Travel

Harry Potter Forest Experience December ’21 – My First Night Away Baby-Free!

Can you believe that in the nine months that my baby girl has been alive, I hadn’t spent one single night away from her? Me neither, but now that’s changed as I had a much needed girly night away to visit the Harry Potter Forest Experience in Arley Hall, Cheshire.

It was well and truly needed to give my tired brain and body a rest from Mam-mode and allowed me to breathe again without worrying about bottles, baby food and nappies. I was only away for one night and approximately 24 hours but it was enough to reset myself somewhat.

The Experience and Hotel

I’m not going to prattle on too much about the actual experience and hotel as I’ve made a vlog on my YouTube channel – watch it on this link – which will give you a better idea of what it’s all about. I will say though that our hotel (Ibis Budget Warrington) was in the services which was great as we had a Costa, Greggs, McDonalds and WHSmith on our doorstep plus a tiny pub. We ended up going to McDonalds for tea as the pub had about six options and they were all plates that would normally be on a kids menu so we cut our losses and had maccies. As we walked in to McDonalds we were greeted by a crowd of people who were the weirdest, drugged-up bunch of blokes ever. They started talking to us as we were trying to order on our screen and I almost couldn’t complete my order as I was so baffled by the b*llshit coming out of this blokes mouth. It was really funny after we had sat down (far, far away from them) but it does make you think, what are you doing with your life when you’re smashed out of your mind at 6:30pm on a Sunday night in a McDonalds services (which was in the middle of nowhere may I add).

My YouTube thumbnail and yes, I’m pretending Hedwig pooed on me

The drive to the Harry Potter experience was also the maddest thing ever as my sat nav took us through a pitch black country lane which happened to have a sign at the entrance saying ‘NO ACCESS TO ARLEY HALL’. Now you might be thinking, ‘why did you drive down it then?’, and the answer is, because I had already drove past it by the time I had processed it and b. there was nowhere to turn around. So we kept going and would get excited everytime we saw Christmas lights and all shout, “Oooh I think that’s it!”, but it turns out the people of Warrington have epic Christmas decorations on their massive farms. Eventually a car came from the opposite direction and as it was a single lane, we had to slow down to pass each other so I took the opportunity to ask the driver if they knew the area and scare the crap out of him by winding the window down and waving my arm around like a loon. By some stroke of luck, the elderly couple had just come from the Harry Potter experience and we were infact going the right way! Hooray.

When we eventually found the place, the organisation of parking was so poorly managed. There were people waving green lights about here, there and everywhere but not looking at our car or where they were directing us. There were no arrow signs anywhere so we just had to wing it and hope I didn’t run anyone over. It was really poor considering the amount of cars there but I don’t know if this is the venues mistake or the Harry Potter Experience staff’s.

Anyway, watch the vlog and you’ll see that a good time was had by all and our highlight was screaming ‘EXPECTO PATRONUM’ at the top of our lungs in public. If you are interested in going to the Harry Potter Forest Experience, the event is on until January and you can book tickets here.

Thanks for reading

Like this post? You may also like the below

Our First Holiday to Haggeston Castle

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *