Chill Factore

Fun for ALL the family

We visited Chillfactore and took part in a one hour session on the snow park. We've previously visited the Chillfactore to ski, play in the tots area and to Santa's Grotto, but we'd never tried out the snow park before. Our youngest child is 4, which is the lower age limit for the park. It was wonderful to be able to take part in this activity as a family of 6, without some combination of us 'watching' whilst the rest of the family had fun. We mostly took our own 'kit' with us, waterproof clothing and boots and helmets. We borrowed one helmet, these can be borrowed free of charge and there are plenty in a range of sizes to fit various family members. You can rent waterproof clothing and boots for an additional charge, for example £5 for a pair of waterproof trousers and £3 for boots. We had an action packed hour on the slopes enjoying a range of activities including: sledging; luge; slip and slide and downhill doughnuts. Everyone had tons of fun and didn't want to leave. We all loved the sledging the most, you could race on singles, go it solo, or team up on a double. For the doughnuts you ride up on a travellator, but the other slides you need to walk up a fenced off walkway - so as not to interfere with the sledging. If you get hot walking you might not need too many layers underneath your waterproof clothing. Helmets are compulsory in the snow park and quite rightly snow. When some people came outside without them on, we witnessed staff sending them off the slope to get properly kitted out, which is really positive. A few things to bear in mind if you fancy giving it a try: It's an expensive hour for a family - don't stand around chatting, get moving and make the most of your hour window. You can get two hours snow play for a few ounds extra, so you might want to consider that, although for very small children 1 hour is probably enough. Arrive in plenty of time - you'll need time to get kitted out, and for loo trips etc. The waiting area is a bit vague. We were told to wait on benches 7 and 8 for a safety briefing but there were lots of people sat there taking ski boots off and others who had already been on the slopes, so it was a little confusing. You could easily miss your group of people going outside. One of the staff will take you outside for a briefing. It's hard to hear, we only heard a couple of the things she said. What did we think overall? Overall it's a fantastic place to spend time as a family. Everyone has fun and it's an exciting place to be. There are plenty of lockers, changing facilities and so on and the Chillfactore is a great place to just chill out as a family.

9:26 AM February 11, 2019