Days Out in Great Yarmouth // Sealife Centre

Part of a Paid Collaboration with Visit Great Yarmouth.  All opinions are my own

You can't miss Great Yarmouth Sealife Centre.  It is right in the middle of the seafront strip, next to the big wheel. The familiar logo was easy to spot and we noticed a collaboration with Peppa Pig was currently on.  The staff inside were really lovely and the children were given mini magnifying glasses, activity trails and the instructions on how to meet Peppa during our visit.

Our favourite animal to see in the Great Yarmouth Sealife Centre was definitely Noah the green sea turtle.  We could walk in the tunnel underneath it and the children were amazed.  We have never seen one before and hadn't realised they were so big!  We loved seeing the shark nursery too and learning about the ongoing breeding program.

Another highlight of the trip was the hands on area where you could stroke a starfish.  The staff member we spoke to was really knowledgeable and the children asked her lots of questions.  They are definitely more open to learning when they can get involved and they discussed all sorts about the marine life with her. 

Cora was really excited to meet Peppa Pig ( who will be at selected Sealife centres until July 3rd) and to do the interactive trail. Peppa was appearing twice a day when we visited and we didn't have to wait long to meet her.

We got to see the penguins during our visit and we loved watching them from both under the water and on land.  These photos were taken by Archie who was really interested in photographing them.  

There is plenty to see at Sealife Great Yarmouth and the children did the VR experience at the end too which looked really fun! When you book tickets for Great Yarmouth Sealife there are options to book as a package with the Ocean Explorer and with the big wheel next door.  

Read more ⇨

Days Out in Great Yarmouth // Pleasure Beach

Part of a Paid Collaboration with Visit Great Yarmouth.  All opinions are my own

Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach is situated right on the seafront and splits into two halves.  The Pleasure Beach has a gated entrance and costs £15 per person to enter which gives you unlimited rides, and the Pleasure Beach Gardens is free to enter and has paid for attractions including mini golf, an upside down house and a grand prix track, as well as Sara's Tearooms which serves hot and cold food as well as drinks and cakes.  We visited both parts on our recent trip to Great Yarmouth so scroll down to read more!

The Pleasure Beach

It cost £15 to enter (under 2s are free) and for that price you have a four hour slot to explore the park at your leisure.  With the limited tickets we found that this gave us plenty of time to go on all the rides we wanted (some several time) as there were virtually no queues on our trip (this may be different in the height of summer but for a hot June weekend we were impressed).  Inside the fun fair there are also games you can pay extra for, such as hook a duck and shooting games, and stalls to buy food and drink.  

With young children, I find it important to see what they are able to ride before we go and there is a handy table here with more information. The boys (aged 7,9 and 10 and all over 1.3m) were able to go on every ride unaccompanied and Cora (nearly 6 and 1.1m) could ride on all bar 7 rides.  Rex at 7 months enjoyed watching his siblings from the safety of our arms or the buggy and was mesmerised all day by the colours and movement. 

Our favourite rides were:

Me - The Classic Roller Coaster. I love the wooden roller coaster, it was mild enough that all the children could ride on it, but had enough bumps that you can put your hands in the air and scream. It stands proud in the centre of the Pleasure Beach and was as bright as the summer sky

Dylan- Dylan took some convincing to go on the Log Flume and we all got totally soaked but he loved it all the same.  There was a machine you could use for £2 to dry off afterwards which the boys made good use of! I ended up buying the picture of Ed and the four children on there as a fridge magnet.

Archie - The dodgems will always be a favourite for this boy, he doesn't stop giggling as he drives round.  You can ride in the dodgems from 1 metre but you need to be 1.25 to drive.  Often one of the busiest rides in a fair, we never had to wait longer than 5 minutes for a turn.

Finn -  The Haunted House and the Fun Factory next to it were Finn's favourites.  The Haunted house takes you round in a small car that sits 2 and the Fun factory you walk round yourself. Do be aware for the fun factory, closed toe shoes are necessary for entry so no sliders or flip flops allowed.

Cora - The Big Apple ride was a favourite for Cora. A rollercoaster designed for smaller children where you sit in a caterpillar.  They all liked to sit in the back carriage as we think it goes faster. 

We had a fantastic visit to the Pleasure Beach and the children are already insisting we book to go again.  Find out more about Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach and book your tickets here.

The Pleasure Beach Gardens

Next to the Pleasure Beach is the Pleasure Beach Gardens which is an attraction in itself.  With the large Great Yarmouth letters in the background, the safari themed mini golf is a great place to start.

