Hogwarts in the Snow - Our Family Visit to Warner Bros. Studio Tour

Last weekend we went up to Hertfordshire to visit my husbands parents and seeing as we were in the area we thought it really was high time that we visited the Warner Brothers Studio Tour again. After all, who doesn't love Harry Potter? The tour is advertised as being in London but it is actually on the outskirts of Watford and for me as a local of 15 years that will always be Hertfordshire. Not that it matters it just means it is super accessible by public transport from central London as well as being close to major roads such as the M25, A1M, M1 and M11.

It really is the easiest place to get to and with the brown attraction signs everywhere, you'll have no trouble. The parking lot is also enormous and has no charge which makes a nice change from many of the major UK attractions.You also do not get any traffic jams heading in and out, well we haven't on the two occasions we have visited and we went on weekends at peak times. 

The last time we visited was about two and a half years ago and I wondered how much would have changed but actually I can fully advocate a second visit as many things had changed and of course there is also the special Hogwarts in the Snow Christmas feature running at the moment, from Saturday 19th November 2016 to Sunday 29th January 2017. I notice that most of December is already sold out, so if you fancy going, get in quick and book your January tickets now.

Kidzania - A Kids Paradise in London's Westfield Centre

I've been dealing with a very tired 9 year old today, she didn't get to sleep until gone 11pm last night and now she is jumpy and hyper-sensitive. Thank the Lord that our 1pm arrival time has come around for entry into Kidzania as she may now finally calm down a little and settle in to her afternoon of fun!

At the beginning of the year my 9 year old twin girls came to Kidzania with their school class and loved it. It was all they talked about for a couple of weeks. So when it got close to JJ's 13th birthday and he said he fancied a visit too, I jumped at Kidzania's offer to host our family on a date of our choice. We visited on Saturday 8th October for the 4 hour slot commencing at 1pm and I expected it to be heaving but thankfully I was wrong (although the girls tell me it was busier than the school day they had last visited).

Arrival

As our tickets had been booked in advance for us we had printed tickets and this meant we could head straight inside Kidzania and go up the three floor to the British Airways departure lounge. Check-in was easy and the member of staff very smiley and friendly, he certainly knew how to relate to kids. He checked if the kids had any allergies or additional needs and fitted us all with a security bracelet. This meant the kids couldn't leave without my husband or myself and it also acts as a location tracker.

They were handed 50 kidZos each (money just available for the children to earn and spend in Kidzania) and the girls explained to their brother how he earns or spent them. Miss E had saved some KidZos from her previous visit and thus had enough to open a bank account if she wanted. This was the cause of great excitement.

Shrek's Adventure! comes to the South Bank

If you are a fan of the Shrek films then this new major attraction on London's South Bank is sure to delight you. It is different to any other attraction I've ever visited in the UK and reminds me of a mix-up of a theme park, Ripley's Believe or Not and Madam Tussuad's all rolled into one.

After slowly plodding along the South Bank in a crowd so thick we had to hold tightly onto our children we were super pleased to see that the queue for Shrek's Adventure! was very short. I assume this is because it only opened on 1st July and perhaps it is not as well known yet as the other Merlin attractions like the London Dungeon that had an appalling queue. You can pre-book or turn up and pay but the attraction is timed and as it gets busier you would have a longer wait from buying your ticket to the time of entry I expect.

The Excitement is Building for Shrek's Adventure! London

My kids are starting to get really excited. You would think that I might have learnt by now, not to tell them we are going somewhere amazing until the day we are due to go but I can't keep the surprise and I love to see their excitement. I just find it a bit hard to put up with the constant questions for over two weeks!

Have you heard there is a new family attraction opening on the South Bank, London? Right by the aquarium and Coca Cola London Eye there will be Shrek's Adventure! - a unique walk and ride attraction for the whole family. Step into the kingdom of Far Far Away and enjoy a brand new madcap Shrek adventure where amazing DreamWorks animation, captivating story-telling and a good dose of Donkey’s cheekiness awaits.

View from the Shard, London - A Review

View from Borough Market (which is well worth a visit too)

Last Saturday I got to spend a lovely day in London with my long-term friend Kate, as part of that day we headed to the London Bridge Quarter to visit the View from the Shard. If you have not been to the London Bridge Quarter since the Shard opened in February 2013 then I'd highly recommend a visit as the £2b regeneration project is working miracles and it is such a fun and interesting area to visit. 

