To ask you to help me sort present for my DS?

[sailorcherries]

So, DS birthday is next Friday and having been on holiday I'm just getting round to organising presents. However I'm at a total loss.

He will be turning 9 and enjoys things like theme parks and days out and art type things but has no interest in computer/video games, football and so on.

We have a trip to London the following week and looked at taking him to Gulliver's Land or Legoland, or the Aquarium/Dungeon's as part of his birthday (we're doing the HP studio tour as that was his Christmas gift). Does anyone have any experience of any of these as we are shooting in the dark.
We're also going to give money for him to spend in London.

Apart from that we're stumped.
He has too much unopened art things from Christmas that he still hasn't got round to, board games galore, is fussy with shoes and clothes so we avoid them, already has a bike/scooter/trampoline and so on.
Video games previously bought are sat unopened and he has no desire to play them.

He would love a VR headset but it's too expensive just now.

What do you get for a soon to be 9 year old boy?

Budget?

FIFA19 for his console?

Budget of around £200 all in but not really set.

He has no console. We have a PS4 that he has played once, and a computer he has never shown interest in. He has no interest in video games whatsoever.

Shrek's Adventure is good... well it was when we went a few years ago. The Dungeons are good but can be a bit scary if he doesnt really like that sort of thing. The aquarium isn't all that for what it costs. Lego land may be too young for him, and to be honest that's crap for the cost too... maybe Chessington would be better?

have a look at the virgin experience days, we have started to get these for the kids now as they have most other things.
penguin feeding, driving experience, indoor sky diving etc etc

Have you asked him? I think our vr was about £160 btw

Is Chessington good? We're Scottish and I've only experienced our national theme park or Alton Towers in the UK. He's too young/small to enjoy the thrill rides at Alton Towers but too old/big for the others.

The experience days seem just up his street. I did look at Go Ape but he has no desire to be suspended in mid air 😂

What about the climb up the o2 when you are in London?

stuck he doesn't know 🙃 does that VR need an accompanying games console? His uncle has one that is the headset and two controls, you can move about/games make you move up and down etc but it cost £400 - that's what I'm basing prices on haha.

Chessington is perfect for his age group. Definitely not an adult thrill seeking theme park, perfect for his age. If two adults were going to come, Id recommend grabbing some kellogs cornflakes and taking off of the side an adult goes free voucher. If you pay for one adult ticket you get another adult ticket free, we did it the other day :)

Chessington would be great for that age - has zoo and small Sealife centre as well as theme park. But it will be quite horrible in the summer holidays with long queues for the rides - maybe he could have a “fast track” for the day as a present? :-)

On the other hand it sounds like he’s got lots of lovely things to look forward to and has just had a holiday so if there’s nothing he really wants right now for his birthday, why not put some money in his bank account to spend when he thinks of something he wants? Or to save towards the expensive VR headset?

Vr experience with friends?

FIFA19 for his console?

Not for a boy who doesn't like gaming or football!

A friend of mine just did HP and while there they did Shrek (possibly called Shreks adventure from memory but we are NI so not sure)and it looked absolutely amazing! They also did Sealife and London Dungeons but said dungeon felt a bit rushed

London bus tour?
Ripleys believe it or not museum?
If he likes art maybe the Tate modern.

As for a present I’d put money in his card so he can spend it on what he wants.

Madam Tussauds, they do a birthday package where you skip all the queues and they give you a bag of goodies. Marvel characters in there if that interests him plus if he likes Star Wars they have a whole section on it. My son loved it.