Day out at Lightwater Valley!

Everyone loves a good theme part (secretly) and I must admit that before we had children, I don't think we would have considered visiting one. But do you know what? It's good fun! And now the boys are a bit older we can actually go on most of the rides with them and it's lovely to see the big grins on their faces after the log flume or mini rollercoaster, they think they've been really daring!

A few weeks ago we had the chance to put this into practice by spending the day at Lightwater Valley! It's quite near to our house, probably about an hours drive away - so we set off quite early to make the most of the day. I remember going to Lightwater Valley as a child with school and having a great time, it's nice to revisit old haunts with your own children years later I think.

When we walked through the ticket barriers, this little guy was on hand to greet us! I thought it was a nice touch, especially as my boys LOVE Angry Birds. They were thrilled!

Angry Birds Fun!

The fun times with Angry Birds continued when we went inside and were confronted with a whole Angry Birds section of the park! Awesome! There was even an indoor play area for when it's raining or gets really hot, complete with cafe for tired parents to relax. They also had some plasma screens on the wall so children could play the game, it was really high tech. Outside there was some pretty awesome games too where a voice would tell you to stand and you ran around stamping on various things, we liked it.

Angry Birds climbing frame

More Angry Birds stuff!

After that we ventured into the rest of the park, it was smaller than I remember but apparently they were having some development work done. I was surprised at how quiet it was - the staff said sometimes it's busy and somtimes quiet, you just never know. We rarely had to queue more than a few minutes for each ride which was GREAT with young children, we went on each ride several times!

Fun on the swings

There were LOADS of rides suitable for toddlers as these photos show, though there were some height restrictions on some rides it didn't affect our enjoyment at all. It was quite hard to get action shots of the children on the rides as they all came out blurry!

Looking serene on the swans.

We went on this ferris wheel several times!

One thing to add was how lovely the staff are at Lightwater Valley. We went to Drayton Manor recently and the staff could barely string a sentence together. The staff at LWV were kind, thoughtful and happy to have a chat between rides which I thought was a nice thing.

We had a typical fast food lunch in one of the cafes at lunchtime, there was plenty of choice including baked potatoes, pizzas, hot dogs that kind of thing. Not mega healthy but then that's what kids seem to like on days like that!

I noticed on the way out that plans are afoot at Lightwater Valley to redevelop the closed off area of the park into holiday homes which I think is a lovely idea! It's nice to see they are moving with the times and listening to what people want.

All in all we had a great time, the weather was fab, staff lovely, rides lots of fun - what more could you want!

I received these tickets as a gift but all thoughts are my own.