Conkers Review- written by an excellent Mum and her wonderful son who has autism 

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On Friday (30.8.19) we visited Conkers for the first time. We arrived at about 10.30 (it opens at 10am) and the carpark was already quite busy but still plenty of spaces available and lots of disabled spaces.

 

We booked our tickets online through Wowcher which cost £28.95 for 2 adults and 2 children. There didn’t seem to be a carers option. Even though we’d already booked we still had to wait a few minutes before we could go in, it was quite noisy and ‘bustly’ with families needing to book extra activities. As you enter the Discovery centre, you walk through a very dark area before you reach the interactive area – I found this quite disorientating. There is a superb hands-on area which covers many aspects of the natural environment, our 5 year old who has just learnt about minibeasts at school was fascinated. The upstairs part is an enchanted forest and is like a huge tree house with so many areas to climb, crawl and slide. The sign says not suitable for under 4’s and having taken our physically able 3 year old round it, I’d have to agree. Some areas were very dark.

Next we headed over to theWaterside centre on the Conkachoo. This is a short but fun train ride. As you get off the train you see the Playdale Adventure Play which is a huge playground with so many pieces of equipment to climb on, swing, slide, wobble etc. Both children loved this.

For lunch, we ate in P’s Place, there was a limited menu (pizza, jacket potato or sandwich box) but the food was really tasty. On the way out the kids spotted Billy Bonkers Playhouse so spent at least half an hour on this softplay. 

After lunch we caught the Conkerchoo back to the Discovery Centre and went to the barefoot walk. This was great fun, we walked through water, on stones (ouch!!), logs, straw, coal and sand; a lovely sensory experience.

By this time our 3 year old was flagging and we headed home. There was so much more we could have done (outdoor water play, 4D cinema, wobbly bridges, the warrens tunnels and the sensory trail plus if you want to pay extra high and low ropes course). It was quite busy and noisy in the main centres but I’m sure if you walked away from these it would be quieter.We will definitely return, it was a really fun day out and will  probably buy an annual pass.

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Where is Conkers?

Rawdon Road
Moira
Nr. Ashby-de-la-Zouch
Derbyshire
DE12 6GA

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For more information follow the link.