Dover Castle and The White Cliffs of Dover

All year, Saturdays have been a bust.  Our oldest has school on Saturdays.  He has been out for about two weeks and we have not been wasting time.  Last week, we spent the weekend at Alton Towers. This week, we took a day trip to Dover.  

Dover is located about 2.5 hours away from us without traffic.  We got up early, packed a picnic and headed out about 7:30.  We were there by the time Dover Castle opened its doors at 10am.

English Heritage

Dover Castle is an English Heritage site.  English Heritage runs the site just as they run Stonehenge and thousands of sites around England. You do not need to be a member as they do sell admission tickets to the general public.  However, membership is well worth it as it gives you access to all the sites for a year as well as sites in Scotland, a quarterly magazine with upcoming events and free parking at all the sites.  We purchased our family pass in May when we visited Stonehenge. If you visit 3-4 sites, you break even.  Visit more and the membership more than pays for itself. 

Dover Castle

Dover Castle overlooks the English Channel/Strait of Dover.  The castle was built in the year 1180 by King Henry II, the first in a long line of Platagenet Kings. He was also the ruler over a large area of France known as the Angevin Empire. He was the father of King John, the signer of the Magna Carta.  His conflict with the Church led to the murder of his one time friend, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is an introductory presentation at the castle that explains the Angevine Empire and the role of Henry and his children from its height to its decline in the 13th century. 

The castle structure is original.  The contents are not.  How do I know?  The sure way to test this is to have your children try to sit on the furniture.  If it is the real deal, they will not be allowed to do so.  Therefore, it is a great place for kids to explore.  They can't break anything valuable.

Dover Castle has been an important fortification since the 12th century and even before.  One of the oldest structures on the castle grounds is a Roman lighthouse built around 43 AD.  Some of the more recent structures were added in the late 1800's and were used in World War I.  In addition to being a medieval castle, the grounds also contain secret tunnels, and underground hospital and signaling station used by the Royal Navy in World War I. The Strait of Dover contains hundreds of shipwrecks from as early as the Bronze Age. 

      

It is a great day out for families.  There are picnic tables all over the grounds and plenty of space for children to run around.  The seagulls will join you at your picnic.  There is a cafe and a restaurant, but if the weather is nice, a picnic is great and doesn't take up much time. 

It is a very windy location so it is best to be prepared for any weather. While it didn't rain while we were there, storm clouds were on the horizon.  Being so close to the sea and in the UK, rain is always likely.

We spent about 4 hours at Dover Castle.  We did not see it all, but with our membership, we can come back to explore the rest at a later date.  We headed off to the White Cliffs for the rest of the afternoon.

The White Cliffs of Dover

Just a short drive from Dover Castle are the famous White Cliffs of Dover.  The Cliffs are managed by the National Trust, another membership driven organization that uses proceeds to preserve their various sites. We are not members yet, but the only charge here is 3.50 to park your car (free for members). You park near the visitor center where you will find a cafe and shop.  

The White Cliffs take their name from their white chalk composition.  We saw many examples of this chalk put to good use as people wrote their names in chalk on wooden benches and fencing. The white chalk composition contains black flint streaks. 

There are two hiking trails.  One that takes you to the viewpoint and another that takes you to the lighthouse.  We were going to go towards the lighthouse, but we wandered off the trail, close to the cliff's edge.  It was a steep climb down and up.  By the time we got back on the trail it was getting late.  So we stopped at various viewpoints - mostly to catch our breath.  Probably wouldn't do that again after finding three crosses as a memorial to a group that didn't make it. 

Say "wind"!

The parts of the trail do allow for wheelchair access, but for the most part it is a gravel trail. You can picnic here as well as take a nice nap. The only downside that we did not realize until we looked in the mirror was that the wind was so intense that we all had a bad case of windburn by the time we came home.  The salty air will also make you tired, making for a nice deep sleep.

