f LEGOLAND. We go to the LEGOLAND Windsor once a year and Maxi and I were lucky enough to visit Legoland Florida earlier in the year too. On Fathers Day The Mad Blog Awards hosted their first #MadDayOut at LEGOLAND Windsor and we were lucky enough to be asked to come along and help at the event.

My boys are 132cm and 127 cm, so can go on every ride. Maxi, who is the taller child can go on them all independently. Mini can go on most independently, but needs to be accompanied by an adult on some of the others. We were also gifted a gold VIP wrist band, which I believe is the equivalent of a Q-BOT Ultimate. This meant that we skipped the queue on every ride. We managed to go on every ride in the p-ark in one day and there were no queues! Was it worth it? Well once both the boys are over 130cm we will buy then a Q-BOT Ultimate each, as it made the day so much more special and as a trip to LEGOLAND is a once a year thing for us I would rather save up and do it in style.

So What are our top tips for making the most out of your visit to LEGOLAND?

Get there early – The park opens for general visitors at 10am. Get there early for the park opening. It is quietest first thing on a morning.
Pick up a lost parent wrist band at the beginning of the park (Guest Services). These are invaluable. There are a lo0t of children and it is easy to lose one as Penny will tell you.
Head for the rear of the park first. The most popular rides are driving school and boating school, so it pays to get the queuing out of the way first and we found the queues much less on a morning. We start at the back and work our way forward.
If you stay in the LEGOLAND Hotel you get access to Atlantis 30 minutes early.
Be prepared to get wet. Splash rides include Pirate Falls Dynamite Drench, SQUID Surfer and Vikings River Splash. We use poncho’s to ensure that we have dryish clothes!
Take swim wear or UV wear for children. The new DUPLO Splash Valley and Drench Towers is a superb water area with slides, fountains, water guns and much more. There is a toddler area and an older child area. It is great fun and perfect for when your children are flagging. We managed to both grab a cup of tea whilst the boys made the most of the water.
There can be a lot of walking and waiting, so if you have a buggy take it. Even if your child doesn’t normally use it.
Make use of all your time. We stayed till closing time, a lot of people leave earlier so the queues get shorter.
Turn up for the Pirate of skeleton bay show early (20 mins approx before the start) and put down a picnic blanket a little to the right of the control booth on the corner. The show is brilliant and will be enjoyed by all. The harbour coffee shop does starbucks quality lattes. Even better this is the perfect place and time to have your lunch in front of the show, its fab! And bring a picnic as food is ridiculously expensive.

Ways to keep costs down

Take a packed lunch. There are areas for eating your packed lunch or snacks. You can also go back to the car to get it. There are also lockers at the beginning if you want to store your bags, but they do not refund your coins.
Kids eat free after 3pm in certain restaurants
Get a refillable drink for £7, especially if it is warm. You can use the drinks bottle once you get home too.
Get the shopping over with at the beginning. Set a budget and make sure you stick to it! You can also leave your purchases their to collect on your way home.
Keep an eye out for 2 for 1 deals by search on line.
If you are travelling the park have an affiliation with a number of hotels and you can get your second day free. It is worth checking out booking both hotel and park entrance with these hotels.
We had THE best time, in fact Mini called it Epic. To see more pictures why not take a look at our LEGOLAND 2013 Google+ picture album

Tips for visiting Thorpe Park from Cass at Frugal Family 3

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We are booked to spend the weekend at Thorpe Park this weekend and Cass at Frugal Family visited with her family a couple of weeks ago, so I asked her to let me know what I needed and her tips. She was also kind enough to pop them in a blog post to share with you too!

The frugals at Thorpe Park

When I heard that Jen and the boys were off to Thorpe park this weekend, I was so pleased for them as we had a lovely weekend there a few weeks ago.

We planned our trip carefully as we wanted to get the most out of the weekend and I had loads to tell Jen about what she needed to do when she got there. Being a typical blogger, Jen told me to write her a post about what she should be planning for so here you go….