With 12 holes it is a great length for younger children and we were given a score card with our clubs and brightly coloured balls.  The course was relatively simple and the children enjoyed the challenges. It was easy to navigate and felt well looked after.

The Pleasure Beach Garden's area includes a large cafe called Sara's Tearooms where you can get hot or cold breakfasts and lunches, cakes and drinks.  The milkshakes came with cream and marshmallows and were a big hit with my boys! We had a hot lunch and I was excited to see vegan options on the menu for me. There is plenty of indoor and outdoor seating and a few smaller tables on the beach side which are perfect if you want to enjoy a drink whilst the kids build sandcastles.

Also in the gardens are a race track with ride on motorbikes and trucks which takes £1 coins and are always a hit with my children, and the upside down house.  It was our first time visiting something like this and the children all thought it was amazing! They particularly liked doing Spiderman poses below the bed.  You can explore the two stories but be aware that you can't take babes in arms inside as the sloped floors make it unsafe.

There is easily a full day out to be had between Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach and the gardens (although our visit was split over two days).

Read more ⇨

5 Things to do with Kids in Great Yarmouth

Part of a Paid Collaboration with Visit Great Yarmouth.  All opinions are my own

Great Yarmouth in Norfolk offers a traditional British seaside holiday.  With its mile long beach and vibrant attractions, there is so much to see and enjoy with children and we loved our weekend checking out some (of the very many) things to do with children.  It would be easy enough to spend all day on the soft sandy beach, but if you are looking for some fun activities on your trip, here are five suggestions that our children loved.

1) Ride a Rollercoaster at the Pleasure Beach

Once you have paid to enter Pleasure Beach, you can enjoy all the rides as many times as you like, including the log flume, a fun wooden rollercoaster, the haunted house and dodgems.  There was plenty for all the family from gentle rides for little ones and bigger ones for thrill seekers.  We visited on a hot June weekend and didn't have to queue for anything. This was my children's favourite part of the whole weekend and I don't think a visit to Great Yarmouth would be complete without an afternoon at the Pleasure Beach.  Read our review of the Pleasure Beach here

2) Stroke a Starfish at the Sealife Centre

The key to making things interesting for children, I think, is letting them get involved and mine were much more open to learning about life under the water as they had their hands in touching a starfish.  The Great Yarmouth Sealife Centre also has a huge Sea Turtle which swam over us as we walked through the tunnel, penguins and stingrays.  It was a fascinating centre and well worth a visit. The whole centre is very engaging and we got to meet Peppa Pig on our visit.

3) Get a Hole in One at Crazy Golf

There are numerous mini golf courses along Great Yarmouth seafront, both indoor and outdoor, you could probably make a whole weekend out of trying them all.  It felt like we couldn't leave without trying one and we chose the safari golf which was part of the Pleasure Beach Gardens (located in front of Sara's Tearooms which is the perfect place to stop for a post golf treat). Our course had 12 holes but sadly none of us managed a hole in one.

4) Eat Fish and Chips

If you are on a traditional British seaside holiday, you have to eat the right food.  This means getting a soft serve ice cream in the afternoon and finishing the day with fish and chips.  Just down from the Sealife Centre is Fish, Chips and More where we had a delicious dinner.  There is seating indoors and out and the kids meals are served in beach buckets too which is useful if you want to head to the sand for a post dinner run around!

5) Visit the Model Village and Feed the Fish

Merrivale Model Village is situated right on the seafront and is worth a visit on a trip to Great Yarmouth.   The kids particularly loved the fairground (which comes with lots of buttons to push), the stadiums and feeding the fish in the centre.  You can also get your mini golf fix here as there is a short course at the beginning! On exiting the model village, you come through an old fashioned penny arcade which we all found fascinating and enjoyed trying the games.

What else would you add to this list? We are already planning our next visit!

Read more ⇨

Our Week at Les Villages Nature, Paris

It was a holiday that was supposed to happen in 2020, then 2021 and so we approached the lead up this year cautiously, hoping that it would go ahead but not getting the children too excited just in case things changed.  As May approached everything starting looking positive and thankfully by the time we made it over to France last month, there were very few restrictions and we could enjoy a week away with my extended family.

It was our second time visiting Les Villages Nature, the French Centre Parcs on the outskirts of Paris and there is something lovely that comes from that familiarity, of not needing to spend too long finding your bearings.  The bigger boys have some memories from our last trip here 3 years ago and the younger two had been looking at our photo scrapbook from our last trip so they came with a good idea of where we were headed.  Rex of course was oblivious to it all, but it was his first time in a new country and I think he had a great time!

