CBeebies Land is Alton Towers latest land in their ever popular theme park. Aimed at young children and fans of the TV Shows from the CBeebies channel it offers an immersive experience for your toddlers. I decided to check it out a month after it opened with my three year old son Matthew.
Alton Towers as a theme park has been around for a while, it was one of those places I used to go too every few years growing up, the last time being in 2006. Check out this You Tube video from that trip here.
The park was mainly focused on thrill rides for teens or above with very little aimed at very young children below a certain height. That all changed in May 2014 when the park opened CBeebies Land.
Ever since the first adverts appeared on TV I knew I needed to take my son Matthew there and he was getting increasingly excited as our visit got nearer, for weeks he could not stop talking about how he wanted to drive Postman Pat’s van and go in the IgglePiggle boat ride.
The day finally arrived and after a drive of an hour and forty minutes we finally arrived. There are two parking options at the theme park, regular which costs £6 and is some distance from the main gates or Express at a cost of £16 but is right next to the gates, I opted for the latter for convenience sake.
We entered the park at opening time right on 10am and would recommend anyone else to do the same as this along with just before closing time has the shortest lines on the rides so you will be able to ride the first few with very little waiting.
Upon entering we walked through the main street and veered off to the right where CBeebies Land is situated. Matthew was so exited at this point he broke into run, he was on a mission he knew he wanted to drive Postman Pat’s van, so there is no surprises what ride we went on first!
We had a ten minute wait for Postman Pat’s Parcel Post Ride and Matthew was entertained by the various games that the organisers had situated around the queue. Then it was our turn to ride, upon opening the gate Matthew launched himself into the front seat of the Royal Mail Parcel Delivery Van, I took a seat in the back and we were off.
Postman Pat’s van follows a track past various residents all of which need their post, when driving past them you have to press the relevant parcel button on the dash board which corresponds to the person; train for Anjay, letter for Mrs.Goggins, etc. Matthew loved it and delivered all the parcels on time.
Next we walked over to the In the Night Garden Magical Boat Ride, the line was already up to 20 minutes long but again there was various games in the queue to keep the young ones entertained.
The small boat fits about nine people and moves slowly through the land of In the Night Garden passing favourites such as Upsy Daisy, MaccaPacca and IgglePiggle. Again Matthew loved it.
After the boat ride we walked over to the other side of CBeebies Land to ride the Get Set Go Tree Top Adventure ride which is a car on a raised track that travels around CBeebies Land and gives a great aerial view of the area.
Next was the Something Special Sensory Garden an educational interactive garden that is great to spend about five minutes in whilst your child runs around it.
We then went on the Numtums Number-Go-Round, a small carousel where the horses have been replaced but individual cars, it may not have been the most exciting ride in the world but Matthew enjoyed it.
Next to this was Justin’s House Pie-O-Matic Factory, after a 30 minute wait we got in. The aim of the game here is collect as many foam balls in the bag provided and then go upstairs to shoot them at the people below using the pneumatic guns. Matthew was a little too short to use the guns correctly so with me loading them he was just pulling the trigger without aiming. The then decided to forget about the guns and either roll the balls down the slides or throw then at the people below.
We then went over to Mr.Bloom’s Allotment but with a waiting time of 50 minutes thought it would be better to come backlater so went to the Tree Fu Tom Training Camp next door. This is a large playground with climbing frames, tunnels, rope swing and Matthew’s ever favourite slides. We spent about 30minutes here before deciding we needed something to eat.
The food options in CBeebies Land is very poor with just one outlet that serves healthy snacks. We chose to venture out and go over to Cloud Cuckoo Land where there was a Burger Kitchen and we had a Quarter Pounder Meal and Kids Chicken Nugget meal both served with fries and a drink for about £10. Whilst in this area we explored the other areas of the park and went on Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory ride before taking the Sky Ride cable car over to the other side of the park to go to their aquarium to see the fish, Pirate ship and the Congo River Rapids before grabbing and ice cream and heading back to CBeebies Land.
We had another ride on Postman Pat’s Parcel Post ride before going into Nina’s Science Lab where there are a number of interactive experiments. Followed by another ride on the In the Night Garden Magical Boat Ride.
We then went over to Mr.Bloom’s Allotment and luckily the wait time had reduced to just 20 minutes so entered it. This attraction has two parts the first you enter Mr.Bloom’s Allotment where you need to help collect tokens to feed Compo, all the kids loved doing this as you needed to search the whole garden to find them. Next you Go into Mr. Bloom’s Shed where you need to create a ride for the Wee Macgregor’s (unfortunately no photography was allowed in the shed).
We finished off the day by going to Tree Fu Tom Training Camp again as well as one last ride on Postman Pat’s Parcel Post before finally doing some shopping in the CBeebies shop and spending a lot of money there!
Matthew loved the place so much he really wanted to go again so we did, later that week and that time we had the time to see the Mike the Knight stage show and play all the medieval games at the Big Time Showtime tent. We also explored more around the park and went on some rides and attractions suck as The Runaway Mine Train, Duel and Ice Age 4D.
We had a great time at CBeebies land and would recommend anyone with small children who like the TV Shows to go there. Buying Alton Towers tickets can be expensive so keep your eye out for special offers such as buy one get one free that seem to be everywhere or like I did collect tokens in a national newspaper to get free entry.
