Brummies Go To Blackpool!

Hello everyone as promised my blog all about our trip to Blackpool....

.... So the story continues Friday 22nd August me and Kieron were up quite early. We both had showers and packed up our toiletries and other little things into our suitcase. We also sorted out cameras and PSP stuff to take with us in the car.

Whilst Kieron was still sorting out last minute stuff i took Faye down to the cattery. I had booked her in with Wildrose Kennels where i used to work because i know i can trust them. I got down to the cattery at 9.15am dropped off Faye said hello to Mandy and Norma and called in at the petrol station to fill up the car.

I then headed back to the flat where Kieron had just finished locking the flat up, we dumped the stuff in the car and headed round to Steve and Natalie's. When we got there Steve and Natalie were ready, they said goodbye to their children, Lucy and Phoebe who were staying with Natalie's sister Heather, got everyone in the car and set off.

Kieron was driving with Steve in the front and me and Natalie were sharing the back. We put on a Queen CD and cruised through Town and onto the M6. It was about 10.50 when we hit the motorway and it would take a couple of hours to get to Blackpool.

We all had a packed lunch with us in the car so that we didn't have to stop unless we absolutely had to.

The journey wasn't too bad, it was a bit busy on the motorway but Kieron drives up and down the M6 on most days because of work so he was very relaxed and calm. Two hours had passed and we were now leaving the M6 and joining the M55. We only had to go pass 3 junctions before it was time to leave the motorway and enter Blackpool.

I had a map and some directions for our B&B once we left the motorway, which i handed to Steve as he was in the front.

It didn't take us long to find the B&B as it was on a fairly main, but quiet road. The B&B was called the Carlee, we pulled up and i went to the door (as i had booked the place). The owner Heather (a different one, not Natalie's sister) was a lovely lady, although she could talk for England. Once booked in and sorted out we were shown our rooms.

Our rooms were together on a separate corridor from other people's so we were had our own little private section where noone could come and hassle us, which we thought was great.

The rooms were very spacious and decorated quite well, bright, breezy and clean. We got bags to the rooms and had a 5 mkinute rest as we had been travelling for about 2 and a haf hours. It was nearly 2pm and we decided to head out.

We had our own keys to get us in and out of B&B so we could come in or go out at anytime we wanted without disturbing anybody. We set out towards the front which was only a 5-10 minute walk.

We walked towards the shopping area as Kieron needed to find a cash point to get some money, after that we headed towards the nearest Pier.

Blackpool has three Piers, North, South and Centre. We were nearest the North Pier which is a lot quieter than the other two. This is mainly because it has a theatre on it which isn't open unitl the evening so it gets busy later on.

As we walking up the Pier we had a photo moment:

Awww don't they look lovely together!

Smiley Selly!

There was a merry go-round and Me and Natalie couldn't resist having a go!

After the merry go-round we headed to the end of the pier and it was a bit windy so we went into the little bar and had our first drink in Blackpool.

After our drink we headed back down the pier and we decided to walk down the beach towards the middle one. The middle pier is one big fairground, with little rides and games and sweetie stands, we didnt stay long as there was nothing there that interested us.

We then hopped on to the tram to take u down to the south pier, this is probably the busiest pier throught out the day as most of the local attractions are around the south pier. I saw the Crazy Mouse ride that Gareth warned me about and it did look crazy - i never got chance to have a go, but i think if i had i would have died!

We walked across the road and went over to the Pleasure Beach. You can walk around the Pleasure Beach for free, to go on the rides though you can either buy a £30 wristband, like you would at Alton Towers or you can buy tokens so that you can go on a couple of rides if you're not interested in staying there all day. We thought this would be good for us, as Natalie is pregnant she can't go one most of the rides bu there were still some fun ones like the hall of mirrors and thinks like that she could do so we went to buy the tokens. We soon found out however that the tokens is a complete con becuase you HAVE to buy a minimum of £20 worth of tokens! No thank you!

We left the Pleasure Beach and made our way to the nearest pub to get a drink and some food. We found a nice family pub (a bit like a Harvester) called The Manchester.

We stayed in there quite a while having a couple of drinks and some food and trying to decide what to do that evening. The night life at Blackpool is heavily aimed at Hen/Stag Parties who are on the Club scene an want to get completely smashed off their faces from booze! If you go away from the front there are some quieter pubs that you can go to, which we founf ideal for us.

So after a few bevvies we decided that we would go to the cinema to watch the new Hellboy movie, and funnily enough we just around the corner from the Cinema. The film started at 6.10pm so we made our way.

The film is a good average film, and i think it is better than the first. When we came out of the cinema we headed back towards the B&B as we were all getting tired. We decided that we would have a few bevvies (Happy Hour) in our room back at the B&B. We stopped and got some supplies and mae our way back.

Me and Natalie settle for a nice cup of tea and the lads had a couple of cans of Scrumpy! We sat and watched the Big Brother Live Final and something about the Olympics before going to bed.

Saturday morning we all woke up fairy early, we had our showers and got ready and headed down to breakfast. We were all looking forward to our Full English and the smell was mouth-watering.

We stuffed our faces full of toast, egg, bacon, sausages and beans, coffee, tea and orange juice, it was delicious. Today me and Kieron took out the video camera in the backpack as we had a full and busy day ahead of us.

The sun was shining and we started off the day by popping in to Primark for Natalie as she needed a different t-shirt as her top was making her too hot. We then headed to the Sea Life Centre. Its quite like the one in Town about the same size, and laid out in a similar way too.

Again we had some photo moments:

Nasty Pirhanas!

