Review: Legoland Discovery Centre, Manchester

We were lucky enough to be given review tickets for the hottest new family attraction in Manchester, the LEGOLAND Discovery Centre (LDC).

The LDC opened on 22nd March 2010 and judging by the queues it is staggeringly popular already. It's located in Barton Square at the Trafford Centre in Manchester.


We liked

The location. Ladies, it's at the North West shopping mecca that is the Trafford Centre!

The free parking.

Andy and I loved MINILAND where Northern landmarks had been recreated from LEGO. We could appreciate the skill involved. We wondered how much a professional LEGO builder was paid! The boys were fascinated by this area too, but were disappointed that they weren't allowed to touch any of the models.

The children loved the many areas where they could get their hands on some LEGO.

Here are Presley and Cash at the Earthquake Zone. The idea is you make a LEGO building and test it on the earthquake simulator.

We didn't like


The crowds and the queues. The LDC is a victim of its own success. We had trouble negotiating the main area with a double buggy. We couldn't even get to the DUPLO area. We also left the shop without buying the boys any new LEGO because the queue was too long.

The lack of signs. It wasn't made clear, for instance, that we could go straight into the main section. We queued for ages for the Kingdom Quest ride - that we had no intention of going on!

The map. I would have preferred a proper map, instead we were given a cartoon that was not representative of the LDC either in scale or layout.

There was little supervision of the activities. At the LEGO Racers Build and Test area wheels were in short supply.

Here is Presley holding on to a precious wheel!

I'm sure a lot of these issues are just teething problems that will be ironed out the longer the LDC is opened.


Summary

All the children we saw were clearly having a wonderful time. We overheard one little boy say to his mum that he was loving it.

Presley and Cash had a great time, even though a lot of the activities were for older children. We will go back, but only once the fuss has died down - if it ever does!


Facts and Figures


The LEGOLAND Discovery Centre,
Barton Square,
The Trafford Centre,
Manchester M17 8AS

Tickets are available on the door, but be prepared for queues:
Adults - £11.85
Children - £ 9.80
Age 2 and under - FREE

There are many other ticket options. You can book online and save 15%. This is recommended and the only way to guarantee entry, especially over the Easter holidays.

Review: Legoland Discovery Centre, Manchester

Will You Be There?

This post has been written as part of the Sleep is for the weak Writing Workshop. This week I chose prompt no.4 Write a story or a poem or something descriptive to try and share your view of what happens when we die.

I decided to attempt a poem, inspired by a writing exercise from my creative writing group. This is a pantoum.

Will You Be There?

Will you be there?

Will you hold my hand?

I'm scared

Darkness

Will you hold my hand?

There is nothing

Darkness

You are gone

There is nothing

You fade away

You are gone

Rest in peace

You fade away

I'm scared

Rest in peace

Will you be there?

***

I guess this writing prompt caught my eye because I've had a difficult week. I'll be offline for a couple of days as I'm spending a little time with my best friend and attending her husband's funeral.

Normal upbeat service will be resumed for the Easter weekend, I hope. x

Will You Be There?

Mind The Gap!

I've decided I need some cards made, like this one:

Has anyone got a laminator I could borrow?

Mind The Gap!

The Gallery: North, South, East and West

North

South

East

West

This week's Sticky Fingers Gallery prompt was 'Outside my front door'.

All of these photographs were taken this afternoon, 

hanging out of the bedroom windows of our house.

The Gallery: North, South, East and West

Not Ideal!

I had a day out in London yesterday. I'd arranged to meet my school friend, Liz, to celebrate our fortieth birthdays and to celebrate our thirty year friendship.

On the journey down I had the pleasure of sharing my train carriage with a group of people who had clearly never travelled by train before and had never been to London. I felt like telling them that they sell Malibu in London, so they really didn't need to lug two bottles each with them. Or forty packets of crisps. I didn't have to point out that you have to pay extra to sit in first class, the guard did that as he kicked them out and sat them next to me. Grrr,

I met Liz at Euston station. We went down to the Tube. I wish there had been a sign like this at the start of our underground journey:

If we'd seen this we'd have chosen alternative means of transport. Never mind, we had a good chat in the hour it took us to get to Earls Court.

Many bloggers had been offered free tickets to the Ideal Home Show, but I wonder how many of them actually received their tickets from Stuart Higgins Communications? I know I didn't. The last contact I had from them was Thursday evening where they apologised for not sending me any tickets and promised that my name would be on the guest list for Saturday.

I went to the press office, as instructed, and surprise surprise there was no Sandy Calico on the list. Thankfully I was able to I flash my Baby Baby 'business' card and Liz and I were handed two press passes and two official showguides. We felt quite important... for about thirty seconds!

We then headed into what I can only describe as HELL ON EARTH.

I was expecting to see aspirational home ideas, but, apart from some gorgeous glass tiles, pretty much all we saw was tat.

We headed for the Ideal Woman section hoping to get a promised free beauty treatment. The queue was about fifty deep. We walked away. We did have a wonderful vibrating power massage at one of the stalls. I would tell you who by, but I can't decipher the map.

There were far too many people in the building. It was poorly signposted and the maps in the showguide were no help whatsoever. At one point, as we were trying to find the single escalator we got caught up in a sea of people. We couldn't move. Eventually we shuffled along, feeling extremely sorry for the babies, children and those in wheelchairs.

We queued for thirty minutes to get a coffee and a sandwich. The catering staff had clearly never worked a coffee machine before. They were so slow. I looked around for hidden cameras, but this was not a prank. These people were totally inept.

I hate to be so negative, but I will never go to anything like this ever again.

We left after ninety minutes and breathed a sign off relief when we finally found the exit.

Next we had to find our way back to Euston, avoiding the tube. We took a couple of buses. Yes, of course, we were accompanied on our journey by the resident bus drunk, Doo Dah Dave!

We rounded the day off with hot chocolates and chocolate cake at the station. I had a peaceful train journey home (i.e. I slept for most of it).

Liz and I enjoyed our day, in spite of all the obstacles thrown at us!

***

In other news, I was interviewed by the lovely Emily O at Babyrambles this week for her Blogger on the Spot feature. You can read all about it here.

***

Finally, late last year I wrote a post where do chips come from?. Quite a lot of people search for this on Google (thank you for telling me Google Analytics), so I thought I would let you  know that the potato story bus is back! Look out for it in Scotland and the North of England.

Not Ideal!