Category Archives: Reviews

On Techniquest and the best £56 you’ll spend this year

Cardiff Stuff, Family, Reviews, Wales, , , , , , ,

Techniquest in Cardiff

If you’ve not been before, Techniquest is a science and technology museum for kids in Cardiff Bay. But there is not one single exhibit to look at. Instead, there are about a hundred exhibits, that the kids can play with, get wet with, and climb all over – and maybe even learn something, who knows! There’s a wet play area, where they can build dams and sail ships, and where they can, by firing water jets into the appropriate holes, measure the difference in the amount of water needed for a bath vs a shower, or leaving the tap running while doing your teeth instead of just turning it on when you need it. There is the best marble maze in the world bar none, a man size Spirograph type exhibit and a hot air balloon. There is a colony of leaf eating ants and magnifying cameras so you can track them on screen, a mirage where it looks like your legs disappear, and a piano in the floor that you play by jumping on. Oh – and a planetarium!

The kids could easily spend the whole day in Techniquest – but (bad mother alert) there’s no way on Earth I’d want to. When you walk in, it’s like you hit a wall of sound. There are kids running in all directions and adults running after them. There’s usually an argument as the husband and I have widely differing opinions on how much our kids need to be watched. I like to know where they are at all times; he assumes they are fine unless the tannoy calls him. Actually – that last bit is not true – he assumes they are ok until the eldest one comes to find him to tell him that the tannoy has been calling his name for 5 minutes because the middle one is in some sort of scrape. And who knows what the youngest was doing in the meantime. But let’s not go over old ground, we’ll save that for when I’m really tamping for a fight, hey?

And breathe. Where was I?  Oh yes – I couldn’t spend a day in Techniquest. Two hours is pretty much my maximum, perhaps three if I’ve had a full night’s sleep the night before.  After that I start to lose the plot a bit.

So it might sound weird that we spend £56 a year on a family pass. But dropping in for a couple of hours, whenever the kids want to, is actually a brilliant way to experience Techniquest. We don’t need to feel that we have to spend a whole day there to justify the entrance fee (a day pass for a family of 5 would be £23). We (mostly) avoid sulking when it’s time to leave, because the kids know they can come back any time. There’s always different exhibits on rotation, as well as different shows and events, so we get to do or see something different each visit. And I have to say it’s been brilliant these last couple of cold, rainy, skint months, knowing there is always somewhere we can go for a couple of hours so the kids don’t get cabin fever. The family pass also gives 10% off in the shop, free Planetarium shows, and a couple of other bits and bobs, so all in all, it’s excellent value for money. And it helps me not lose the plot – what’s not to like!

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If you don’t know Techniquest – here’s my top tips:

1 If you live in Cardiff, the annual pass is definitely worth considering – but if you’re not sure, you can pay for a day’s entry, and then if you want to buy a pass, you’ll have your entry money refunded.

2 You can use Tesco Reward points to get in (but not to pay for an annual pass)

3 It’s sometimes closed on Mondays – but not every Monday – so call ahead on 029 2047 5475

4 Take dry clothes – though the waterplay isn’t the immersion type, there’s every chance their top halves will end up soaked.

5 Toddler Days take place once a month –  adults pay £4.60 and under 5s go free – check the website for the next one.

6 TQ After Hours – I haven’t checked this out yet but it’s evening opening, with none of the little critters running around, AND A BAR! I think this could persuade me to revise my 2 hour limit – I’ll let you know when I’ve been to one! Follow @TQafterhours for details of the next event.

Techniquest - Cardiff

On Legoland Windsor – the good, the awesome, the bad and the ugly.

Family, Reviews, , , , , ,

 

We are back! Amazingly, the kids did not have a clue – we woke them up early ‘to go swimming before it gets too busy’ and bless them, they bought it hook, line and sinker. Until we hit the M4, when ‘Daddy’s short cut’ just didn’t cut it any more. It was lovely listening to them wondering where we were going – in fact it made for such a peaceful journey that I am thinking of making all trips mystery ones from now on!

So – the good. To be fair – this was most of it – Legoland does what it does really well, there was plenty to keep all of them happy – and the kids are close enough in age, that they all wanted to go on pretty much the same things. My favourite was the ‘Atlantis Experience’, where you get to go in a ‘submarine’ alongside sharks, rays, and all manner of sealife – and it was warm! One benefit of the weather being absolutely fecking freezing was that there were no queues for anything at all – which meant that by the time the kids got too cold to stay outdoors, they’d done enough rides that they were happy to head back to the hotel.

