Breaking up a long journey - somewhere fun for 2.5 year old.

[MrsDrakeRamoray]

Morning MN!

Travelling from north of Scotland to Southampton in September for a cruise and I'd like to stop somewhere on route overnight to break the journey up for me, DH and our DS who will be 2.5 at the time of travel. Did think of Legoland, but apparently that's more aimed for 4/5+. He's not really into Peppa Pig, so not sure about the little theme park there, and also don't really fancy paying full admission to Alton Towers just for Cbeebies land.

Most likely do the same on the way back home too.

Could someone recommend somewhere please? Open to all suggestions :)

Does he like animals? Yorkshire wildlife park? They have an on site hotel too

Wow! Long drive and assume you will want to stop roughly half way. Are you driving down to East side or West side of the country as I doubt you will want to add too many extra miles.

Lightwater Valley (ripon) and Guillivers Valley (rotherham) are aimed at that age group. My friends liked Sundown Adventure Park as well.

We will go down the M6, down past Killington lake etc. Yeah, I mean ideally, stay on route, but happy to deviate a bit.

Happy to do a good chunk of the journey too so there is less travel on the morning of the cruise, but then again, could always go down 2 days before so it's more of a leisurely pace.

There's a monkey place at Trentham in Staffordshire I think

Thomas land at Drayton Manor is great for that age (if DS likes Thomas the Tank Engine) - they also have animals and playgrounds etc there:

Gulliver's theme park in Warrington? Just off M6. Lots of smaller theme park rides and activities. Hope you have a nice cruise!

We use this site to work out the midway point. https://www.whatshalfway.com/.
I would recommend doing the journey overnight instead .we used to do Bristol to the Isle of Mull when DS was that age and it was the easiest way to do it. We did share driving too.

Second vote for Thomas Land here. If you have Tesco Clubcard points, you can use them up then the cost is a bit less eye watering!

I second the monkey place at Trentham - lovely to see the monkeys, exercise and fresh air for all of you after being couped up in a car. There's a Premier Inn closeby, as well as a lovely shopping place if there's time for the adults.

Sandwell Country Park or Forge Mill Farm just off junction 7 M6, the park has a lovely adventure playground Forge Mill has animals and a shop.

If you come down earlier there's this lovely place in Ashurst for little ones. Depending on where you're staying it's about 20 mins from central southampton

longdownfarm.co.uk

I don't know how far up Scotland you are but I did New Forest to East Lothian a few times when mine were around 3 and apart from it being a hell of a long way and the depressing thought that when you reach Manchester you're only half way it was fine, with a couple of stops. Tebay services would always be one of the stops either up or down.

Sometimes we'd go off into towns and get better food and cheaper fuel from a supermarket and have a bit of a car picnic, the DC enjoyed those.

North of Scotland to Southampton isn't going to give you a full theme park type day out anywhere unless you allow a day for driving, a day out and another half day at least to get to Southampton, or you do some of the driving at very unsociable hours of the night. Have you looked into flying down?

I'd spend a few hours in a zoo. E.g. Yorkshire wildlife park is lovely and fine to do for a few hours - did a similar trip when my DD was that age to attend a wedding, and stopped there. Worked very well.