The 1016ft Shard has become an icon of the London skyline and it stands taller than anything else in our country, in fact anything else in the European Union. As you stand at the bottom and look up you get a real sense of its height and I have to admit I was feeling a tad nervous about travelling up it, would my ears pop? would I feel sick? or might I even not be able to look at the view for fear of vertigo? How silly I was, the two lift rides up to the 69th floor viewing platform are super smooth and yes I felt the need to release my ears but there was no pain or fear. You feel completely safe and looked after.

Dear So and So - The Girlie Day in London Edition

Dear Kate,

It was so fabulous to spend the day with you Saturday, I can't believe it is nearly two years since we have last seen each other. That is when you can tell a great friend, when you can just pick up and act as if we last caught up yesterday.

Uni pals rock, Mich xx

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London - Great for the family

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that I love to get the family out to explore new places. We don’t have to go anywhere fancy or spend loads of money, the fun for us is in the discovering something new and exploring where we have not been before.

Or in this case where some of us have been before. Last weekend on my birthday we headed along to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London. This of course is the home of the London Olympic games from 2012 and my husband and children all went to watch one of the Paralympic events whilst I was at work back in 2012.

They reliably inform me that whilst a couple of landmarks still remain and mean they can recognise this as the Olympic site generally the park has undergone such a massive redevelopment that is really is very different. One of the great legacies of having the Olympics here means that the area is very easy to access by public transport and there is also a massive multi-story car park, so you can travel in whatever way suits you. The Westfield shopping centre is also right on the parks doorstep and there is something there for everyone, what a wonderful cornucopia of shops, restaurants, street performers, fun activities and relaxing space.

First off there is no fee to enter the park and you can spend as much or as little time there as a you fancy. We arrived about 3pm and stayed until near 8pm and in that time we hardly even touched the surface of what is available, so I will happily go back again.

I often think that pictures tell a better story than words, so let me share with you some of the sights of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. First, the dancing fountains, which children were having so much fun with and there was plenty of bench seating around the outside for the adults. As the day was a bit chilly and we did not come prepared with towels our kids stayed pretty dry and had fun avoiding the water sprays!

The park itself is a visual feast, between all the enormous buildings that housed the games you have walkways that have beautiful planting and interesting things to look at - walls with blocks that turn, large wooden sun loungers and interactive areas where you can learn about some of the medals that were won by Team GB in the games.

Such a lovely birthday spending time with my family and I had the most delicious piece of banana cake and latte from one of the stalls selling food at the park. Of course they were not cheap, but I didn't really expect them to be here and JJ was super happy with his Nutella waffle, which set me back £4.00.

We found two good play areas as we explored, one right by the main heart of the park (close to the original stadium) and this had a variety of climbing areas, swings, slides, climbing walls and a fab sandpit.

The second one was a much further walk (down the canal, over the road and past the wetlands) on the north side of the park and by the time we got there it was deserted but we could see what fun it would be when there are lots of kids. There are water pumps which pump water down a big slope and you can build dams to stop the water. There is also a big rope bridge, sandpit, swing, wobble boards and balance beams.

As I mentioned earlier there really is so much to see and do here and it is a great place to be able to talk to your children about the Olympics and what they meant for this part of London. Next time we go and visit the 560 acre site I'm going to print off some of the trails for us to follow, there are kid specific ones, ones to follow the Olympic trail and an art one too.

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A Birthday visit to Ripleys Believe It or Not! London

It was my birthday last week and with my 40th last year being a bit of a wash-out I was determined that we should celebrate as a family and have some fun. So it was decided that an overnight trip to London was needed and we had a very lovely couple of days walking, eating and exploring some new places.

One of the places we went to visit was Ripleys - Believe It or Not! in Piccadilly, London. I'd not heard of this attraction before they contacted me recently but when I mentioned it to my 10 year old son JJ, he got all excited 'oh yes Mum, I so want to go there. There are loads of interesting facts and all weird stuff. I've got the book'.  So on that strong recommendation I arranged a visit for the weekend.

Arrival

Last Saturday was super busy in London, far too much for me. You literally could not move in Leicester Square, so I was expecting Ripleys Believe It or Not! to be uncomfortably busy but I was very pleasantly surprised to find a queue of just about 15 people in front of us and this was gone through within 5 minutes. JJ was super happy anyway as he found a door you could open that screamed when you did and this set his expectation that loads of fun would follow.

