Ben's Blog

During the first few days of the Summer holidays, we all decided to go away and visit a couple of attractions near Birmingham and then stop in Weston Super Mare on the way home. Unfortunately, it didn’t all go to plan!

Our first stop was Cadbury World, which was great but very busy! We had to leave at 8am on the Sunday morning to make sure we were up there in time for our booked tour at 13:30. The trip up was nice and straightforward, with no traffic on the motorways. We stopped off once for a break and carried on and got there in plenty of time – after getting lost in Solihull! We managed to get a parking space just outside the entrance, even though it was heaving, and quickly had our dinner. We then went in and queued up ready for our tour. Not much had changed on the tour since the last time Kelly and I had gone, which  was in 2007, but it was the boy’s first visit. They were over the moon when we were given a couple of bars of chocolate on the way in and scoffed it up very quickly (I did as well though! 😉 ). We went around the tour and found out about where chocolate came from and how it was made into bars etc, also picking up some more chocolate to eat as we went around. The best bit according to Ben and Aaron was the melted chocolate where you could choose what sweets to go in it! Their faces were covered after! Their other favourite bit was the Gorilla playing the drums to an old Phil Collins song which was a TV advert a few years ago. After the tour had finished, we went into the shop and bought some souvenirs and basically spent too much money!  After that we went out side to the new outdoor play area, where the boys had good fun playing on the climbing frames. There was a ‘Rainbow’ show on as well with Zippy and George, but we didn’t have time for that which was a shame. We did, however, go into the new 4D experience. We all sat in our own seats but Aaron got scared half way through as the chairs were moving and everything was in 3D (i.e. roller coasters) – even I was a little bit worried about it as I don’t like roller coasters or heights! So Aaron ended up on my lap for the last few minutes, covering his eyes, though I did catch him peaking on several occasions! All in all, we had a very good time at Cadbury World and would recommend it to anyone, and we would definitely go again in a few years but spend a whole day instead to take in the shows outside and to have more time in the outdoor play area.

Here are some pics from Cadbury World.

When we left, we headed to our hotel at Drayton Manor Park, where we were going to spend the night before going in the actual park the next day. This was meant to be about a 30 minute trip, but once again, we got lost due to heavy traffic and the Google Maps GPS not working correctly!  We actually ended up driving through the middle of Birmingham and it was like rush hour traffic – it was hellish! Eventually, we made it to the hotel and parked up and unloaded and went and checked in. The hotel was literally right next to the theme park, which was ideal, and it also had a ‘Thomas The Tank Engine’ theme as the theme park is where you can find the only ‘Thomas Land’ in the country.   So the boys loved having a look at the Thomas statues and ornaments.  I have to say that it was very good and very well done! We also paid for the boys to have a ‘Thomas’ welcome pack when we arrived which consisted of an activity pack, shower gel, toothbrush, colouring pencils and a couple of other ‘Thomas’ related items. The pack was very good as well and the boys loved it! Once we had gone to our room, we went to get the rest of out stuff from the car.  To our horror, this is when we first saw the huge puddle coming from under the car! It looked like the radiator was leaking! We decided to leave it for the night as it was getting late and we hadn’t eaten yet, so we headed back to the hotel, threw our bags in our room and headed down to the restaurant. As it was lovely weather (warm and sunny), we sat outside and had some food, which was very nice.  There were lots of play equipment in the hotel grounds so the boys went off to play on that and made some friends with some other children that were playing as well, so Kelly and I had a bit of a quiet break as Coby was quiet as well. When we had finished eating, we went up to our room and went to bed as we were all tired out after a very busy day, but looking forward to the next day in the theme park. 😉

Here are some pics from the Drayton Manor Hotel.

