Looking for a theme park experience with something suitable for every age in your tribe? The U.K.’s Alton Towers has you covered. Check out what this tribe loved on their recent trip.
Located a little over two hours north of London, Alton Towers is a large theme park built around a historic manor. We travelled along beautiful country lanes and through towns older than Australia to find it, tucked away in the midst of farms and forests.
The park’s gone through a transition over the past decade; previously focused on appealing to teenagers and thrill seekers, they’ve widened their appeal and it was their latest addition we’d made the pilgrimage to visit – CBeeBies Land!
(More than) a full day of fun
Postman Pat, Octonauts, Go Jetters, Hey Duggee and many more each feature with their own ride, show or experience, all squarely aimed at kids 8 and under. My daughter Shae particularly loved driving Pat’s post van to help with deliveries, soaring high in the sky with the Go Jetters (complete with educational funky facts from Ubercorn) and throwing her hands up on the gentle Octonauts rollercoaster.
The park also has a full-sized aquarium and plenty of family-friendly rides, but they’re known for their rollercoasters and they definitely didn’t disappoint. The must ride attraction is The Smiler, the world record holder for most inversions, sending you upside down and through loop-the-loops a whopping 14 times in just over two minutes! Many of these rides feature a parent swap, so one can ride while the other waits with the little ones, and then you can swap without lining up the entire queue.
The hotel where kids come first
Alton Towers features three on-site hotels. One is a traditional style, another built around an indoor water park (with a stellar waterslide/rollercoaster hybrid) and the final is the newly opened CBeeBies Hotel. We spent three nights here and it honestly rivals a Disney hotel for how many activities are presented for kids.
Shae had chosen for us to stay in a Swashbuckle-themed room, complete with jewels for her to find and a separate kids break-out room with piratical bunk beds. Each morning Postman Pat was on hand in the hotel lobby to direct us to the breakfast restaurant, while from 3-10pm a brilliant range of children’s entertainment from disco dance offs to dinosaur bone digs took place in the large meeting room.
Put your feet up
The best part for parents? The back of the entertainment space had a bar, tables and chairs so we could literally sit and watch our daughter being babysat while we shared some local ciders and enjoyed reading. The care and professionalism of all the staff was heartening and Shae soon felt empowered to leave our side for more than an hour at a time, usually only returning to ask us to take a photo with a costumed character or hand over stickers won during Simon Says.
This was a fantastic, fun-filled break in the middle of visiting family and friends, and made tons of memories Miss Shae will remember for a long time. I’d highly recommend it if your tribe visits the U.K. – your little ones will thank you for taking them to a place that makes them feel BIG!
GUEST TRIBE ~ Tom Ragg is the proud papa to Shae from Shae’s Toy Channel
