Bouncing, Licking, Riding and Performing To A Crowd! (Weston-super-Mare in General)

Member Name: karenuk

Product:	Weston-super-Mare in General
Date:	11/08/01 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lots to do, kids loved it, didn't need to walk too far

Disadvantages: still ended up spending lots of money, can be a bit boring for adults and teenagers

Today, we had another day trip, in our relentless attempt to make the school holidays pleasant for all of us. Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that days out just mean the kids fight and argue in the car, rather than in the house! Perhaps I should have called this opinion ‘Car Wars’. Oh well.

We only live about 45 minutes from Weston-Super-Mare and it is our nearest bit of sea, which the kids have a strange fascination with. Personally, I think of the seaside as a combination of tack, sand flying in your mouth, exposed body parts which should stay under cover and over-priced ice-creams. But that’s just me. I can be a right miserable old bag when I want to be.

So we drove down to Weston on a lovely sunny day – which was inevitable, as I’d only put the sunblock back in the cupboard this morning. We got to the seafront and parked on the part of the beach which is reserved for such a purpose, at the cost of £4.50 per day in the Summer. There are two sections of the beach used for parking (and ominously bearing warnings about high tides!) as well as some on-street parking, all for the same price.

After parking, we walked along the seafront. Although I don’t count myself a fan of seaside towns (having seen far too much of Skegness as a youngster), I must admit Weston is one of the nicer ones I have been to.

There are plenty of toilets along the seafront, which is useful, especially when you’ve got four children with you, as we had. So we visited a few of those, finding them bearable – not as clean as they could be, but not too bad.

As we arrived around midday, we decided to eat something first. There are plenty of cafes and restaurants on the road opposite the seafront, so we crossed over and chose the Oxford Corner Café and Restaurant. This has indoor and outdoor seating and waitress service. It was nice, although not brilliant. The kids had egg and chips for £1.70 each, a
dult meals were around £4.85 for mushroom omelette, chips and peas. The six of us each had a main course and a drink, with the bill totalling £20.60.

We then crossed back over the road and decided to visit the Sea-Life Centre, as we had vouchers to use. I have been to the one at Portsmouth before, which is much bigger, but the one at Weston is pretty good too. I don’t think I would have paid full price, but we only paid for the adults (£4.75 each) with the kids going free, thanks to the vouchers we had.

The Sea-Life Centre at Weston-Super-Mare (telephone 01934-641603) stands on its own pier. It has a café, toilets, gift shop and ball pool as well as the fishy bit! We spent an hour and a half there, which was enough really.

As you walk into the Sea-Life Centre, there are signs saying what times there are going to be talks and feeding sessions. We heard the talk on sharks and the ones on rays, while watching the latter being fed. These were interesting and certainly helped make productive use of our time there.

The rays are my favourite and I could happily watch them for ages – in fact, the kids dragged ME away this time! They seem to have different personalities and there were definitely a few who seemed keen to entertain the crowd by poking their noses out of the water, turning over and apparently smiling at their audience!

These were in contrast to the flat fish (who bizarrely have both eyes and their mouth on one side of their head!), who were happy to remain on the bottom of the water, camouflaged, until the food was thrown in.

The sharks are intriguing too, especially as this centre has an ocean tunnel, where you can walk underneath and watch them swim over and around you – all protected by thick glass! They really are quite strange, a mixture of evil and beauty.

Other exhibits included a couple of tiny seahorses. We all laughed at the idea of the male giving birth – and up
to 110 babies at a time. I’d like to see a bloke do that!

There were also eels, a turtle, a tank of what we called ‘the ugly fish’ and hundreds of other types, sizes, shapes and colours of fish. These were in various tanks and pools, with peepholes and glass windows, tunnels, etc. This varies the displays, so some are open and at eye-level, others completely enclosed and so on. All are suitable for children from any age, as most are low down with glass panels, although we did have to pick the little one up a couple of times to see something.

After we had finished looking round there, we went onto the beach, where we spent another hour or so. There are a lot of things for kids to do here – a bouncy castle, go-karts, tea cups ride, swingboats, trampolines, donkey rides, etc. as well as a train ride along the seafront (60p per child single, 80p per adult single, £1 per child return, £1.20 per adult return).

Our children tried out most of these, so I’ll give you a few details on what they were like –

***GO-KARTS - cost £1.50, with a maximum age limit of nine years. There were three people on when my eight year old had a go, so we didn’t have to queue and she seemed to have a good go.

***TEA CUPS RIDE - cost £1 each, no age limit. My five and nine year olds enjoyed it, my ten year old complained it was too tame.

***TRAMPOLINES -very popular, some queueing. There are six trampolines enclosed in a kind of cage. Cost £1 each for five minutes, which doesn’t sound long, but is enough to wear themselves out! All my four went on them and loved it.

***DONKEY RIDES - cost £1 each and consist of walking up to one part of the pier, turning round and coming back. It didn’t seem to last long and no hard hats were provided, but my five year old loved it. They had lots of donkeys there, so many were resting while a few were doing the rides. They also had permanent food
and water available and the animals seemed happy and well-treated.

There are plenty of ice-cream stands and souvenir shops along the seafront too. After spending time on the beach, we bought ice-creams for around £1 each, which were very nice.

There are lots more things to do in Weston-Super-Mare, but that is how this particular family of six spent a sunny Friday in August. We enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoyed reading about our day too.

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