Review of Lightwater Valley’s Summer of Fun
It was the turn of Lightwater Valley Family Adventure Park to be reviewed, and it did not disappoint!
“The park opens at 10:30am daily which meant we had plenty of time in the morning to organise ourselves a picnic lunch to take with us. We arrived at the park at around 10:20 and were greeted by friendly parking marshalls who showed each car exactly where to park (finding parking is my husband’s bug bear so to have this completely sorted for us was fantastic and started our day off in the best way). The gates opened promptly and the service was fast and efficient meaning we were in the park pretty much at 10:30 sharp!
We started off with some of the faster rides while the queues were quieter. All of the rides have clear height signs before you start queuing which is really helpful and saves any tears! Splash Falls was a real favourite of ours, especially seeing who would dare to go on the biggest drop (not me!!!).
There are new rides and attractions in place for the 2022 season and my son loved that he could go on some of his fairground favourites, including Dodgems and Twist and Turn.
For lunch we took our own picnic and crossed our fingers for decent weather. There is an abundance of picnic and seating areas which is fantastic if you are wanting to keep costs down. There is also plenty of food available to buy on site too including burgers, hot dogs, pizzas and fish and chips. The park are running some really good deals at the moment for families of 4 which was great to see. We ended up getting peckish later in the afternoon so got some chips to share. The portion was massive, plenty for us to share as a snack, and the curry sauce was absolutely delicious!
Treetop Trails is included in the price of your ticket, although you can also buy tickets for this separately and it would be totally worth it! Walking and bouncing on the nets is surprisingly harder than it looks and much hilarity ensued (mainly due to my attempts to remain standing). A great place to get shade on a hot day as you are right up in the tree canopy!
The park provides a plethora of free extra entertainment. On the day we visited they had character meet and greets, face painting and circus skills which were great fun. My daughter loved meeting Jasmine who was lovely with her and all the other children wanting photographs and high fives. These events change weekly and can be found on the Lightwater Valley website and there are some fantastic things lined up, such as magic shows, theatre performances and animal shows. This means your visit could be different every week (that season pass is calling!).
If little legs start to get tired then you can hop on the express train which takes you from one side of the park to the other. This gives you a chance to sit back and take in the beauty of the site. They have also opened a whole new nature and outdoors section called ‘Discovery Woods’ which is fantastic for outdoorsy families! It includes a mud kitchen, bird feeding station and wildlife areas. A fantastic way to slow down the pace a bit.
Since the last time we visited there have been some new play areas built which are absolutely beautiful. Really spacious, plenty of seating for the grown-ups and designed with a wide variety of ages in mind. It was a similar story for the indoor soft play too which has a dedicated Under 3’s area for the younger visitors. Our two had a whale of a time in both and it was a good chance to wear them out before setting off home.
We had a fantastic day and loved Lightwater Valley’s new offerings.“
www.lightwatervalley.co.uk for tickets.
