Kingdom of the Elves Review at Bluestone Wales
We’ve been to Bluestone Wales before, but never for Christmas. In December 2015, during Christmas week we visited Bluestone Wales. My husband and I decided that we wanted to return as we really enjoyed our last stay.
Day One – An Elf Party
We left from our home in Cardiff around midday and arrived around 1.45pm. There was a queue to get in which meant we had to wait 40 minutes before we drove up to the window to let them know we’d arrived.
After the wait though everything went quickly. We parked the car, picked up our buggy and headed straight to the adventure centre.
The reception area was all decked out in festive decorations. Our girls loved the reindeers in the entrance and we had to stop for them to stroke them! We also treated the girls to a toy Elf each!
We went into the main room of the activity centre where our girls went on the bouncy castle, slides and ball pit.
On our last trip to Bluestone I enjoyed a delicious curry in the Knights Tafarn so I was keen to have another! I ordered the red thai curry from the specials board and this came with naan bread, poppadoms and mango chutney. The portion size was huge, but somehow I managed to eat it all! It was truly yummy!
My husband had ham, bubble and squeak and an egg which was also tasty and our girls had sausage and chips each.
It was really good value at just £32.60.
After food we made our way to our lodge. We’d chosen an upside down house, the same in which we stayed on our last visit. You can check in from 4.30pm or pay extra for an earlier check in.
The house was clean and spacious. Downstairs there are two bedrooms, one with a double bed and the other with two singles. Both bedrooms have en-suites. One has a bath and the other a walk in shower. Upstairs is a spacious lounge and kitchen. There’s also a small outside area with picnic bench which would be lovely in summer.
After unpacking we headed back to the activity centre for a free Elf welcome party in the Wild Wood Cafe. Our girls really enjoyed the party which saw them dancing and playing games with the Elf.
After a busy first day we returned to our lodge for a good night’s sleep!
Day Two – Cinderella Pantomime and Story Time with Santa
Before we arrived I booked for us to see the Cinderella pantomime and also to have story time with Santa which includes lunch in the Farmhouse Grill.
The Cinderella pantomime was booked for 12pm and Story Time with Santa was booked for 2pm, so this gave us a bit of time in the morning to return to the adventure centre.
R and M enjoyed playing on the bouncy castle, going on some of the rides, playing in the soft play and climbing some of the larger play equipment.
The pantomime started off right on time and with a running time of just over 80 minutes, it was a fun, action packed show. Our twins, R and M, loved it.
The entire cast were friendly, upbeat and very funny. The ugly sisters appeared from the side of the stage at one point with water pistols and proceeded to squirt the audience much to the delight of the children!
Buttons came into the audience and talked to R which she thought was fantastic. The pantomime was really good, really funny and I’d happily sit through it all again!
After the pantomime we headed to the Farmhouse Grill for our story time with Santa. As mentioned above this was booked for 2pm. The first 50 minutes is spent enjoying a delicious carvery style Christmas lunch followed by a dessert of chocolate cake or ice-cream.
We were then called in by the Elves to meet Santa. The children were seated on the beanbags on the floor with the adults around the edge of the room. There were two Elves who accompanied Santa in reading his story.
Whilst the families were called up one-by-one to speak to Santa and have their photo taken, the children were shown how to make reindeer food with one of the Elves and they all got to take a bag home with them with the instruction of sprinkling it outside our front doors on Christmas eve.
Photos were available for purchase afterwards of yourselves and Santa. We headed back to our lodge for a bit and then made our way over to the circus room around 5pm.
The circus room is a soft play room for under 5’s. In this room there is Lego, a roller-coaster style ride, soft play blocks, balance beams and more for the kids to climb on and they loved it, as did Mummy and Daddy!
Day Three – Kingdom of the Elves
Today was our last day at Bluestone Wales. Checkout from our lodge was 10am and we had to return the buggy we hired by 10.30am.
Our Kingdom of the Elves experience was at 11.20am, so we thought it would be a good idea to get a good breakfast in the Farmhouse Grill beforehand as the Kingdom of the Elves experience is 90 minutes long so lunch would be a later than usual one for us.
We arrived at the Farmhouse Grill around 10am and had a lovely breakfast. You could go up to the counter and choose what you wanted. The selection was good and included hash browns, sausages, scrambled egg, beans, toast, bacon and more! It was very tasty indeed!
After our delicious breakfast we headed toward the adventure centre. Both R and M were pretty tired today and slightly under the weather so we thought the circus room would be best as it’s a bit quieter than the downstairs area of the adventure centre.
We stayed for a short while before heading down for our Kingdom of the Elves experience. We were greeted by Fagan, a happy, upbeat elf!
Each child was given a stamp book and they had to collect the stamps in each room. We then walked through the keyhole and into the corridor where we were greeted by Goldilocks who led us into the next room.
Inside this room we met a rather loud elf and discovered that we had to be quiet so as not to wake the cat! A pretty big stuffed cat sat to one side of the room with it’s long furry tail hanging off the table it was sat on.
To open the doors the children had to collect oversized sparkly ‘marbles’ and pop them down a shoot which saw the marbles drop into a large bag.
The next room was a chocolate making room. Children were given a gingerbread biscuit each and asked to decorate them. An activity that we all enjoyed.
After this we entered the dream room. There was a pretty big bed in this room that the children all sat on whilst an elf explained to us what we had to do. Children had to dance, answer questions and spot things in the room to help create colours on the walls to make a rainbow.
Sadly we didn’t make the last two rooms as R and M were pretty tired and under the weather. At almost four years old I think they’re probably a bit too young to fully enjoy the Kingdom of the Elves experience. Whilst it was well organised and held the attention of the older children, I felt it was a bit too long. I think a good hour would be sufficient. It did feel at times that we spent most of our time listening to the elves talk than actually doing anything. However, having said that I do think it’s great value for money and I’d definitely return.
Overall, we had a great stay at Bluestone Wales and I would definitely recommend it!
2 Comments
Kelly Allen
December 28, 2015 at 10:13 am
Looks amazing and so festive! Now you've made me want to have Christmas all over again 🙂
Hannah Latoya Bond
December 28, 2015 at 9:58 pm
Looks like you had a great time. The food looks fab, i love a good curry too x