Before you go, make sure you’re getting the best deal possible as there’s lots of offers out there at the minute – Friij, Coke and using your Tesco vouchers are the main ones that I know of at the minute.

Getting there is really easy which is always a bonus when travelling with children! I know that Jen is driving down from the North East but we went by train which meant we arrived at Staines train station. There’s a bus that runs about regularly between the train station and Thorpe Park which costs £3.50 per adult return or £2.50 per child return. If you’d prefer though, you can get a taxi which is £2.50 each way (minimum of four passengers).

When you get to the park and you’re through the gates there’s a brilliant locker room downstairs in the dome where you can store your belongings in a large locker for £1.00. I had an empty carrier in my handbag so I literally took out everything that wasn’t essential for the day, popped it in the carrier and left it in the locker. There’s nothing worse than wandering around with a heavy bag!

If you’ve bought the fast track passes (which are excellent) make sure you know the time slots that you need to be at each of the rides and plan your visit around that because some of them are quite far away from each other.

One thing to be aware of are the height restrictions in place at Thorpe park as the minimum height restriction for the larger rides is 1.4m – very sensible decision to me looking at the scare factor of the rides but very unfair in the eyes of an eight year old who is just under the height and had to watch as his dad and sister went on some of the rides without him. I think the height restriction is higher here than in some parks we’ve been to but the rides are in a different class to the ones we’ve seen before. There’s plenty for all ages to go on though so don’t worry if your children are under that height – it really is just the larger rides they won’t be able to go on.

We saved a fortune buying two refillable drinks for £6 which we shared between us and carried round all day getting them filled from time to time. We also took a picnic to eat which would have been great as there were lots of places we could have sat except we ate it on the train on the way!

Oh, another thing. You get very, very wet on the water rides so it’s worth having a few pound coins so you can use the dryer things that they have near each ride. I would usually say that things like this are a waste of money but they were great and stopped any whinges about being wet.

If you’re staying at the Crash Pad, make sure you book a table for tea – we forgot to and the only bookings left when we arrived at 7pm to eat were for 9pm. Luckily the coffee shop sold some rather delicious carrot cake so we weren’t that gutted that we had to wait 😉

Also, make sure you take advantage of the early entry into the park if you are staying at the Crash Pad – the staff are great and literally start the ride as soon as you get strapped in so you can take full advantage of the 20 minutes or so before the park officially opens.

The App is great too – it tells you what the current queuing times for each ride are so don’t forget to download that before you go.

I can’t think of anything else but I’m sure Jen will have lots more to tell you when she gets back.

Have fun x x

I have to say we only told the MiniMads of our trip last night and they were jumping around with excitement If you have been I would love to know your top tips and be prepared to see lots of pictures and tweets marked #ThorpeParkMums over this weekend!

Eureka Children’s Museum 10

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This weekend we went to visit Eureka. It’s the National Children’s Museum in Halifax, West Yorkshire. We were given the tickets by Money Supermarket Vouchers in conjunction with the Tots100 before Christmas and had intended to visit over the festive period, but flu and colds put paid to that and then the snow cam and today was the first day we could venture further than our village school!

Chester Zoo – #Dinosbiteback 4

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We are great lovers of Dinosaurs and this year Chester Zoo have a new exhibition featuring 19 amazing life-like robotic replicas of the creatures that roamed the earth 200 million years ago, including the giant Brachiosaurus, the iconic Stegosaurus and the infamous Tyrannosaurus Rex.

You get to roam round the fantastic exhibition at your own pace and there are superb Presenter-saurus (staff) who make the experience even better. Even better is that entry is included in your zoo admission price.

Wizzarding Week at The National Railway Museum York 6

 in days out  tagged days out / railway museum / things to do in york for six year olds / Top tips for visiting the National Railway Museum York / York by

What could be better for my train loving boys than a Harry potter themed half term at The National Railway Museum in York. We are regular visitors to both the York site and the Locomotion site at Shildon and love the specials that they put on over the holidays.