From the clifftop, you can see France, a mere 22 miles away, on the horizon. You can see the ferry docks and the lines of cars and trucks waiting to embark or disembark the ferry.  Our plan is to take the ferry back from France when we visit Normandy so that we can see the cliffs from the sea. 

With a roadside stop for dinner, we made it home by 8pm in time to shower and pass out from the days exhaustion.  It was a lovely day out that we highly recommend. 

Alton Towers Resort: A review

Its July 4th weekend - a weekend that means nothing to anyone in the UK unless you consider that the United States was the original Brexit. 

I have one kid out of school and another finishing up later this week. Rather than take a nice long weekend break, we took a short break and visited Alton Towers over the weekend. My young thrill seeker heard about Alton Towers from friends and had been wanting to visit.  My oldest had to face his roller coaster fears and what a better place to do it than here.

Before I proceed, a disclaimer: I am from Florida.  My views of any theme park are made through the rose colored glasses of nearly forty Disney resort experiences and many Universal Orlando resort experiences. 

Objects in this map may appear closer than they actually are.

The Park

Galactica, the VR coaster, in action. 

I think this may be the future of rollercoasters.

The UK has a ton of theme parks.  Alton Towers is said to be the #1 theme park in England.  Being that it is the only UK theme park we have visited so far, I can't say whether that is debatable or not.

In terms of size, Alton Towers is larger than any one of the Disney World parks. I know this because we only spent about 4 hours there the first day and I managed to beat my usual Disney World step count. The lands are spread out from the castle.  The theme park was built around the castle that belonged to the Earl of Shrewsbury which you can also visit.

She's the queen of the world.  She rode those swings 5 times!

Alton Towers is by far a roller coaster park.  They have an area for little ones showcasing several BBC children's programs like CBeebies, Postman Pat, the Octonauts and Tree Fu Tom. But, the reason people come is for the thrills.  The coasters are intense.  Oblivion takes you up, and releases you fast and hard into a tunnel. Galactica, the newest coaster, is a virtual reality coaster. It suspend you face down. You can opt to wear the glasses or not. The Rita launches you like a pinball as it races through the track.  Then, there is the Smiler which has given Alton Towers nothing to smile about.  We opted out of that one. There is also the Nemesis, Thirteen and the Spinball Wizard and some other rides and experiences including a Haunted Mansion meets Buzz Lightyear's Ranger Spin where you shoot laser guns at ghosts. 

My youngest loved all of the rides. She is the risk taker in the family.  My oldest will likely be a great insurance salesman - very risk averse. Since the day he was born, he has had a need for safety and security. 

A group of riders about to descend into Oblivion.

I remember that a tight swaddle was the only way to calm him down on his first day on Earth while my youngest managed to undo her swaddle every time because she needed to feel free. My oldest judges rides by how safe and secure he will be.  Therefore, if you ask him, he will say that Galactica was his favorite ride because your entire body is locked down.

We paid for a two day ticket because it was only 7.5 GBP more than a one day and the kids were itching to go to the water park.  So, we spent a few hours at the park and finished exploring the following day before returning home.

Splash Landing Hotel and Waterpark

Alton Towers has three resort hotels. We opted for Splash Landings because the water park was connected to the hotel.  The hotel had a Disney Caribbean Beach Resort vibe to it, but looked more dated.

The room was small, typical of most British hotels, with a double bed and two bunk beds for the kids.  There was no air conditioning, but with the temperatures being mid 40s at night and 50-60 in the day, the powerful fan provided was enough.  Each hotel had a gift/snack shop, a bar, two restaurants and entertainment.  The entertainment was most definitely for young children.  There was not much to do for my older ones.

The Waterpark was not huge.  It had pools, slides, and options to torment unsuspecting holiday makers by shooting water cannons at them.  Unlike the parks that I am accustomed to, this one did not have lounge chairs. They seemed to make it very uncomfortable for you unless you were in the water.  So we put our stuff away and we adults made our way to Volcano springs which is a hot tub like pool.  We situated ourselves there and told the kids that this is where we would be.  They went off on their water adventure while we relaxed. 

