Thanks for all your help we had a fab (and cheap) holiday thanks to you guys. Just thought I'd post about what we did in case it can be of any help to other people lookin at going there.
We had a picnic in a park every day - we did Victoria park where DS loved watching people race there radio control cars on the special track and boats on the model boating lake, Botanic Gardens - there were no boats or train though as suspected but DS loved the aviary and fernery, Kings Gardens where we went on the land train and Hesketh Park (spotted after we went that there was also an aviary here but we didn't see it as we only went to the play area).
We also went on the tram on the pier up to the old fashioned arcade which was really good fun and then to the contrasting modern day arcade. DS loved the little fair ride by the entrance and the carousel too.
The paddle steamer was good but couldn't really hear much of the guide and the motor boats were great fun. As it is so big and spacious I let DS steer himself and just guided him every now and then.
DS is transport mad so we also went on the open top bus. However I wouldn't go on it for a tour especially as there was no one speaking about the things as we went by them which is what I usually experience on tour buses. If you weren't that bothered about actually going on the bus you could get exactly the same thing from just following the bus around (and that's free )
The miniature railway going up to pleasureland was also a favourite. We didn't actually go into pleasureland although we would have done if we'd been there longer, ditto for splash world. We looked on ocean plaza at the play place but it didn't appear to be open yet.
I can recommend both Westminster and Nostalgia tea rooms (and Nostalgia's lumpy bumpy pie ) and also the Gelateria by Debenhams. We got a massive tub of 10 scoops of ice cream for only £4.20 which worked out much cheaper than having a tub with 1 scoop in each.
I was very surprised at how reasonable parking was. We used the little £4 car park which I think was by Leo's and Morrison's which I think was £3 for the day? You can also park just outside the centre for a £1 and get the bus into town.
The cheapest place to get petrol when we went was the Shell garage in Ainsdale Village, followed by Asda and Sainsbury's.
When we went to the Botanic Gardens we also visited Churchtown a lovely quaint village with thatched cottages and some nice little shops. The chocolate shop is a must and there's also a good bra shop (expensive but there was a sale when i went and the women in there were very lovely even though they measured me wrong lol) and a wooden toy shop which had lots of lovely dolls houses and accessories.
Formby point was lovely. You can either use the NT car park which is £4 and you can park right by the entrance to the walks and then move further down by the beach or use the lifeboat road car park which is £3.50 but further away from the beach. Unfortunately there aren't many squirrels now and it's unlikely you will see any or very few because of a disease called Squirrel Pox. There were a few independant shops in Formby which were nice and good if you wanted to get something a bit different than what you can get at home.
We were going to visit Crosby and Farmer Ted's too but we never got around to it so that's on the list for the next visit.
Also MHB said the tide didn't come up to meet the beach. Most days we were there it didn't but it did on one day. Also lots of people walked out to meet it - it was level with the end of the pier which took about 5-10 mins to walk the length of so not that far. However I did notice the red flags were always up so I was wondering why it is dangerous to do so?