This half term is especially fun, as Mini loves Harry Potter and is a big fan and they have the Outon Hall, the steam train which was used in the Harry Potter filmns running for rides and we even cat in one of the carriages used in the film too.

Half term at the National Railway Museum York 6

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We are no strangers to the National Railway Museum in York, in fact I visited the NRM this time last year with Sandy and her boys from Baby Baby.

This half term the museum is celebrating Big fun with little trains and we were given the opportunity to have a look round and experience some of the attractions with the boys. Entry to the Museum is free and parking is around £10 for the day and you really do not need to spend anymore than that if you take a picnic with you. There are places both indoors and outdoors for you to eat any picnic you might take, which is what we usually do.

However, this time we were treated to a free meal in the restaurant, which was a little hit and miss. We made sure we got the restaurant early as the queues can be terrible, so were served pretty quickly, however, MadDad’s cobbler wasn’t all that nice and had quite a bit of gristle in it. The boys and I had fishcakes and they were really nice, but I would expect no less when paying £7.99 for an adults meal and £5.99 for a children s meal, plus drinks. The boys also had a chocolate muffin each, which I paid for at just under £5 for the two. The tea in the restaurant is great, as it is made with real leaves and teapots, so right up my street.

There is something for every age this half term at the museum. If you have younger children there is a hands on Chuggington area, where they can play with the range of toys and have loads of fun. even my boys at 5 and 6 enjoyed it.

There are loads of model railways dotted around the Great Hall and the volunteers and demonstrators are really knowledgeable and really talk to the children a

Let’s go hero, the new Ben 10 Ultimate Mission at Drayton Manor 5

 in days out  tagged Ben 10 Chaos Coaster / Day out / drayton manor / things to do with children by

The boys were super impressed with the Ben 10 Chaos Coaster. What is it with children, especially small ones, they always seem to want to go on rides that are far too scary or just safe for them to go on. My boys have no understanding of fear. I am not sure they have yet learned that emotions. So were delighted to find out that you can go on the ride as long as you are over 90 centimeters and can go on independently sans adult once you are 1.1 meters

It is a really super ride and Pippa has an explanation of the techical name for the ride on her blog A mothers Ramblings and she has a great video of the children and their verdicts. We also managed to get a phot of Sally and Flea from Who’s the mummy? on the coaster.

My boys verdict? Well the fact that they have asked everyday since if they can go back again, I would say it is a big huge thumbs up.

Disclosure: we received free entry to Drayton Manor Park and access to the Ben10 Ultimate Alien Mission ride for the purposes of this post. The boys also received a great goody bag including a Ben10 jacket . MadDad and I recei

The National Railway Museum York

 in day trips / days out / National Railway Museum / NRM York by

I have had a lovely day this week at the NRM in York with MadDad and the boys.  We were lucky enough to be able to meet up with Sandy and her boys too. The NRM in York is a fantastic day out for anyone who has children, especially ones like me who have children that love trains.  As you would expect the museum is jam packed full of trains, but there is so much more to see and do, especially if it is raining. The museum always make sure that half term and school holidays are jam packed with family events and we had great fun watching the turntable work […]

Wonderful Whitby Abbey

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We are lucky enough to live a mere 20 minutes away from Whiby and thankfully the boys love the place as much as MadDad and I do.  We take every opportunity to escape the humdrum and melt in to the old fashioned perfectness of Whitby, but we don’t often go to the Abbey, in fact I can not remember the last time we went. So on Friday as the sun was shining, school had not yet started and MAdDad was off, plus we were looking after my 5 year old niece (as her Nanna is terminally ill), so we decided Whitby was where we were going. We loved it, yes it […]

Stape – Our Secret Place

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I have blogged before about our secret favorite place.  Well we have been back and it was magical as always. The water was lower and my Niece took a tumble, but all we could here were the birds and the slow, slow trickle of water. We drank tea from the flask and water and I drunk in the boys playing together, imagination running wild and Enid Blyton childhood I want for them. Long may it continue.