One of the first exhibits you see is the swarovski crystal covered Mini Cooper, worth over £500,000. This new exhibit has travelled from America to be in London and uses over a million crystals in 50 different colours to represent the 50 states in America, it also depicts many classic American icons like the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore.

I'm not really sure how to explain what Ripleys Believe It or Not! is, so I'll use this bit from their website -

At Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London visitors can marvel at an unbelievable collection of jaw dropping artefact's from across the globe – many of which were collected by the ultimate explorer Robert Ripley himself. With over 700 astonishing exhibits, galleries and interactive experiences spanning across 6 floors, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London celebrates the weird, wonderful and bizarre in all its forms, which are sure to excite, delight and thrill the whole family. Want to see how will you measure up to the world’s tallest man? Or come face to face with our rare collection of Amazonian shrunken heads? Will you dare to venture into Ripley’s Marvellous Mirror Maze and defeat the Impossible LaseRace?

And actually look at this short video clip as this gives a really good insight and idea.



The Best Bits
Probably my favourite part of the attraction was the artwork. It is truly amazing what you can use to make great art - bottle tops, tape from cassettes, keyboard keys, matchsticks, leaves, dung and even toast!

I also enjoyed the hall of exotica as it was interesting to see what other cultures use.

Of course the part the kids loved best was the interactive exhibits and JJ said he would have liked more of these. There was an awful lot of things to just look at and for my boisterous and busy kids this is not what they want to do generally.

I asked JJ for a comment about Ripleys Believe It or Not! and he said 'It was good but not the best' and I then asked him to compare it to going to somewhere like the Science Museum and he said he would prefer the museum as there is more to get involved with and explore. JJ also commented that he thought Ripleys Believe It or Not! could make their signage/ commentary more interesting. Other places we have been to have made the kids lift doors, looks in boxes, match up answers etc but at Ripleys Believe It or Not! it was mainly just reading a straight forward sign about what the exhibit is.

In fairness there were a few areas where you could watch. There was an excellent holograph of Ripley himself at the beginning explaining about how all the artefact's were gathered and then at others times there were short explanatory shows. Like about the shrunken heads and then another showing a man doing some odd swallowing and regurgitating trick, that one felt a bit like an old fashioned circus side show if I'm being honest. JJ tells tells me there was a few clips together that we could have stood and watched but they were shown in a big empty room which felt as it if should have had chairs or benches in so you could sit and watch for longer if you liked.

I asked my 7 year old twins about their favourite bits and Miss E (who is dyslexic) said she liked seeing all the art as she wants to be an artist herself when she is older but she thought lots of things were boring as she could not read the signage herself.

My husband said there were some interesting areas within Ripleys Believe It or Not!, he really enjoyed being able to talk to our kids about the Berlin Wall and the Olympics area was really good but these were combined with other areas that were just a bit 'freak showish' for us. Within the Dungeon area there was some very macabre items and whilst it was interesting to discuss some of them with my 10 year old the idea of my children having their picture taken in a chastity belt just seemed so wrong.  It was good that you could take a route to miss the dungeon if you did not want to go through it.

LaseRace, Mirror Maze and the Black Hole

Miss M said her best bit was the LaseRace, this is at the end of the tour and you can choose your level of difficultly and try and get through the maze of lasers without breaking the beams and in the quickest time to get added to the leader board. You got one go at this in the price and could pay £2 for another 2 goes if you fancied.

JJ loved all of these. He mastered the mirror maze in no time and as it was not too busy he kept going in again and again and the black hole freaked me out entirely as I could not maintain my composure and was convinced the bridge was moving under my feet, of course it was not!

Sadly the interactive graffiti wall exhibit was out of action when we visited.

Cost & General Visitor Details

If we had turned up on the day and bought our tickets we would have spent just short of £100 for 2 adults and 3 children and if we purchased in advance via the website it would have been £85 which is a good saving but it is still a lot of money to spend, especially considering we were only in the attraction for about 2.5 hours.

Ripleys Believe It or Not!, London is really easy to access with buses, tubes and trains serving it frequently. The opening hours of 10am - midnight are excellent and it is accessible for those with disabilities. We used a couple of the toilets on site and both were very well used and a bit grotty with wet floors and smelly bins.

I noticed there were audio guides available in various languages and you can arrange for a guide too, I imagine it would be an interesting school visit.