We spent a good couple of hours walking round looking at all the funny creatures. After the Sea Life Centre we made our way to Louis Tussauds. Louis Tussaud was the great grandson of Madam Tussaud and Madam Tussauds in London is alot better than Louis' mainly because they have alot more waxworks and they are better look-alikes but it was still good fun!

Delboy and Rodney greeted us at the entrance!

They had a Hollywood Section:

Kieron & Angelina Jolie

Coronation Street:

Natalie called in to See Jack and Vera!

A Music section:

Boy George

Robbie Williams

The Royal Section:

Princess Selly!

Star Wars and James Bond Sections:

Kieron & Daniel Craig

Yoda & Selly it is!

And then finally they had The Chamber of Horrors. This was (as i'm sure you can guess) was all the waxworks from horrible films like, Hannibal, Scream etc etc. It was very dark in the chanber and they playes spooky music. Me and Natalie had to hold each others hand as we were both a little bit scared and we were worried that someone was going to jump out on us!

Don't touch the box Steve!

After we had come out of Louis Tussauds we crossed the road and went to sit on the beach for a bit as Natalie needed a quick rest. It was almost 2pm and we felt a bit peckish so we headed towards The Manchester pub again for some drinks and food. We all had plenty to drink and eat and we had a lovely chat and a good old laugh and giggle (mainly at the lady behind the bar who was a tad bit hairy!).

After our refreshments we had to decide what to do next, Me, Natalie and Kieron wanted to go up the Tower but Steve is affraid of heights, like proper phobia of them! So we decided to think on route and made our way to the Tower anyway. We stopped off and brought ice creams and bits and bobs and before we knew it we were at the base of the Tower. Steve wasn't going to change his mind so Kieron suggested that me and Natalie went up the Tower and him and Steve could go in the Arcade next door as Kieron wasn't too fussed what he did.

So me and Natalie bravely left the lads and set off on our adventure. Inside the tower there was a mini aquarium, the (very famous) traditional ballroom, a circus and a small 3D cinema. We opted out of the circus and cinema as we had to come back at a later time for the performances and we had other stuff we wanted to see and do.

On our entrance to the Tower we decided that we would go round the aquarium and have a look in the Ballroom before going to the top. The aquarium was ok, obviously not as impressive as the Sea Life Centre but it still had lots of weird and wonderful fish!

Then we went up a bit furter and into the Ballroom, of course all the older generation were already in there. There was a band playing and yep there were couples doing the old waltz. The ballroom is huge and is very magnificent. Me and Natalie watched for a good 20 minutes or so before going on.

The tower is approximately 518 Ft (in comparison the Eiffel Tower is about 990 Ft!), but the furthest you can go is 412 Ft. They take you up in a lift, which comes every couple of minutes, but it only takes you so far and then you have walk the rest of the way.

We got off the lift and took a few piccies and then made our way to the top. It was very windy up there and you can feel the tower swaying ever so slightly. We stayed up there quite a while, taking in the view and trying to decide if the land on the distant horizon was Wales (which they say you can see!).

Once piccies were done and we had had enough of swaying on the rusty tower we made our way all the way back down again. When we got back outside on the lovely ground, we made tracks to try and find Kieron and Steve. Unfortunately their signal had dropped off in the Arcade so we couldn't phone them.

Once inside the dark Arcade we set about walking, round and round and round and round until we found the lads playing on a game by the doors we had originally come in!

We then decided we would walk down the front to find a small museum place called Ripley's Believe It or Not. Its basically a museum full of all weird but interesting facts about people and culture all over the world. Things like the worlds fattest man or the calf born with two heads things like that!

It was only a small place but it still took us about an hour to go round. When we came out it had slowly started to rain, only spitting, so we dived onto the nearest tram to get us further back up the front.

We walked back to the B&B to relax for a bit as we had done a fair amount of walking. In the evening we decided to go out somewhere nice for a meal as it was our last night in Blackpool. In the rooms there were little packs of information about the nearest facilities and sure enough there was a section on restaurants. We decided to go to the mexican restaurant that was mentioned, so we all got ready, got in the car with the map and off we went.

Now if you think the one-way system in Birmingham is bad, then you haven't experienced the one-way system in Blackpool - it's bloody awful!

We drove round and round, up and down trying to find the restuarant and couldn't find it. I tried ringing the number but there was no answer so we went back to the B&B try and decide what to do next.

Then Natalie remembered when we went to the cinema the night before, there was a Frankie & Benny's and it was easy to get to. So that's where we went.

We had a lovely meal, i had a Chicken Carbonnara, Natalie had a lovely tuna steak salad, Kieron had a pizza and Steve had New York Chicken. We had a couple of drinks and had a really lovely evening.

When we got back to the B&B, Steve and Natalie joined us in our room for a bit before we all went to bed.

We woke up Sunday morning with sun shining again and it was our last day. We packed up our things and went down for breakfast.

We said our goodbye's to the B&B staf, bags in the car and off we went. We decided to go to Blackpool Zoo as it was away from the main part of Blackpool and it was on our way home.

Chilled out Lemurs!

Funky Giraffes!

It's quite a big zoo and we took our time going round. There was lots going on and we all got to see our favouites. After the zoo we got in the car, went to the petrol station to fill up and then popped into Macdonald's for some lunch, as by now it was almost 2pm. After lunch we set off for home.

The motorways were even quieter than coming up, although we did have a mini hold-up as Police were finishing off clearing remains of an accident that had happened that morning. It was just coming up to 4pm when we got back to Steve and Natalie's, we said our goodbye's and went, finally, back home.

Well that's it from me, so cheerio!