It was crowded because the waterpark allows non-resort guests to visit. But, despite the crowds, I did not hear about any issue with queuing like I do in the US water parks.  People here, even children, do not jump the queue and if they do their parents step in.  I felt like a heavy prune when I emerged from the hot tub after 2.5 hours and I was exhausted.  I could have easily skipped dinner for sleep that evening.  My youngest was another story.  Getting her out of the water was a challenge. 

Jackpot at 8am!

Gaming

Most resorts have a game room and this one was no different. I did not see too many video games, but more games of chance - the claw, the coin pusher (throw a coin in and it pushes other coins out for you to collect), wheel spinning and lucky numbers.  My youngest had a field day in here.  One morning after breakfast we had some time to kill and she went in to play the Lucky Numbers game.  She hit the 500 ticket jackpot the first time and then she hit the 250 tickets jackpot the second time.  The machine ran out of tickets and we had to ask an attendant to refill the machine.  This is where gambling addiction starts.

The Rollercoaster Restaurant: Lunch has arrived.

Dining

I am not a fan of theme park food.  There are some restaurants that provide excellent dining, but they are usually outside of the park. However, the kids were interested in eating at the new Roller Coaster themed restaurant. By the time, we arrived at the restaurant we were all in need of a roller coaster break.  While the food is nothing to write home about, it was an interesting concept that made me consider the future of the restaurant service industry. 

You order your meal via iPad.  It is sent to the kitchen electronically.  Your meal is delivered to your table in a circular chafing dish via a series of roller coaster tracks. When it arrives, you unharness your meal and serve it on the plates provided on the circular docking station.  There is no need for waiters. You pay for your meal as you exit. 

The resort has five restaurants and several bars and snack shacks.  We dined at two locations.  One was a Flambo's, a buffet style place. The other was the Emperor's Grill, a steakhouse.  The steakhouse was excellent, but I could have passed on the buffet.

Coaster Selfie

Things to know before you go

The Alton Towers website is not as user friendly as I would have liked.  I booked our stay via another website.  Waterpark and theme park tickets may or may not be included - it depends on the package. I did not book a package so I figured I had to purchase tickets separately.  Tickets to the theme park were not a problem, but when I tried to buy waterpark tickets ahead of time, they were all sold out.  If this happens to you, don't worry. The online tickets are for the general public.  If you are staying at the resort, you can buy tickets at the reception.  A buffet breakfast is included in your stay. 

While the park is large meter-wise, there are not as many rides.  Therefore, its hours of operation are much shorter, even in the summer months.  I checked their calendar.  The typical hours are 10am - 6pm. The same applies to the waterpark, which I found disappointing since it would have been nice for the kids to be able to spend the evening swimming.

A few other things to keep in mind:

• Staying at the resort gives you access to early ride times at 9am, but the rides they open do not change from day to day. The Oblivion, the Enterprise and the Spinball Wizard are the three open rides between 9-10am. We saw people arriving between 9:30-10 to get in line for the coasters that were opening at 10am.
• This is Europe (for now anyway). People smoke oblivious to how annoying it is to non-smokers. While the park emphasizes that smoking is only allowed in designated areas, people choose to poison you everywhere. 
• The equivalent of a fast-pass here is a fast-track.  I can see how queues can get extremely long during school holidays.  However, we visited on a Saturday and Sunday and did not wait longer than 10 minutes to ride anything.  The fast-track is expensive and not worth it. 

Battle Galleons: "It will be fun," she said.

• One day at the park is more than enough.  Unless you want a mini break, there is no need to spend more than a day here with older children.  But, a weekend experience is best for families with younger children. There is not much for older children to do here in the evening other than mini golf.
• It may be July, but it was about 50 F every morning. It's also England, so it rains everyday.  Bring a rain jacket.  It was great not to be stuck inside waiting for a rain shower to pass.  It also helps you stay dry while on the river rapids or the water gun battles on the pirate ships.

One thing is for certain: it will be a fun day out with the kids.