What to do on a day in Blackpool?
What to do on a Blackpool Day Trip!
Following a quick poll in the facebook group we have, we decided it might be useful to do a quick guide to a day trip to Blackpool and how you can ‘live your best life’ and get to see / experience the best things but taking into account the time constraints and trying to ensure you get a bit of ‘bang’ for your ‘buck’.
Blackpool can be as cheap or expensive as you want to make it, we’ve been asked a few times (…we’ve not been around for long remember) ‘how much money do I need to take to Blackpool?’ …and it all varies depending on personal tastes and dare I say it ….. standards!
As an example, a few drinks from the off licence in a hotel room before you head out is always going to be cheaper than sitting in a sea front bar sipping cocktails so there really is no answer that will suit everyone, it all depends.
In this BLOG we take you through arriving in Blackpool in the morning and heading out for the day until early evening. We’ll start as if we are in the town centre and need to end up back in town centre.
Brekkie!!
The most important meal of the day… apparently…. and we’ll probably echo that if you’re going to spend a busy day in Blackpool. You need to plan your meals and food if you’re bothered about cost and quality. You can get food all over Blackpool but what a lot of the time you might think are reasonably priced burger or hot dogs, can be pretty poor in the quality stakes, really aimed at a quick bite.
For breakfast, we’d most likely go for quality even if that might mean paying a bit more. We like to go to cafes, around south shore there are loads of cafes that are pretty fairly priced but quality is inconsistent, many relying solely on the tourist trade and therefore, have little motivation to keep quality up….. but thats not to say they all serve rubbish, there are some really good ones, you just need to be wary.
Given the choice, we would stay in town for breakfast, we like Quillligans by the Winter Gardens but there’s a couple of cafes round the corner down Birley street which have excellent reputations….. Compass Cafe and the Peppermill.
Compass is so popular, we’ve struggled to get in before! All are reasonably priced and excellent quality. If you wanted to drop the price and still get consistency, there are numerous Weatherspoons across the town, we’ve never had any problem with them, always seems quick service and fair quality.
Morning……
So, you’ve had breakfast and now have a few hours to fill before lunch, what do you do? Well, obviously dependent on weather we would most likely go for a walk, assuming your in town, we’d head down north pier (find out what you can see on there in our other BLOG here), maybe a coffee or wine to take in some of the sea sounds and atmosphere then head south along the prom.
There’s so much to see and do along the prom for the sake of a couple of hours, you can ‘free style’ it – photo ops around the tower, read the comedy carpet, paddle in the sea, numerous amusement arcades and we’d definitely recommend dropping into ‘Rock Candy Kingdom’ on Chapel Street to pick up some rock and watch a demonstration.
Its pretty easy to fill your time as you mosey along the promenade to Central Pier……or at a stretch, South Pier!
So if we assume we’ve just come off one of the piers and its hitting lunch time we know South Shore is full of eateries to choose from whether you want a sit down meal, some ‘pub grub’ or just a quick bite from a burger stall. We’d probably try to grab something from Weatherspoons ‘Velvet Coaster‘.
We wouldn’t choose here especially for the food (which we won’t review, most people know what a wethers meal is like), we’d go more for the chance to grab a seat on the balcony overlooking the promenade and sea – we love to people watch in Blackpool and when its busy, you can spend hours!! …other wise, around the same area, we’d probably go to Woodheads cafe, which has been around for years and always decent quality (theres also Pablos which for fish and chips, is also pretty good), theres also a pizza hut just a little south of the pier which our kids seem to love!
Afternoon…….
Your choice but having had a decent breakfast, we’d have opted for a ‘light lunch’ and as such, be ready for doing something a bit more ‘active’ for the afternoon. The obvious choice in south shore is to go to the pleasure beach but we reckon you really need a good day to fully appreciate all that the pleasure beach has to offer and as such, we’d head off along the promenade to the Sandcastle!
The Sandcastle is the UKs largest water park and hosts shed loads of slides and amusements, it also includes some cafes if you wanted to get in there early.
We’d expect to spend a couple of hours in the Sandcastle so by the time you come out, it would be around 5pm. Alternatives to going in the sandcastle, given where we are would be activities based around the pleasure beach.
There’s Crazy Golf next to the Pleasure beach which is fairly new and fab, else, you could buy an ‘entry only’ pass to the pleasure beach which allows you to walk around the park and go on a couple of rides and explore the pleasure beach gardens but of other options to the Sandcastle, we’d probably go for Ripleys Believe it or not, which is really good and excellent value for money! Kids love it almost as much as we do!!!!
Evening…………
After an afternoon spend in South Shore, we’d add in another Blackpool ‘must do’ and catch a tram back into town. If you plan well, you could book a ‘heritage tram‘ which would mean you ride on one of the lovely old fashioned trams, the stop is just up from the sandcastle, else, if that doesn’t take your fancy standard trams run along the front every 15 minutes or if you’re feeling so inclined, jump in a landau which for £20 will take you part of the way to town but with a fairly easy walk for the rest!
Hitting town, we’d head for food and to make the most of the day, try and go somewhere pretty relaxed and as such, would head to ‘The beach house’ on the promenade. We’ve reviewed the beach house as one of our top 5 family restaurants here. Don’t let the fact we classed them as one of the best family restaurants put you off, they’re more an excellent restaurant that caters well for families!
The views from the beach house are fab whatever but you can ask for either a ‘tower view’ or a ‘sea view’ however, depending what time of year it is, if its late summer, we’d definitely ask for a seat with a sea view as you get spectacular Starling murmurations over north pier late summer and they really are a sight to behold.
Following dinner, its really personal tastes as to what to do, we vary our evenings out in Blackpool quite a lot, drinks around town (try Dirty Blonds for a ‘cool’ vibe) or from the Beach House, head to the end of North Pier and go to ‘Bloom’ bar, which has been updated / relaunched 2020 and has a ‘classy’ feel about it.
For some good old fashioned Blackpool fun, Ma Kellys is great fun for a few drink and classic ‘Blackpool’ anthems being belted out by a range of singers…….. or of course, if you want a more cultural experience, there’s loads of shows on across town, check the winter gardens, Grand Theatre, North Pier and a host of hotels to find a show that suits your taste!
….then after a busy day, its probably time to head back home……… or maybe, get yourself a cheap b&b so you can do it all again tomorrow 🙂
What would you do on your ideal day out in Blackpool? Theres so much to see and do, you could write this blog 100 times and still not get everything? Perhaps you prefer the quiet and a trip to the wonderful stanley park? …or maybe your an adrenaline junkie and the activities available on south pier are what does it for you? Let us know and we may feature it in our next blog on things to do in Blackpool.
Thanks for reading! As ever, would be great if you liked / shared and followed us on social media. We’re a local family, born and raised in Blackpool trying to spread whats good about the town amongst all the bad publicity it gets so any help with us doing that would be fab!
