The kids had a massive break over Christmas but Leigh and I had to continue working so we shared the duties of looking after the children between us with the always grateful help of Grandma Linda.

On the Thursday I decided to take them both to Blackpool so we could go into the Aquarium and up the tower. Our first snag was that they were working on the aquarium in the morning and wouldn’t be open until one in the afternoon, is was no great issue as we could go into the tower although it upset Ben as a two year old doesn’t get the meaning of why we couldn’t see the fishes.

Ben was quickly calmed by the idea of the tower lift and soft play however. So we went into the tower. I have my first small complaint here. The tower charged full price for both kids. Ben is two and a half, and Elliott nine months. Neither are old enough to go on all of the jungle Jim, so nine pounds to play in the ball pool is a bit steep. The same price for all ages is a poor model IMHO.

Next small complaint is that the ball pool was really quite filthy, when your baby is licking everything in sight you want them to be at least making the effort to clean things.

After the soft play we went up the tower in the lift and out onto the skywalk. Ben was more confident about being on the skywalk this time and happily played on it.

After a short lunch we went into the SeaLife centre. We discovered the reason for them being closed in the morning as they were moving fish as part of the remodelling of the centre. They are changing several displays and tanks. One disappointment is the under water walkway was closed as that tank has been drained. There were workmen in there and they did pretend to be fish for us, but no sharks or rays.

Another tank area had its fish moved so they could start remodelling as well. It is good that they are working on the displays but I think they could have placed a concession on the ticket price since the largest display was not being used, this is the high point of their exhibit and charging full ticket price and not having the grand display is a little off, it would be like not showing the headline act at a concert.

But I dislike complaining about cost all the time, we had a good day and the kids really enjoyed themselves.