Yesterday was the last Sunday of the summer holidays (and indeed of my maternity leave 😣), so we decided to take a spin to Belfast to check out W5.
Mini-Me is Dinosaur Crazy and I’d seen on their website that they had a Dinosaur themed exhibition. So off we went.
On a Sunday it opens at 12pm.
We arrived at the Odyssey at around 12.20pm and parked close to the door. There were huge bouncy castles and slides in the foyer. Mini-Me wanted to go on the inflatable slide. It was £2 for 5 slides. She did it once then freaked out that it was “too SCAWY!” and the guy supervising it handed the Him back the money, which was unexpected but very kind. So good start!
There was no queue for W5, the staff were friendly and helpful and £32 later, we entered. (In fairness, we are now 3 adults and 2 kids. Our Bloke is 18 on Friday so gone are the days of a family pass into ANYWHERE!😅)
Immediately, the kids are entertained. Smoke signals, hot air balloons, lava lamps, interactive screens… it’s interesting from the first room.
The first floor had a brilliant exhibition of sciency stuff. What was most surprising to me, was how entertaining it all was, even to the adults. It’s one of those places that really does cater for ALL AGES. Mini-Me and our Bloke were equally intrigued by some of the stands! 👇👇👇
We did lots of tests and of course, with S-Mum and The Him involved, it got competitive! 😂Balance test, grip test, heart rate, strength etc. And we both lost YEARS on the “What’s your real age?” test! 😂
The Costa dock on the 2nd floor was clean and the young man was efficient and very polite. The climbing pod for kids there is AMAZING! Seriously, EVERY coffee shop should have one of these!
There is a brilliant play area for under 8’s with water features, interactive boards and floors, a huge train track, dolls’ house, doctor’s area, play shop and pretend cafe. Waterproof aprons are available to allow kids to really get their hands stuck into the water feature. Oh, and the toilets in this section are kiddy sized!
Up on the next floor is the Dinosaur exhibition. The Interactive Screen was FABLIS! Not just for kids…we ALL got in on the action here!
I did expect a few more models of dinosaurs to be honest, but the two displays there were impressive. There were loads more games and features on this floor too, again, interesting to everyone.
Oh! And the views of Belfast from up there are beautiful.
The venue is clean, well laid out and there are lifts to each floor so it’s accessible to all. Bathrooms and Baby change areas were well sign-posted snd clean. Staff were very helpful and although it was quite busy by the time we were ready to leave, it’s a very safe and family friendly place.
Our ticket was valid until 6pm so if we had wanted to go out to one of the restaurants in the Odyssey, we could have come back in.
We left after 3 hours, but really could have spent another 2 easily. (We realised how close we were to the Disney Shop and so HAD to pop in to the City Centre!)😅
So overall, we were impressed. I think Mini-Me will enjoy it even more as she gets older. For Princess, there wasn’t much apart from the Under 8 area, but she IS only 9 months old! She was more than entertained looking around her and listening to the sounds.
When we left at 3.15pm, there was a queue of approximately 70 people outside, so it is definitely somewhere to go early.
We enjoyed it. The kids enjoyed it. We were suitably impressed and we shall indeed be back.
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The S-Mum 