Alton Towers

Sunday saw us going to Alton Towers, with our free tickets from 'The Sun'. We were all very excited and the journey down was filled with, " Do you want to go on ... Ben?" by a very excited Megan. Being that it was the weekend and a lovely warm day, Alton Towers was busy. Lots of people, lots of queues. This didn't bother us too much as we were heading for the smaller rides.

We started in Storybook land where we met the animals, spent an exciting 10 minutes in the berry bash, firing soft balls at each other and everyone else! We had a tractor ride, went for a relaxing boat ride, (Barnyard I Spy) and our favourite in Storybook Land, the Nutty Squirrel Ride, where you travel through the trees in a little 'car'.

When we left Storybook Land, we stopped to recharge our batteries and have our picnic.

We then jumped on the sky ride over to Cloud cuckoo land. This caused massive excitement from Megan and Ben, as they loved the view over the park from so high up.  Our first stop was Charlie and the chocolate factory ride.  Megan was very nervous of this as she hadn't been on it before and is very wary of the unknown.  However, she was pleasantly surprised as there was nothing too 'jumpy' about it. Ben particularly enjoyed the end of the ride where you feel like you are travelling in the great glass elevator. When I talked to Megan about it after we came out, she was really surprised when I told her that we hadn't moved and it was the effects on the walls that gave the illusion of movement and the feeling that we were shooting up and down.

Our next stop was the 4d cinema, showing ice age 4. Having just been to Legoland last week we were all excited to experience another 4d cinema experience.  The special effects included snow, dinosaur snot and spit, (lovely!) Cold winds, and things grabbing your legs, which scared me beyond belief!  Ben found the whole thing a bit overwhelmingly and sat on my knee throughout, hiding when the dinosaurs roared loudly, but claimed he did like it afterwards!
Megan really enjoyed it, even though she clutched daddy's hand all the way through!

We went on the carousel, another family favourite, before heading towards Mutiny Bay.

Megan and Ben went on the pirate ships with daddy.  On these, you have to fire a water 'cannon' at other people on other boats, with an added bonus that people can fire cannons from the sides at the boats too! Needless to say, all three got absolutely soaked! They all loved it though and wanted to go on again. 
Unfortunately we were rapidly running out of time as the rides were all closing at 5pm, so we decided to go on the grand canyon rapids.  This time I got wet and the 'three wet ones' got even wetter!

Our last stop was the sealife aquarium.  I really like going in here, even though it is quite small, as it has a great variety of creatures. Both children loved the sea creatures, especially the sea horses, sharks and sting rays  and had a handle of shrimps which 'tickled'!

When we came out of the aquarium, we had an ice cream and headed towards the monorail and home.

A really lovely day, which we all enjoyed!

Ben even took the map into playgroup today and told everyone about his day out and what he had gone on!