We've had a really good day! We'd booked a Christmas experience at Chill Factore in Manchester primarily to try and capture the Christmas card photo but also so Charlie and Courtney could have a play in snow! They also got an early visit to Father Christmas!
It was quite busy when we arrived but most people were skiing, having lessons or one of the other activities. I'd say the snow play area had just about the right number in. The whole experience thing is VERY good, the play area had several things, a house, a slide, climbing things, a little slope for sliding down with inflatables and a couple of staff who were playing with the children. There wasn't really enough snow though to build a snowman as Charlie had hoped but that didn't matter. For the first 10 minutes or so they both played really nicely but Charlie had a little slip and it frightened him and his confidence dwindled. We tried and the staff tried to encourage him but I think he'd had enough then. Courtney was also getting ready to leave. We had a little break and had bought some headbands earlier in the week to accessorise the Christmas photo and they did provide a good distraction for a few minutes but there was little, or in truth no posing to be had as you can see from the top left photo, little monkeys! We had another quick play and then left the play area and changed from our groovy snow boots back into our own shoes and made our way over to Father Christmas's grotto! Before we went into the grotto area Peppa Pig paid a visit! Charlie went straight up to her but Courtney wasn't so keen. She did go up after a little persuasion and happily had her photo taken with her.
I think the grotto area was great, the best I've seen! They'd set 3 little tables up in the middle of a queuing area for the children to be entertained whilst the adults queued, the staff did activities with them and when it was our turn we just had to call the children up. Charlie was very good with Father Christmas and told him he'd like a new bendy bus for Christmas as his has broken (I'm sure that can be arranged) Courtney was a little reluctant again but did go up to him with me. We had a family photo with Father Christmas which is very good and that now is going to be the Christmas card photo so I can't share it! To finish off our adventure we had a Costa treat!
We then went to Salford to pick Maddie up from Uni and went to the Lowry shopping place, I really liked it in there and we got a couple of Christmas pressies. After that we walked over to Media City and Charlie had his photo taken with a big Pudsey sticker, the BBC building is all decorated up ready for Children in Need next week! I'm going to print the photo off for him to take to school on Friday. We went to a dinosaur exhibition thing, it was a bit basic but Charlie liked it and that's the main thing! There was an area that had giant IPads set into tables, they were fun, we all played on the drawing app!
I was surprised Charlie and Courtney didn't sleep on the way home, I was shattered, LOL! Courtney did have a little nap but no more than 10 minutes! They both went straight to sleep at bedtime though!
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