Glad to see that we can now view the rates for our reviews. Maybe next time Ciao should test the new...
Glad to see that we can now view the rates for our reviews. Maybe next time Ciao should test the new system before installing it?
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We regularly visit Blackpool for a short break – just to behave like children for a few days! Some would say no change there then!
Blackpool itself is on the north west coast of England. It has miles of beaches with the type of sand ideal for making sandcastles towards the north and sand dunes towards the south.
The sea isn’t particularly clean, so swimming, whilst safe as regards currents, is probably not advisable. In windy weather the sea crashes spectacularly over the wall and up onto the promenade. I always hope it will be windy when we go – I love to watch a rough sea.
Still on the subject of rough seas, Blackpool has a new lifeboat house, which is home to their three inshore lifeboats, situated just south of the Tower and it is well worth a visit. There’s lots of information about rescues and a good gift shop. You can buy a present and help save a life at the same time!
The famous Blackpool trams still run along the seafront from Starr Gate (just past the Pleasure Beach) in the south to Fleetwood in the north. In the summer they have ‘toast racks’, which, for the uninitiated, means open top!
The Tower is still one of the major attractions. It costs about £6 to get in, but once inside all the attractions are free. Apart
from the circus which costs an extra £2. The Tower Ballroom, complete with Wurlitzer organ, is beautiful and there’s dancing there every day. You can join in or just sit and watch holidaymakers having fun and professionals practising their routines.
There’s also Undersea World, a dinosaur ride, The Venom snake slide, Out of this World (interactive science) and the Crown Jewels House. There are bars, cafes and a licensed restaurant so you won’t go hungry while you’re in there.
If you’ve got a head for heights you can take the lift to the top of the Tower, from where you can see for miles. If you’re REALLY brave you can try the Walk of Faith which is a sheet of toughened glass set in the floor for you to walk over and look straight down to the street below! I managed to have both feet on it at the same time for about a second and I was terrified just watching my partner standing happily in the middle of the glass!
The northern end of Blackpool is the quieter part of the town. We always used to stay around this area when my parents took me to Blackpool for our holidays when I was a child.
From the North Pier to behind the Tower the main shopping centre stretches inland. Towards the promenade there are still lots of gift shops, mostly selling the sort of tat that we’ve all come to associate with Blackpool. Further back there is a lovely shopping centre with most of the main high street chains set in open airy shopping malls and pedestrianised streets.
My partner and I now stay in the Imperial Hotel when we visit. It is situated in the north between the North Pier and Gynn Square for those of you who know Blackpool, and it is our bit of luxury! It is a wonderful hotel with excellent food, good service and lovely rooms. It’s a bit expensive but it’s a lovely contrast after spending the day riding the Pleasure Beach and playing the slot machines!
Moving down towards the centre of the town, you first pass the North Pier complete with theatre and then on to the Tower. The stretch from the Tower to the Pleasure Beach is known as the Golden Mile although the distance is actually more than a mile. This is the area for tatty gift shops, chips, burgers and slot machine arcades.
There are two further piers, the Central Pier and the South Pier, imaginatively enough! Both of these piers have one or two funfair rides as well as the customary slot machines and pub. The South Pier has a Wild Mouse ride on seaward end of the pier. This works in the same way as a Mad Mouse in that the car climbs to the top of the track, zig zags down and then has one or two roller coaster type dips. The BIG difference is that the car is circular and about half way down it also begins to spin! My screams were so loud everyone along the pier turned to see what was happening!
There is also one of the giant swings on this pier, where you get strapped into a harness and get pulled up on a wire between two posts and then let go to swing back and forth. If that doesn’t scare you senseless there’s a reverse bungee as well. This is a spherical cage with two seats in it on two pieces of strong elastic cable attached to two posts. You are strapped in and the catch is released so that the cage hurtles skywards and then bounces up and down. I will just say that I am not brave enough or daft enough to go on either of these rides!
The Pleasure Beach at Blackpool is a brilliant fun fair. It is free to go in and you can pay per ride, have a wristband for the day or buy a book of discounted tickets. I won’t go into detail about all the rides as I have written a separate opinion on this and it would make this one far too long!
We went into Ripley’s Believe it or not Odditorium when we were last in Blackpool. It was featured on TV when they had the statue in the foyer with so called magical properties. Apparently if you rub it’s tummy you will get pregnant, well that wasn’t the way I learned in biology! I thought I’d give it a rub and really set it a challenge – I had a hysterectomy years ago!!!
Ripley’s is basically a series of rooms containing all sorts of strange but true things. For example there’s a model of the world’s tallest man, a grain of rice with the Lord’s Prayer written on it, a seaside section with facts about what gets washed up on the beach each year – now that is unbelievable! There’s much more but you get the general idea. We found it really entertaining.
About halfway along the Golden Mile there’s Louis Tussauds waxworks. We also had a look round here. Some of the waxworks are so lifelike I kept looking at them to see if they blinked. On the other hand some are so bad that I had to look at the label to see who they were! Still it was an entertaining hour or so out of the rain!
Roughly opposite the Pleasure Beach there is an indoor water park called the Sandcastle. This is a series of pools, slides, etc and is definitely worth a visit. At least once you’ve paid to get in you don’t spend any more cash while you’re in there. Incidentally I am old enough to remember the old open-air swimming baths that once stood on this site! I even went in once but the water was awfully cold!
If you want to get away from the commercialised face of Blackpool, you could always take a ride inland and visit Blackpool Zoo and Stanley Park. I visited both of these as a child and enjoyed them immensely although I can’t say what either of them is like these days I’m afraid.
From the end of August until the middle of October Blackpool is famous for its illuminations. They begin at Bispham, which is at the northern end, and extend all the way along the promenade to Starr Gate in the south. There are special illuminated trams in the shape of a train, a spaceship or a paddlesteamer, which will take you on a tour of all the lights.
I’ll close by saying that I wouldn’t want to spend my main holiday in Blackpool, it’s too ‘full on’ for that and I’d spend too much money anyway! Having said that, for a short break, I love the place – sea, roller coasters, slot machines and chips, what more can you ask for?
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May 19th, 2001
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