When Parentfolk and Chester Races team up you know its going to be another amazing event! We headed into Chester last Sunday to experience another brilliant fun day, heres what we got up to!
Cost, Location & Children Suitability:
Cost: Tickets were £10 (i believe) but children were free, this gave you access to the paddock area where the fun day was held. Parking cost an additional £10 which had to be paid on site.
Location: The event was held at Chester Racecourse, this would be about 55 minutes from Manchester but the delays with the diversions (due to roads being closed for the races) it took us about 1 hour 30
Suitability: Perfect for children of all ages, there were activities and "rides" for all. We have a 9 year old and 5 year old and both found stuff they wanted to do.
The Experience:
The field where it was held was massive, it was in the enclosure which meant that you could see the races go round past you. There were loads of inflatable bouncy castles and games along with a mini beach and a tent full to the brim of amazing small businesses running workshops!
We headed first to the Football Escapes section and the kids (and Graham had a go at kicking a football at a giant inflatable dartboard!) The staff were brilliant and really encouraging with the kids (like mine) who couldnt get it to stick on the board.
We then headed into the big tent to see what was going on, we did some graffiti with Vandal Kids wearing their amazing washable and wipeable hoodies.....really nice prints on them too and we definately need some in our wardrobe now!
We headed over to Paper Town Crafts to see what brilliant selfie props they were making, some funky glasses and an ice cream of course! Then we headed over to the Cossato stand for a brilliant goodie bag and some sweets of course.....Cosatto always bringing the sweetie goodness!
We headed for some food and this is where we struggled a lot, every food stall bar one (Thank god for the hog roast) was cash only, we hadnt been made aware of this and had no cash on us at all which meant feeding the kids was a bit of a struggle. Luckily the Hog Roast stall took card and we were able to get some delicious pulled pork butties! It was really disapointing that none of the food stalls took card yet all the bars did, for a couple who rarely drink it was frustrating to say the least. We did consider leaving to grab some food and come back but we were advised that no one was allowed to leave until at least the second race so that option was taken away from us.
After we managed to find something to eat and something to drink for the kids, we headed over to watch Newton Faulkner for a bit before they decided that they wanted to go on some of the inflatables. Alice chose the one that was pretty much a human hungry hippos which was hilarious to watch. The queues to wait however were crazy long, I think we honestly queued for an hour for something which lasted about 5 minutes.
Tips & Recomendations:
- Take cash, as mentioned above practically all of the food vendors only took cash
- Take a picnic if budget is an issue, the food wasnt cheap at all. There is a whole field to set up for a picnic and would be a brilliant cost effective way of spending the day
- Take some camping chairs, there wasn't many places to sit other than the floor and whilst waiting in the queues it would have been a benefit to have somewhere to sit down
- Take your own water bottle, there was a hydration station where you could fill up bottles
- Get there at opening and go on the inflatables first, as the day went on the queues just got longer
Overall:
All in all, it wasn't a bad day but not one of my favourites unfortunately. With a bit more preparation then it could be a brilliant day, a lot of people had picnics and were set up within the enclosure so that they could watch the races and just relax.
~ Cost: 4/5 (cost of the food was a big factor but all the experiences and rides were included)
~ Kid Friendly: 5/5 (every single child had a massive smile on their faces)
~ The Experience: 3/5 (experience was marred with the stress of finding food and the length of the queues)
As always the kids pick the experience score, they said they had fun but didnt like not being able to eat what they wanted (as no card payments) and also the really long queues to go on anything. But they said they would go back again so thats a win!
This post is a PR Trip, I was offered free tickets to attend but not asked for any posts or recomendations as compensation. All opinions are my own.