Growing up in a town with its own tower, beaches and 3 piers gave my childhood some great memories!
Some of my favourite memories though included finishing off a day of playing tourist in Coral Island.
I remember when I was younger and only about 2 inches shorter, (yes I’m a shorty) I’d walk along the prom with my Nana and I would look out for the giant friendly parrot or the pirate skull on the huge building’s roof.
Fast forward about 20 years and I’m now married and mummy to a cheeky, active whirlwind!
We were all invited to spend the day at Coral Island and the memories all came flooding back.
Coral Island is Blackpool’s largest indoor free admission family attraction, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint.
The attraction houses 4 restaurants, 2 rides (The Pirate Flyer and The Ghost Train), hundreds of arcade games, including the Halliwell’s firm favourite the 2p pushers and a family bingo room where kids are more than welcome!
Our day began finding a parking space which didn’t take very long at all as there’s ample parking just across the road from Coral Island at Central Car Park.
Our first port of call was to head over to the ticket and prize booth to pick up a kindly gifted booty bag of goodies, which included a cap, sweets, some starter tickets, and other treasures!
As a wheelchair user, I find Coral Island excellent for accessibility. There are ramps in abundance and accessible toilets in The Buccaneer Restaurant. I really didn’t feel like I missed out on anything. The only thing I struggled with was the Pirate Flyer ride. This was the next spot of our adventure. To get on the actual ride there’s a spiral staircase to navigate which was no issue for Andy and Charlie. There didn’t seem to be any ride restrictions so I’d say use your discretion. Charlie is a Tasmanian devil toddler, so I must admit I was a bit worried he’d cause daddy to worry. How wrong was I? The pirate ship monorail you ride around in, takes you on a fab little scenic tour of the whole arcade. Charlie sat more still than I’ve ever seen him! He loves taking in the atmosphere and scenery, pointing at places he wanted to go to next.
After their voyage, we thought it was time to eat! We had kindly been gifted a 3-course meal each at The Buccaneer Restaurant. The service was excellent and friendly (Charlie was given a cute pirate picture to colour, which kept him very entertained). The food itself was great, I especially enjoyed the Nachos starter!
One of my favourite little touches was the kid's cutlery, which was the same as ours but child-sized. It sounds crazy but little touches like this really make a difference!
Keeping on the subject of Kids, Coral Island is the place to eat if you have monkeys of your own. With every paying adult, a child 10 and under can eat for free in any of the restaurants! There’s something for everyone - The Buccaneer offers more of a family pub type meal, Captain Jack’s offers goodies from the grill with a sea view included and The Big Fish and Peggy’s Snack Bar offers a traditional Blackpool Fish and Chips!
After our meal, we thought it was time to race a few camels on the Camel Derby. Both me and Andy had 3 goes each so Andy went first! He claimed to be a Camel Whisperer and he wasn’t kidding! He won all 3 of his rounds! We decided we wanted to save our winners tickets, as we needed 5 for the Fluffy Unicorn I had my eyes on. So we head off to have a play on some of the other arcade games on offer! Spoiler, here’s Coral!
Andy had a go at catching tickets in a Twister tunnel, Charlie loved the grabbers but kept pushing the button just at the wrong point. Luckily it was one of those where you carry on until you win! I had a go on the VR game! As soon as I realised it was based on the Raving Rabbids game I couldn’t wait and I couldn’t stop laughing.
After a few more whack-a-minion games we decided to have a go at the Family Bingo. I was a bit worried at first about taking Charlie in but he was very warmly welcomed just as much as me and Andy! We had such a laugh and the staff on that day were the friendliest! One thing I’ll say about it is to make sure you sit on seat 44 because on that day it seemed to be a winner lol. The bingo was easy to play, you could either tap the number which was called or double tap the screen to dab. The prizes looked great too!
We literally tried everything in Coral Island on our adventure day which probably explains why we were able to spend a good 4 hours in there!
We won about 820 tickets in total so we headed back to the Ticket and Prize booth to pick what we’d take home with us. The prizes were great and in all honesty not too expensive, there was a Toy Story Monopoly I had my eye on, which would cost 2500 tickets, which tbh wouldn’t be too hard to win!
The management goes above and beyond to help with any issues you may have and the staff are incredibly friendly and helpful.
If you’re heading to Blackpool or you’re a local like us Coral Island has so much to offer. You may even spot Captain Jack roaming around so don’t forget to grab a selfie with the main man himself!
Keep an eye out on their Instagram page and website (below) for offers and competitions, there’s even a chance to win a mini at the minute, so we’re definitely heading back and with their amazing kids eat free offer, you’re definitely going to find some treasure or at least some happy kids and definitely some happy parents!
Disclaimer - we were invited to Coral Island for this review but all opinions and reviews are honest and our own. This was a gifted day out.