Monday 2 February 2015

Mini Scientist Mission 5 - Skating @ Life Review and a Giveaway

I'm not terrible at Ice Skating but Im also not brilliant at it and the thoought of taking my lot on the ice was a scary prospect but Peanut and The Golden Child have asked almost continuously for 2 weeks to head along and go Skating at Life so I bit the bullet and we popped along last weekend.
 
We arrived and were allocated a time slot (straight away) and given the right coloured wristband. I'm going to be honest and say when we walked past the rink there were lots of groups of teenagers (dun dun dun) and I was concerned we would be jostled and knocked and I'd have to put my old mother scowl on! But my fears were fruitless as it turns out as there are Marshall's on the ice and it seems to keep everyone moving safely and behaving nicely.
 
We popped through to swap our shoes for skates then got ready for skating. My one grumble of the day would be that we weren't told we needed to hand in each of the bands to get back our shoes, more on that later but it's a good point to keep in mind for your visit.
 

 
There a nice seating area between the rink and the shoe exchange so Termite and daddy stayed there (she had to try some skates on though) and watched us skating round the ice.
 

I decided, as the double blade kid skates were too small for my big footed children, that it was safer to divide and conquer as the littlies aren't so good at skating, so they took turns to skate with mummy. Turns out that skating is a rather tiring affair and after about half an hour of spinning round the rink my big two were ready to have a rest and go play inside. Here's where we had a bit of a delay, being a super efficient mummy (pahahaha). I stripped us all of skates then carried them all (with just socks on my feet) to the exchange where I was asked for all the bands, explaining I didn't know we had to hand them in I thought I might be able to get our shoes and bring the bands back as we passed but that wasn't to be so I trudged back for the bands then back for the shoes and back to the kids again which resulted in cold wet feet! I shall know for next time though and really 'first world problems' it was an extra 2 minutes!

After skating we headed upstairs where the kids enjoyed a 'nature discovery' some 'cookery' and some 'fish chasing'! I love how they can just play freely with all the great role play stuff here
Overall we loved our day at Life the kids were suitably exhausted from the skating, they loved playing inside too and we all had lots of fun. As a parent of three I would have loved to be able to take them all on the ice together, logistically a nightmare though. So it would have been nice to have some bigger double bade skates, some skate Guides (like those wee push along penguins), or to have been able to wear the ice shoes, I did try my hardest to wheedle the lady in the skate hut to let me have some but she wasn't to be swayed! We will definitely go back again though and as we didn't fall over I'm giving the day a firm thumbs up!
 
If you'd like to try skating I have two family passes to give away to be in with a chance of winning one, pop over to our facebook page and leave a message on the wall saying you'd like to win, or click here to pop over to our twitter page to retweet this message
 
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9 comments:

  1. My oldest daughter has been asking to me to take her ice skating at life. I think i will have to take her now as it sounds like you had a nice time xx

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  2. I love life but have never dared brave the ice rink yet. It looks like you had fun

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  3. I am such a scaredy cat - I'm not ready to take my three ice skating yet! When I build up the courage it will definitely be here - love that they have marshalls. #LoveNorthEast #NEBrilliantbloggers

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  4. Ice skating is such fun - I've never been to Life. Only Whitley Bay Ice Rink which is almost the same as when I was 12 and used to go regularly.

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  5. We took the older 2 skating last year and they really loved it, they have been asking to go back again ever since! I think it's a bit scary though lol! Thanks for linking up with #TriedTested

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  6. My husband says every year that we should visit, but we still haven't got round to it. I'd quite like to see him on skates, I can't quite imagine it! One day we'll get there!

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  7. It's wortha vist definitely, my husband is 6.4ft and rugby player built so he claims skating is not for him (he's a scaredy cat)

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