We’d booked early enough to get a really good deal at the Lego Hotel in the park – this proved to be a good move, as after coming in from the park we were able to take the kids into the pirate pool – with all the watershooters and fountains any kid (or Dad) could want. The hotel itself was brilliantly set up for kids, with a massive lego pit in reception, a pretty big play castle area in the main dining area and – my kids favourite – a whoopee cushion in the carpet. Hours of fun for them all – and, er, Dad.

The awesome – well, the awesome has to be the rooms. We’d booked a Pirate Room, and it was fab! The designers really had gone to town, with everything very properly pirate indeed. There was even a treasure hunt for the kids, giving them a code which opened a pirate treasure chest with lego goodies in. And someone had thoughtfully put a box of Duplo in the room for the three year old – a wasted effort since he scorns any baby versions of toys, but a good thought all the same! Here they are in their pirate alcove. By the way, they are absolutely not watching TV so I can have 5 minutes peace – no siree, I’m a much better mother than that. They are admiring the pirate wallpaper. But there is also a TV, right where they are looking, just in case you wanted to know.

The bad – well, the bad was the cold. And there isn’t that much that the lego gods can do about that, so we’ll let that pass.

And the ugly. I’m afraid there was an ugly, and it was the food – or rather the food prices. After our first trip to Legoland back in 2009, I wrote a review somewhere (I can’t find it now) that said something like ‘the food isn’t that great, but it’s not terrible, and it’s not as overpriced as you might expect’. Well, the food is still in ‘not great, but not terrible’ territory. But look at the prices:

Legoland

That’s £45 for a very average lunch for a family of 5 – three of whom are aged 7 or under! A similar deal in Pizza Hut would have set us back £26. But the kids were cold, and hungry, so I gulped and paid. And it was more of the same in the hotel in the evening – £18.95 for adults, and £9.95 for children, for a Harvester style buffet, plus drinks on top, if the adults among you don’t fancy Coke, lemonade or fizzy orange. Nearly £70 seemed a lot to me – so we took an executive decision to pile the kids into the car and try our luck in Windsor. We ended up in Nandos, because it seemed unstuffy enough to cope if the kids had a meltdown – since it was the first time we’d EVER braved an evening meal out with the three of them, we figured it might be wise to play it safe. It was a great success actually – and it came in at £50, though to be fair a tenner of that was beer for the adults. That is to say, the adults not including the designated driver, so, umm, me. Well anyway. It was far better value than the hotel. And the kids loved it, as you can see by the exemplary behaviour of the biggest one.

Legoland

So, there you are. The good, the awesome, the bad and the ugly. I’d definitely recommend Legoland – it’s great value, especially if you do some hunting around for discount deals. And paying extra to stay in the Lego hotel is a sensible investment at any time of year, given the uncertainty of the weather in these parts. But if it’s warm enough, pack a picnic for the daytime, and then eat out in the evening, or you’ll end up with a ginormous hole in your pocket.

On Legoland and Workflowy

Family, Reviews, , , , , ,

It’s this week! The kids have no idea at all!

They are all coming back from their grandparents this afternoon, and I am feeling not at all like myself, having a)had an evening out with the husband, b)slept till 11am and c) had breakfast in bed….anyway, that’s beside the point. What I wanted to do with this post is share a really useful tool, that I started using for work ages ago and, pretty quickly adopted for home life too.

It’s a free app called Workflowy , available through your browser, or as an Android/IOS app. It is amazingly simple – but incredibly effective. For work, I use it as a brain dump to organise my thoughts before writing a project plan, and then to keep track of progress. For home, I am using it as a basis for the House Project  – but I also use it for packing for trips – here’s my Legoland list for example. Depending on when you’re reading this there may even be some items crossed out!!   The link I’ve shared is non-editable by others – but you can share editable lists too – which is incredibly useful if, unlike me, you don’t mind people messing with your carefully crafted system. And it doesn’t matter if I’m out and about, and think of something, because it syncs to my phone – how cool is that! (I admit that I am coming late to technology, and such clever things as syncing still amaze me!!!)

OK – I should probably make a start on the actual packing bit now. But if you want to know more, check out this video – and I’d love to hear about anything similar that you use – tweet @michelledavis or comment below!