The cafe was really nice in the middle of some exhibits and we were able to buy a drink and snack. We paid £1.50 for bottled water, £1.75 for a bottle of Coke and 90p for polos.

As with most attractions nowadays you leave via the gift shop and thus the kids beg you for various sweets and knick-nacks!

Conclusion
I'm glad we went to Ripleys Believe or Not! as now we have seen some very unusual exhibits and learnt a few new facts but if I'm honest it is the kind of place I'd only visit the one time. If you love the odd and the unusual  then this will definitely be for you.

Disclosure: We received complimentary entry for our family for the purpose of this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.

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Review: The London Aquarium with Superbreak

This weekend we had a lovely stay in London and of course needed something fun to do while we were there, something that was indoors, as in real British style it was raining again!

We set off for a day at the Sea Life London Aquarium as guests of Superbreak. Their London hotel deals which include aquarium tickets offer you priority entrance and this meant we were in the aquarium and starting to look around within about 10 minutes of joining the queue. I guess the standard queue must have taken about 1/2 hour so it made a difference to us.

Literally the minute you enter the aquarium you walk over a glass walkway with sharks swimming underneath, JJ thought this was pretty awesome but it was a bit of a shock to my little ladies. Miss M had a right fit until I demonstrated to her it could hold my weight and she would be just fine!

The aquarium is split into nine distinct areas and you follow the flow to go through each step by and step and see all the aquarium has to offer. We arrived at 12 noon on Saturday and it was very busy, I asked the staff how the busyness compared to the summer and they said it was about the same. I was glad to hear it would not get more busy. We were able to see everything but it did mean spending some time and waiting for people to clear away from a tank or window to get a good look. The staff member I spoke to said the quietest times of day are when the aquarium first opens at 10am or the last hour or two in the afternoon - about 4/5pm onwards.

Each of the areas is quite different, the turtles were by far my favourite and I spent ages watching them, as did Miss E. JJ enjoyed the sharks and it was good that you could get a look at shark reef from 3 different levels. Daddy liked the rays and we even saw a baby ray coming out of it's mermaid purse where the mother had laid her egg, that was pretty special. Then Miss M enjoyed watching the penguins bob in the water and touching the ice wall too.

Take a look at some of the great pictures we got -

Personally I would like there to have been more interactive things for the children to get involved with. Miss M did enjoy touching a real starfish but I think the highlight for the kids was completing their little passport book. Basically in each zone they had to stamp (or emboss more accurately) their passport and at the end they get a prize for doing so.  I must have competitive kids as mine made us go back to hunt for a stamp machine or two. Then at the end what did they end up with?  A sticker and a badge and a 15 minute queue to get them form the photo kiosk.

Talking of which there are various times throughout your visit when you can have your photo taken and it will cost you £10 for one photo or £12 for two and there are a variety of novelties available like glass blocks and snow globes. We declined to have our photo taken as I know I can easily get sucked into buying things we do not need.

We spent about 2 hours in the aquarium overall, we could have spent far longer and the staff told me you could look round, go away and come back again in the same day if you want to but to be honest we had done our bit by that point and were ready to move on.

Facilities at the Aquarium

• As we left we passed through the gift shop and I was pleased to see plenty of small trinkets and toys with reasonable price tags, such as £2. Miss E took a fancy to a small plush seal which was £4.
• There is no food facility on site but as you leave McDonalds is directly opposite and there are a few restaurants and coffee shops around the river close by.
• There are chocolate and ice cream vending machines as you leave the aquarium and the prices are reasonable, my kids enjoyed a twister for £1.
• We really missed the fact that there was no where to have a drink or even a drink vending machine and we were all gasping for water upon leaving.
• It is advertised that there are toilets and baby change on every floor but they were not quite frequent enough for our children to be honest. there were all clean and well stocked though.

Our verdict

Miss M and Miss E both cited the aquarium as their favourite part of our stay in London, JJ said he was a bit bored, that we were there too long but to be honest I think this is because he has been to various aquariums before and it was not anything new for him.

If you and your children have not been to an aquarium before and you want to learn more about marine life then I am sure you will love it.

Do take a look at Superbreak if you fancy a theatre break, attraction break or dinner package in London or elsewhere, they have something to suit every taste and every pocket.

Disclosure: Our entry to the aquarium was free of charge courtesy of Superbreak.  They have not advised me what to write and I remain honest.

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