With the summer holidays upon us, I swear that if you listen hard enough you can hear the sound of frazzled parents across the land pulling out their hair and screaming into pillows as they wonder just how on Earth they're going to manage to keep their children entertained over the course of the next 6 weeks without totally breaking the bank!
Even though we're not a family with school children, I can relate to that feeling of slight unease as the 6 week holiday looms ahead - you see, we live in a tourist hot spot and so our usual cheap and cheerful day out options like the local park and the beaches are suddenly completely overrun with holidaymakers, traveling fairgrounds and circuses - meaning there's nowhere to park, and it's totally chaotic! So, like the rest of the countries mums, dads and grandparents, I've been spending a lot of time on Google looking for ideas for days out to keep the boys entertained - things that are a little bit different and exciting, but not things that are going to cost me a small fortune!
So when I found out that popular Children's TV show Pip Ahoy had teamed up with Visit Cornwall to create a series of online Treasure Hunts, I knew it was exactly the sort of thing I'd been looking for!
My children are aged between 2 and 5 years old, and they LOVE Pip Ahoy - living at the seaside they find the content of the show to be really fun and relatable, and who doesn't love a super cute character like Pip?!
The treasure hunts are running across 5 coastal towns in Cornwall - St Ives, Penzance, Padstow, Falmouth & Newquay (5 of the prettiest places to visit in Cornwall, in my opinion!) as well as Crealy Great Adventure Park here in Devon.
The idea is that you visit one of the host towns (or Crealy!), go online to www.pipahoytrail.com and follow the map to the various hot spots - at each hotspot you reach, you'll unlock a cool Selfie filter as well as a voucher for things such as local food & drink outlets, attractions in the area, etc - so not only are you getting the fun experience of doing the online treasure hunt, but you're rewarded with the chance to save money and bag a few bargains on your day out too!
Last weekend, we went along to Crealy to try out the Pip Ahoy Trail for ourselves.
As soon as we arrived, we were given leaflets telling us all about the trail and how to access it - and we also found out that Pip himself was going to be in the park doing meet & greets too! We hadn't expected this so it was a lovely surprise and the boys were SO excited about it - but first, we decided to head off on the trail!
The website was super easy to use, and the hotspots were pretty easy to find - they even took us to some areas of the park that we'd never visited before, which was great as it gave us the chance to explore new things we hadn't even realised that Crealy had such as the reptile house (We've been to Crealy several times over the years, and had somehow managed not to realize they had a reptile house!)
The boys loved unlocking the selfie filters in the different hot spots, and I quite enjoyed the chance to bag some discount vouchers and offers too (25% off entrance to Crealy was a personal favourite, I'll be sure to use that one again over the summer!)
Of course, it wasn't all treasure hunting - we stopped off at pretty much all of the rides too! The boys absolutely love the rides on offer at Crealy - there really is something to suit all of them! My 2 year old loves the Dinosaur Safari Jeeps, my 3 year old is a big fan of the Safari Train Ride and my eldest just adores Maximus - the roman themed Rollercoaster!
The favorite ride on any visit to Crealy though is always the Flying Machine! The boys love spreading their arms and closing their eyes as they soar through the air on their swings, it gives me a bit of a lump in my throat every time as I watch them enjoying themselves so much...these little moments are the ones you know they'll remember as they grow up, and it's so lovely to see those memories being made.
After a well deserved Ice cream break, we took ourselves along to the Piazza stage at 3 pm for a meet & great with Pip Ahoy himself - the boys were absolutely delighted, and amazingly the queue wasn't long at all! We didn't feel rushed as you often do at these sorts of events, it all felt really relaxed and e enjoyable.
We had such a lovely day out at Crealy, and the Pip Ahoy Trail really added to it - I think we'll certainly be popping along to Padstow to have a go at the trail there too!
Pip will be visiting Crealy throughout summer up until 2nd September, You can find out more about the trail at www.pipahoytrail.com
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