A Fun Family Day Out at Alton Towers // And Merlin Annual Pass Summer Sale

A few weeks ago we took a little trip to Alton Towers with our Merlin Annual Passes. Despite the fact that Alton Towers isn’t actually very far away from us, I had only ever been once! So I was very excited to go again and to take Ava and enjoy the CBeebies Land part of the resort together.

We went on a Monday at the beginnning of the season, so it was nice and quiet. We parked easily and made our way to the Monorail to enter the park. I’d completely forgotten what it was like as it had been so long since I was last there. But it’s a really pretty park with plenty of greenery and wide open spaces.

CBeebies Land wasn’t there the last time I went, and I didn’t have a child then, so I was really excited to see what it was like, and go on some tamer rides with Ava. Obviously with it being CBeebies there are lots of recognisable characters from the TV shows around which made it lots of fun for Ava.

We started off on the Get Set Go Tree Top Adventure, which is a nice slow ride, high up in the trees – it’s a good thing to start off with as you get to have a little look at the area and we spotted Oopsy Daisy over at the ‘Big Fun Showtime’ area which got Ava pretty excited!

She then chose to go on the ‘In the Night Garden Magical Boat Ride’ – we’ve never really watched it, but her cousin absolutely loves it, so she’s sat with him a few times and got pretty drawn into it. This is a lovely ride for little ones and particularly fans of the show – it’s a slow journey all around the woodland setting with the characters and songs all around. I did spend the rest of the day saying Makka Pakka, Akka Wakka, Mikka Makka moo, Makka Pakka, Appa yakka, Ikka akka, ooo. For those who have seen it – you’re very welcome. At the end of the day Ava decided that this was her favourite ride.

Next we went on the Octonauts rollercoaster, which I loved! It does go quite fast at times, and as it zooms round the corner and (SPOILER!) – squirts water in your face, Ava got a bit scared. Unfortunately that meant that she wouldn’t go on it again with me, and I couldn’t bring myself to go on it on my own, even though I REALLY wanted to. It’s a shame because she was really enjoying it before the fast/water bit, and I think it was more the fact that it made her jump whilst zooming round a corner. I think it’s a really nice introductory rollercoaster ride for little one’s (or for wimpy mum’s) – it’s over pretty quickly so if they are scared then there isn’t long to wait to get off, but it’s not so slow and tame that it’s dull.

After that Ava’s Daddy left us for a bit to go on some ‘scary’ rides, whilst we took two trips around the Postman Pat ride where Ava got to ‘drive’ his van and sort out parcels – which she loved. I sat in the back and took photos (or checked social media perhaps).

We then went for a sit down and a snack as the sun came out, whilst watching the ZingZillas in the Big Fun Showtime area – it’s a great place for a picnic lunch and to have a rest whilst meeting some of the characters. Ava also had a little dance to the music with another little girl. Next time we go (in a few weeks!) we’ll definitely make sure we take our own food, as we found the choice pretty limited (and expensive as you’d expect) especially if you want to sit down – the only place we found is open to the outside and we were freezing! We were really looking forward to getting warm somewhere for a bit whilst eating our lunch, but that didn’t happen unfortunately.

Next we went to the park or the ‘Tree Fu Tom Training Camp’ which was really good fun, and Ava had a hundred goes on the slide, and burnt off some more energy.

We met back up and took a trip on the cable car over to the other side – which is a pretty trip over the trees, the old log flume and a pretty river, and had some ice creams and doughnuts. We then ventured over to ‘Galactica’ – I’d heard a lot about this and despite being quite scared of rides, I did quite fancy it. Being with Ava though only one of us could go, and I didn’t fancy going on my own, so Paul won – he enjoyed it but said with the headset on it did make him feel quite sick.

I am determined that when we go in a few weeks I will actually go on some big rides – I do really like rollercoasters and I think I’d like some of them – the trouble I have is with getting really sick for hours afterwards – I have horrible memories of the flying waltzers in Winthorpe when I was a lot younger!

Before we left we took a quick trip around the Sealife centre that is at Alton Towers, and were surprised that there was a decent amount to see there.

There’s loads we didn’t have time for so I’m looking forward to checking more of the resort out soon, as well as out first hotel stay there, and our first visit to the Waterpark!

The Merlin Annual Pass Summer Sale

You can join us in a summer of fun with a Merlin Annual Pass, which is currently priced from just £109 per person* during their special big summer sale!

With a Merlin Annual Pass you can unlock magic and fun at 32 top attractions across the UK, including the Coca-Cola London Eye, THORPE PARK Resort, Dream Works Tours Shrek’s Adventure! London, Chessington World of Adventures Resort, Cbeebies Land at Alton Towers Resort, LEGOLAND® Windsor Resort, The National SEA LIFE Centre Birmingham and loads more.

The big summer sale is on now and will end at 23.59pm on Thursday 30th June.

For more information please visit www.merlinannualpass.co.uk and you can watch the Merlin Annual Pass TV Summer sale advert here.

We are ambassadors for Merlin Annual Pass.