Trip to London: Day Three Hampton Court Palce

Day Three: Our last day and the day we were to come home.  Being the 'travelling day' we decided on a quieter, less thrill seeker day and decided to visit Hampton Court Palace - a place that I have always wanted to visit.  The night before we looked on line to book tickets and purchased the years Palace pass for a family as it was only £40 more than a day pass, and we knew we would use the pass later in the year when we visit London in August.

We we arrive we collected our annual passes and then headed straight for the maze which Titch was desperate to do.

On the way to the maze you walk through the rose gardens and these are stunning. It did help that it was such a glorious day, but I could have spent ages walked around just taking pictures of the roses.

The maze was great fun, and we all enjoyed getting lost and then eventually succeeding in finding the centre. We then had to find our way out, to which Titch asked if we could use Sat Nav - not sure it would work!

We then headed inside to explore the Palace and the rooms. There was so much to see and do. Titch even got to turn the roast beef that was cooking on the open fire. The smell was amazing.  There were staff all around dressed up, in character, who you could talk to and ask questions.

The grounds at the back of the palace were amazing. We had brought ourselves a picnic and sat under the trees just admiring the view whilst we ate.

We only managed to spend around 3 hours here, but could have easily spend double that, so hopefully we will get to go again.

We have so many beautiful places in this country and luckily when the weather is good as it has been these places just come to life.  

Trip to London: Day Two Thorpe Park

Day Two and Thorpe Park were on the cards. This is the one that Titch and the Husband had been looking forward the most. As it was somewhere that we may not go to again this year we decide to treat ourselves to fastback passes as we knew that the queues had been long all week and wanted to make the most of the day that we had.

Thorpe Park and having the fast passes did not disappoint us at all. We loved it! The first thing that we noticed was that everything was so close together. this meant that the walk between rides did not take off riding time. Using the fast track passes we managed to complete most of the big rides (apart from the water ones and swarm) and a few smaller rides before Lunch.

Now we are all thrill ride lovers and this is definitely a thrill ride lovers dream.  Each ride was different and exhilarating in its own way.

The only ride that we were all disappointed in was Derren Brown's Ghost Train. We had read so many great things about it and the ride just did not live up to the hype. Luckily with the fast track we only waited 10 minutes but some people had been in the queue for over 1.5 hours.

For lunch we ate a Pasta, Pizza Buffet and found this reasonably priced. The food was warm and tasty and the restaurant was as clean as it could bee seen as the tables were all full.  For a theme park place to eat it was okay.

In the afternoon we spent the time re doing the rides we enjoyed the most (Nemesis Inferno for me) and riding the ones we hadn't done - leaving the water rides till last, and we are glad that we did. After being drenched on Tidal Wave, we then spent an hour on the beach whilst Titch played in the Water and on the slides.

We all loved Thorpe Park and would recommend it if you are a thrill seeker like us.

Trip to London: Day One Chessington

London... we love this place and have been so many times in the past few years. This time we planned to visit the theme parks for a short break away so decided to stay on the outskirts of London. We booked 3 nights in a Premier inn in Sudbury and it was perfect for the places that we wanted to visit.  

Day One: 

Chessington World of Adventure. We had heard that the parking could be a bit of a nightmare so we chose to book premium parking for £10 the night before. This meant that we were not too far from the entrance and were parked on tarmac rather than in a field.  We arrive a little too early at 9.00 but they opened the gates around 9.45 ready for the rides to open at 10.  

Never being Chessington before we were a little disorientated at first and found it difficult to find where we wanted to go to but we soon got to grips with the map and found our way to Vampire. the queue was a little longer that advertised but we expected a wait.  Vampire was a greta start to the day, a little rickety but overall a great ride.  

The boys then headed to the pirate ship.  And OMG I am so glad I did not go on it with them.  It was brutal. Even the Husband looked a bit green after. 

We then spent the rest of the morning on other rides such as the dogems,  Cobra ( which is now our favourite Chessington ride) before heading of to the Smoke House for lunch. This is when things went down bank. We order our food, which looked amazing, and was just about to pay when all the power went down.  It wasn't anyones fault and there was nothing they could do but the power was out in the whole park.  The staff were attentive and helpful bring out water to customers all over the park, but they could not give an estimated time when the rides would be up and running.  Instead of leaving like most customers we decided to stay on and visit the animals, including the sealife.  And by the time we had done this some rides were back up and running, and the park was empty. 

We love Chessington and hopefully will return again for another day trip out - it's just a bit too far in one day for the Husband to drive to, but I maybe able to convince him.