Ambling at Amble

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Amble is a real gem, a small fishing village on the Northumberland coast, with a brill rocky area, which is great for playing, rock pooling and jumping on and a small secluded beach too. We had the whole beach and rock area to ourselves and enjoyed a pleasant morning.  I had a great time taking photo’s of the rocks, the wonderful amazing patterns that the sea makes on them.  Next time I will be taking paper and crayons to take rubbings of the rocks.

Sunderland International Airshow 2010

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What a weekend, what a fantastic time we have all had.  This was my first experience of the Sunderland International Airshow and I can safely say we will be there next year.   We went on Saturday with mum and found a great spot on the promenade grass for us all to sit.  We packed a picnic and flasks and drinks and had a super afternoon watching all the planes.   Mum took the boys to the beach and they made a volcano and sandcastles and I went down to join them before the tide came in. Sunderland Airshow i Europe’s largest free airshow and all you pay for is parking at the […]

Legoland July 2010 – Top Tips

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A couple of weeks back we took the boys on what appears to be an annual trip to legoland, so here are my top tips: Use Tesco vouchers to pay for your entrance tickets, or keep an eye out on the two for one deals. Pack hats and sun screen! Arrive early, the park opens at 10am, but the shop and entrance open earlier, avoid the queue and turn up early. Pick up a lost parent sticker at the guest services area. Start a back of the park and work forward, this way you will get on more rides. Take a picnic – the food in the park is overpriced and […]

Mini Makes Music

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As you know the boys stayed at my mothers on Saturday night and when I went to pick them up yesterday we decided to go to the beach and have a picnic in a nearby park with my Niece.  Little did we realise there was a council run event on at the park and it turned out to be a wonderful afternoon. There as a wonderful couple who had a load of drums and were showing the children how to play them and Mini had a fab time. He managed to keep in time (most of the time) and really didn’t want to stop.  My niece also loved it.  Maxi decided […]

Flamingoland 2010

 in 4th Birthday / day trips / days out / Flamingo Land / minimad by

We all had a fantastic day out at Flamingoland last week for Mini’s birthday.  I used my Tesco vouchers, but was really disappointed to discover that this arrangement ends in July, which would mean that it would be £90.00 to get in to. The beauty of Flamingoland for us, is the variety, there are some wonderful animals.  We had a great time watching the sealion show and I could watch the mearcats all day.  Look at the camels in the photo, I had no idea that they moulted their coats. As we took the boys out of school for the day (we also took Maxi’s best friend), it was pretty quiet, […]

Half Term Highlights 3

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Today is an teacher training day, so we are off to spend the day with Grandma, original plans had to be changed due to the weather, but we have had a fantastic half term break, the weather has been mostly kind and it has been so much fun watching the boys play together. Our Fab day at Emma Bridgewater Baking our best in the world oat and raisin cookies Spending time together just chilling in the garden Watching our veg plants grow, the warm weather has made a real difference Having fun in the paddling pool Good job the neighbours don’t mind the boys running around naked Visiting Whiby with Grandma and having […]

Emma Bridgewater – Factory Tour, Part One

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Part OneWe had a fantastic day out at The Emma Bridgewater Factory on Tuesday to celebrate their 25th Birthday.  We started the day in the newly refubished cafe area of the factory for a tea and coffee and to meet my fellow bloggers.  Josie at Sleep is for the Weak, Becky at English Mum with her two boys (who were a real pleasure), Racheal from Tales from the  Village and we also made a new friend in Kate from Kitchen Critic.  There was this fantastic Aga, I was salivating! It is such a lovely relaxing area to meet and have a good old chat with everyone. We were then taken on […]