I have had this post in my drafts for ages, but finally I am sharing our super fun trip that we went on quite a while ago!  Last summer we went on a road trip.  We already had Merlin Annual Passes (which we bought with Tesco vouchers so it was already a great deal!) and we decided to put those passes to good use and go to as many attractions as we could in a week long road trip.  As we live in London we had already used our Merlin passes to go to the London Eye, the London Aquarium, Shrek's Adventure, Legoland (affiliate link) and Chessington World of Adventures, but it was time to take our passes up north (we also went to some places which were not covered by the Merlin pass but those were just a bonus).

Warwick Castle

Our first stop was Warwick Castle which is a beautiful ancient castle that has been restored to become a fantastic day out destination for families.  It truly has something for everyone with lots of history and information inside the castle and lots of activities for children.



The children loved going through the Horrible Histories Maze and collecting all of the stamps to receive a special pop badge at the end of the day.  There were also some fantastic shows, the jousting one was incredible and had the kids both mesmerised and cheering for their favourite side.

Stratford Upon Avon - Shakespeare's Birthplace

Cadbury World

The next day we went on to Cadbury World in Bourneville to learn all about how chocolate is made and of course to taste some samples!  (This isn't a Merlin attraction so we did have to pay for entry).  We spent the morning there, had some lunch in the cafe and then went to Birmingham.

Birmingham Aquarium

Our first stop in Birmingham was the Birmingham Aquarium.  We love all of the Sea Life aquariums, so it was nice to visit this one in Birmingham which seemed a lot bigger than the London one.



We did attempt to then go to the Birmingham Legoland Discovery Centre but unfortunately as it had only recently opened our Merlin Passes couldn't be used there, which was quite disappointing.  So please do make sure that you check the fine print of when passes can't be used to avoid being turned away like we were.

Alton Towers

We spent 2 days at Alton Towers to truly get the most out of it.  There are so many fabulous rides for young children, you could easily spend a whole day just in CBeebies Land!  We were big fans of the Octonauts roller coaster, the Postman Pat car, and the Night Garden boats.






There were also CBeebies characters that you could meet, which was a really nice surprise for us.  We managed to meet quite a few over the two days and the children were thrilled!


Driving past Manchester we unfortunately didn't have time for more attractions, but if we had another day we could have gone to the Manchester Aquarium and Manchester Legoland Discovery Centre (we did fit in a quick stop in at a shopping centre for Tim Hortons and Build a Bear toys!)

Blackpool

Next we went to Blackpool!  It was nice to just walk along and see the sites (although it was very windy that day!)

Blackpool Aquarium

Blackpool Tower

We also went to the Blackpool Tower and we were able to go up the tower to the glass floor.




We also went to the very top observation area, but it was definitely too windy to stay up there for very long!

Lake District

We explored the Lake District a bit while we were there, unfortunately the weather wasn't very nice so we weren't able to really appreciate the lakes.  But we did manage to have a nice drive through the towns and stop at some nice places to eat.

The World of Beatrix Potter

The main attraction for children in the Lake District is of course The World of Beatrix Potter which did not disappoint.  We had brought quite a few Beatrix Potter books along with us for the trip so they were very familiar with a lot of the stories which made it even more fun.



We really had such a lovely time on our road trip, it's unfortunate that I've waited so long to finish this post that I've forgotten many of the details, but I really did want to share our route as it made such a great trip.  It was the perfect combination of active days and more relaxing days and was perfect for the whole family.

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