I have written before about what there is to do at Les Villages Nature and this year we spent just as much time in the huge pool complex, but the children were even more confident on the slides (and tall enough to do more of them).  We went back to the amazing playground, petted the goats in the onsite farm and tried out some of the activities including the escape room, climbing walls and pony riding.  

The parc has changed slightly since our last visit, there is a lunchtime burger restaurant and a creperie, although we didn't get enough time to try either.  We took lots of photos with the goats again and barely any elsewhere but I wanted to save it all on this blog as something to look back on.  This year we decided to do a day trip into Paris mid week as some of us had never seen the city centre before and I have written about what we got up to there seperately.  Les Villages Nature is perfectly positioned to visit Disney and it was easy enough to get to the centre of Paris via a short bus ride and then a train.

We had a fantastic week away and made wonderful memories with our family.

Read more ⇨

Paris in a Day, with Kids

We recently spent a week at Villages Nature, a Centre Parcs resort on the outskirts of Paris and decided to do a day trip into the city.  I have been to France countless times but have never made it to the centre of Paris so I was excited to see all the famous sites and nervous of how child friendly the centre would be with our five children aged 10 and under.

            

Villages Nature is a 35 minute drive to the centre of Paris, but we decided to use public transport which meant a bus ride to Disneyland (10 minutes) and then the train in from there to Chatelet Les Halles (44 minutes).  It was the children's first double decker train which they all loved.   We had already planned our first stop and so we walked slowly towards the River Seine and over the bridge to embark on a boat tour.  You can buy tickets there but we had pre-booked them online (with flexible timing) and thought it would be a great way to orientate ourselves with the city before exploring further on foot.

The river cruise was on an open top boat and we sat at the front of the top deck ready to take it all in.  The live commentary was in both English and French.  In hindsight I would have done this slightly later in the day when the children were getting tired and needed to sit down, but I loved getting to know some of the history of Paris and getting a feel for how spread out the city is. It started and ended at Pont Neuf and once we had finished we went off in search of food.

I grabbed a burger meal from Naked Vegan Burger which was delicious. I was nervous about being vegan in France but I could always eat something. After lunch I was keen to find the Louvre because I wanted to see the pyramid up close.  I hadn't taken in quite how huge this famous art museum is and with all the children in tow we decided to keep the inside for another trip.  We marvelled at the beautiful buildings and the modern pyramid in the centre of the courtyard and then found the row of souvenir shops selling model versions of the Eiffel Tower and postcards of the iconic views.

We were keen to give the children some space to run around by this point so we headed into the Jardin les Tuileries, watched children sailing miniature boats with little sticks and then found the playground.  It wasn't huge but there was plenty of seating for parents and it gave the children some time to free play in the middle of a busy day.

             

From the park we walked up to Place de la Concorde which I was fascinated to see after the boat tour commentary.  By this point the sun was strong and we were tiring so we walked up the Rue Royale and found a restaurant with shady outdoor seating for some much needed crepes (and sorbet for me) and to play some card games.  Cora (aged 5) had a nap in the buggy as her little legs were tired, and the baby had a rest in the sling, making me very glad I had packed both!  Everywhere we visited was stroller friendly and if you have a child who still fits in a stroller then I would recommend bringing one to let you explore for longer.

When we were rested and ready to return, we walked back to Concorde Place as we had spotted the TukTuks there.  Being a family of 7, we needed two taxis, but we could fit in one TukTuk (which was roughly the price of two taxis) so we had an open air ride over to the Eiffel Tower.  We decided not to go up it on this occasion as most of us were more interested in seeing it rather than the views from the top, and there were big grass areas in front perfect for a picnic or just to sit and enjoy the views.  There were also plenty of street stalls selling keyrings of the Eiffel Tower in all colours at 5 for 1 Euro and we left with pockets full of them! If you want to go up you can choose to pre-book or queue on the day and you can go either to the 2nd floor or the top.

By the time we were finished admiring the view, everyone was tired and hungry so we decided to get a taxi over to the Arc De Triomphe as we could get the train home from here.  We walked down the Champs Elysees to find food, but the prices in restaurants were just too much for us (30-50 Euros minimum for a main course) so we ended up in McDonalds (which was still 12 Euros for a Cheeseburger meal) and I bought a vegan meal from a shop. 

We caught the train back from here and arrived home close to midnight and utterly exhausted! Paris is beautiful, dusty, expensive and definitely worth a visit.  I would love to go back and take it in slower but we managed to catch many iconic sights on our one day trip! If we didn't have the children with us then I would have walked the two taxi rides (or used the Metro) but with children this gave us a rest and a chance to see more in our one day.

Read more ⇨