Is there ANYWHERE both reasonable and nice to ice skate?

[VodkaPenne]

I have been to Sommerset House before a few years ago and it was pretty, but despite them advertising from £7.50 or whatever, it's £17 when you actually come to book (on a weekday...).

The Natural History Museum always looks a bit rubbish whenever I go past it. People going round in a circle, slowly.

We tried York once too, and that was utterly crap and overpriced as well.

Both my children can ice skate. They have their own boots. Why, why, why can I pay 5 euros each for them in a European city centre for them (not necessarily colder than the UK either) to have a lovely skating experience, and yet I can't recreate that for them in the UK?

Does anyone have any ideas of better places?

No idea if it's good but I'm taking dd to an outdoor rink in Birmingham centre later this month.

the one in birmongham is okay, but it’s been moved so it’s further away from basically everything else. Pretty cheap though.

There’s a garden centre near Droitwich called Webbs of Wychbold and that has a good one but not sure of cost.

*birmingham

🙈🙈🙈 I went to Birmingham last year and it really wasn’t anything special 😮

Unless it’s moving venue this year, that would be a no too. My kids wouldn’t even skate as we did the wheel thing next to it last Christmas and they looked down and didn’t fancy it 🙈

It IS moving venue...

Honestly, I'd rather just skate at my local rink than the Christmas open air one. I do love the Christmas music and all the stalls and atmosphere. But for actually skating I'd prefer my local rink. I still think that's too crowded, but then I used to get up and be on the ice at 5.45am at one point though so I'm stupid like that

Ah, been reading about Birmingham. It’s moved sites, but it’s the same company that did it before and all they are doing differently is putting a roof over the rink 😩

I shall carry on looking. Off to search the other one mentioned above.

If I find anything, I’ll give it a huge recommendation as it’s such a nice Christmassy thing to do.

@Glumglowworm I shall also look up the snowdomes for indoor skating.

Where my little ones skates is a tiny rink. It’s fine for lessons but I wanted her to skate in the pretty outdoors somewhere ❄️ It may have to be Salzburg!

Winter Wonderland
Hampton Court
Windsor

Edinburgh

Bournemouth has an open air Christmas rink

Southampton has one for the first time this year; it’s in a new development between the old walls and the new eating places. Looks bigger than the Winchester one (which is the only one I can compare it with)

Our small town will have one on 1st December, it's £4 for half an hour

Fancy a trip out of London?

You can skate in a church in Grantham (train from Kings Cross)

www.stwulframs.org.uk/upcoming/2017/11/28/christmas-tree-festival-open-skating-times-1000am-215pm-and-400pm-800pm

Streatham ice rink? Indoor and not Christmasy

Brighton Pavilion is pretty but not particularly cheap.