We worked it out that Me and Mr C hadn’t been on the rides at Blackpool for at least 10 years, which just made us both feel old! We usually just go to Blackpool when the illuminations are on, we go at tea time, grab fish and chips, play the 2p machines, grab some doughnuts and then drive through the lights home. We decided that as one of staycation days out we would take a trip to the Pleasure Beach.

We got a picnic together, packed for every weather eventuality as it was forecast rain and pre booked our tickets online. I had forgotten how easy it was to cart a lot of stuff around with you all day when you can load a pram up!

For a change, we got there early and the park wasn’t open yet but there was already people queuing to get in, it gave us plenty of time to pick our tickets up and by they time we had the gates were open and the queue had cleared.

There was several characters dancing and greeting the kids as they were going in. One of the characters got quite taken with her and kept coming over to dance with her. The munchkin loves anything like that so her excitement levels went up a notch!

The predicted rain arrived not long after we got there so we took cover in a cafe, the first rides didn’t start running for another half an hour and the froglet needed feeding.

Luckily the rain quickly stopped, it actually turned out to be a really nice day. Mr C and the munchkin went running to find a ride to go on, we’d already checked before hand so knew which rides she was tall enough for. As well as some of the smaller rides they went on the big dipper, the grand national and avalanche more than once throughout the day.

Big Dipper for the 3rd time

As I was chief bag/baby holder, I only went on one ride, but Mr C took a couple of big dipper selfies! I think we have a little adrenalin junkie on our hands!

The Froglet, well, he slept for most of the day!

Nickolodeon Land is at the pleasure beach. It’s a fairly new area, I was very impressed as it struck the right balance between being child friendly but it also had a couple of roller coasters to keep older kids entertained. There are characters walking round the park all day and in Nickoldeon Land we saw Dora the explorer and Spongebob and I know that the teenage mutant ninja turtles are often there.

Mr C took the munchkin on Valhalla, which got them really wet. I’m not really sure what they were expecting as people were actually buying ponchos to go on it! Luckily I had packed a spare set of clothes for the munchkin, Mr C was not so lucky and was pretty soggy for the rest of the day!

Theme parks aren’t cheap days out. As I knew one of us would have to stay off each ride with the baby I just paid £6 entrance to get in. This differs from other theme parks where you have to pay full price if you’re going on the rides or not. I upgraded when we got there to a £10 ticket so I could go on one ride of my choice (I went on Infusion) we still made a saving by not paying full price. There are discounts on tickets if you book online and further discounts if you book more than 10 days in advance.

We had to go out of the park for lunch, our bags were searched on the way in and we weren’t allowed to take anything that had been pre prepared, like sandwiches. I was a little disappointed by this if I’m honest, the ticket price is not cheap so we were trying to keep the cost of the actual day to a minimum. You were allowed to go in and out of the park if you got a hand stamp, so we went and sat and had our picnic by the beach, which was nice but just a bit inconvenient to have to walk back to the car.

The food looked reasonably priced, although it can add up. We spent quite a bit on coffees and drinks when feeding the froglet, I wanted to sit inside and the only real option was to sit in a cafe, 3 drinks cost us nearly £10 each time. We also played the donkey derby and tried to win a minion by throwing a ball in a barrel.

The park was clean, cleaner than I remember 1o years ago and the queues for rides were good, considering that it is the school holidays, I didn’t feel like I was waiting around for those two for very long. It did start getting busier late in the afternoon as we were leaving, the sun was really shining and the park does open until 8pm.

We had a great day and would go back, although we might wait until the munchkin is tall enough to go on the Big One!