After having a full English breakfast in our room, we packed up, checked out and took our bags to the car, where the puddle was worse! I filled the car up with more water in the hope that it would stay full and left it and walked over to go into Drayton Manor Park.  The park opened at 9:30 with the rides starting at 10:00, and even at this time, there were lots of people making their way into the park. Our first port of call was ‘Thomas Land’ as that was what the boys were most excited about, and it didn’t really disappoint! There were lots of rides that were perfect for them, and a massive ‘Thomas’ Shop that we had a look in and bought a couple of items from. The only trouble was that it was a very busy day which meant we had to queue up for about 30 minutes or more for each ride, and then the rides lasted only a couple of minutes. So we spent most of the day in ‘Thomas Land’, but we did catch the train (Percy) to the other side of the park where there was a large play area, Dinosaur trail and a zoo. Towards the end of the day, we did manage to go on another train that took us around the park, and a nice, relaxing boat trip around the lake, before heading back to ‘Thomas Land’ for a few more rides for the boys. All in all, we had a great time but were slightly disappointed that the park closed at 5pm when it was a lovely, hot and sunny day, and we had seen advertisements on their website that they stay open until 7pm a lot during the Summer.  We actually ran out of time as well, as there were parts of the park we hadn’t even been to, so next time we go (and we will go again! 😉 ), we will definitely stay for 2 days to take it all in properly, and stay in the dedicated ‘Thomas’ themed rooms in the hotel.

Here are some pics of Drayton Manor Park.

When we left the theme park, I filled the car up with more water and headed on down the M5 to Weston Super Mare, as we were going to spend the night there before having a look around the place the next day. Unfortunately, this is where disaster struck! As we were on the M5, about an hour into the journey, the car overheated and we limped in to a services and pulled up. It turns out there was an issue with the radiator and it had completely overheated and died. Boiling water was spurting out from under the bonnet so I had to call the RAC. Luckily, there was an RAC van in the same car park so he came over to us pretty quickly but couldn’t repair the damage. Luckily though, our RAC membership allows them to put us up in a hotel for the night nearby whilst they take the car to a local RAC garage. Unfortunately again though, the nearest place available was Gloucester, which was another 40 minutes down the M5. So we had to be towed (that was an interesting experience) from the services to a Premier Inn in Gloucester, where we spent the night. The following day, the RAC came again and took the car off to a garage to get fixed, so we decided to make the most of it and add an extra day to our holiday, and travel to Weston Super Mare that night. We were also lucky in that across the road from the hotel, was a bowling and arcade complex, so we ended up spending most of the day in there whilst waiting for the call about the car. We had a game of bowling, which was good fun, and then went in the arcade and I managed to win 2 Evil Minion soft toys, which I was very pleased with! 😉 We had lunch there as well and the boys spent a couple of hours in the indoor soft play area that they had, which gave Kelly and I some time to relax with Coby, who was very good again really. Ben and Aaron loved it in there, so they were happy with the extra day of our holiday!

Here are some pics from bowling.

We didn’t get a call from the garage by 4pm so I gave them a call and they said the car would be ready by 5pm, so I had to get a taxi (driven by a very dodgy Bulgarian guy who didn’t know where he was going!) to the garage. I paid up and drove back to the hotel, thinking everything was fine. By this point, we had decided to stay the night in the hotel and travel to Weston Super Mare in the morning, but again, our next nightmare was to follow.  ;-( We went into the pub next door for some food for tea and hoping to get an early night, but after eating, I went back out to the car, only to find there was another puddle under it again. I just couldn’t believe it and was quite mad as I thought the garage had done a shoddy job! So another long call to the RAC took place, and then they sent out a tow truck to take the car back to the garage instead of a mechanic, so I had to ring them again and this time they sent out a mechanic. By the time he arrived, it was dark and must have been 9:30pm. He had a look and basically said the water pump had now failed. The only realistic option we had left was to get the car towed back to Plymouth from Gloucester. This was obviously not ideal what with having 3 children, and it basically ruined our holiday, so we didn’t even manage to get to Weston Super Mare!

The following day, a massive tow truck picked us up and took us home along the M5 for about 4.5 hours, travelling at 54 mph all the way, as that was the speed limit on the truck. Luckily, an accident had cleared that had closed the entire M5 just before Bristol, so we missed that thank god!  Kelly and I were obviously completely fed up by now but the boys were loving riding in the truck, so at least they had a good time travelling!

Over the next week and a half, we found out that the car had basically had it and wasn’t really worth fixing as the head gasket and cam belt had also broken, so we ended up getting a new car. It was a disastrous end to what started out being a really good holiday.  The boys did love it all though, especially ‘Thomas Land’ at Drayton Manor Park, and all the chocolate they got to eat at Cadbury World! 😉