A little info about our roadtrip family.
Hello there, I’m Dan, here with my wife Jo and our two children Evan (10) and Elliott (6). We’re located just outside of sunny Wrexham in North Wales, which is famous these days for being the second home of Ryan Reynolds.
We love theme parks and I’ve always been a fan of a good coaster from a young age, having had many visits to Camelot (Tower of Terror and The Beast were classics) and the occasional trip to Alton Towers when I had the chance to go! But visits to theme parks were always a ‘once in a blue moon’ type of thing for us, until we really fell in love with them when we visited Orlando for our Honeymoon in 2012. We really wanted to see The Wizarding World at Universal Studios with its amazing theming and rides, it looked immense. And Jurassic Park, Superhero Island, The Hulk coaster! Then there’s Disney, we loved ‘Hollywood Studios’ and had great times at SeaWorld, Aquatica, Busch Gardens and Wet & Wild too. We loved it so much; we saved our pennies and went back in 2015 with a 2yr old Evan in tow.
After this, theme parks became our ‘to do’ thing whenever we could find a decent offer or had time and money to spare. We’d done CBeebies at Alton Towers for Evan, Disneyland Paris – which was great, and later when Elliott arrived, we started venturing to other places we’d never been like Drayton Manor for Thomas Land, West Midlands Safari Park, and we’re all big Lego nerds in this house, so Legoland Windsor was a must. Especially the hotel, we love the hotel!
Then the kids got older, and the rides got bigger. Pros and cons, I now get to go on big rides with Evan (Jo isn’t a fan), but now I can’t skip the main queues and join single rider! As Elliott got older we visited Alton Towers again, Thorpe Park, Chessington, Blackpool Pleasure Beach (Icon anyone?) and recently been on our 3rd trip to Orlando to witness all that was new there – Galaxy’s Edge & Rise of the Resistance, Velocicoaster, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorcycle Adventure, Iron Gwazi. All amazing.
We’ll always try and plan a few days away for a theme park roadtrip in the UK! We don’t just love theme parks though and usually add another stop on our journey. We just love a good day out, be it zoos (we’re a stone’s throw away from Chester Zoo and regular passholders), safari parks, castles (who doesn’t love a castle? – apart from invading forces), stately homes, national landmarks (just been to Stonehenge and invested in a National Trust pass!), aquariums, water parks, exhibitions and more. We love going out and seeing new and fun things as a family. I’m also on a mission to fill our fridge with magnets from all our trips.
So why are we doing this blog? We’re going to all of these amazing places, then coming home, popping on YouTube and looking for more great places to visit and days out to have at home and also abroad (off to Port Aventura soon – Can’t wait), so we thought why not document what we’ve seen and done on these adventures with our two children in tow and put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) about what we thought, how we saved any money on our trips, where we stayed, what worked for us and our kids, and things that could have definitely gone better.
So hopefully this will inspire you to have your own family adventures, no matter where they take you…….