We had a long car journey yesterday, so I spent it going back through my photos on Google Photos from 2024 and making a list of everything we did and all the days out we had, including holidays. We then all went through the list and picked what were our favorite parts of 2024. I'm putting them all here in case it helps inspire you about fun things to do in 2025.
Disneyland Paris
We all absolutely agreed on our top thing of 2024. When I say all, I mean myself, my husband, my 10 year old son, my seven-year-old daughter, and I'm pretty sure my 3 year old would have agreed if he could have joined in the whole exercise - he was asleep at the time. Our top thing we did in 2024 was hands down, absolutely Disneyland Paris. We aren't massive Disney fans. My husband didn't particularly want to go. He thought it was a lot of money and just really didn't see the point. I've been a couple of times before on a hen night and with my grandparents when I was little, and it's not that I really, really loved it, it was just something that I felt I wanted my kids to see when they were little. And I'm so glad we did. We all had the best day. We went for a few days, and we just did one day in Disney, but utilised Disney Village and the restaurants, including Rainforest Cafe, to make what felt like a lot longer experience at Disney. You can read our full itinerary here, including how we navigated Disney to get the most out of it in one day, so that you can copy it all.
Interestingly, a day out in Paris wasn't on anyone's top list. We did a day out in Paris after we'd been to Disney for the day and everyone just found it quite tiring, hard work really. It was great in as much as the kids saw the Eiffel Tower and experienced Paris. My 10 year old was keen to try a Parisian baguette and something from a patisserie. But overall, it was just a long tiring day after a solid 12 hours at Disney the day before and a 3am wake up call the day before that.
We're not ruling out Disneyland Florida in the future, but that is a much bigger cost and a much longer trip, and as we're based in England, quite close to Bristol Airport, getting to Disneyland Paris wasn't a big deal. Going to Florida would be much more expensive trip.
Very much on my 10 year old's Top 10 list of 2024 was the Rainforest Cafe - he absolutely loved that. It was somewhere that he'd wanted to go even before he knew we were going to Disney, as he'd seen reviews of it. He absolutely loves animals and the Rainforest Cafe, which you can read a review of here, absolutely lived up to his expectations, even though my husband and I felt it was a little dated.
Other things on the 10 year old's lists were Weston-Super-Mare's Grand Pier as we had a beach day and played arcade games, and I let him go on quite an impressive racing car game where the whole seat moves, so he really loved that. And Quay West, which is a water park in Devon, and this year opened their new section for age 12 and under, which has a pirate theme and lots of fun slides.
Eating out in 2024
A common theme running through my husband's top things of 2024 was food. He particularly liked the Cosmo restaurant on the Triangle, which is like an all you can eat pan-Asian buffet. It's not that he's a real foodie - I suppose a real foodie wouldn't probably choose an all you can eat buffet anyway - but I think that was partly on his list because it was quite recent, so it was in close memory and it was really lovely evening as my son had just done a music exam, which had gone well. So we were all in a really good mood. He also noted Primrose Cafe in Clifton Village, which is where we went for our anniversary, as well as a lovely restaurant The Woodford at Chew Valley, because it has amazing views of its lakes.
We also all had a lovely day out at Cheddar Woods, and it's surprising that this would make a top 10 things of the year list, but it was just a really lovely day. It's a lodge park in Cheddar. We didn't stay there, we just went for the day, but we could use the swimming pool, the soft play, the restaurant, and then have a walk around the park. And it just made for a day out that felt like you're on holiday, even though we were actually quite close to home.
Tom also noted that he liked Bath Spa, where we went for his Mum's birthday this year and had a very lovely day. Whilst the spa didn't make my top 10, but what did was the afternoon tea we had afterwards at the pump rooms. I haven't written that up yet, but when I do, I'll link to it here. It was just very decadent, with very special things on the menu I hadn't tried before, a quartet playing and in rather grand architecture.
Switzerland and Italy road trip
Another thing that was on all of our lists was definitely our holiday to Switzerland. We'd gone with wider family, to commemorate a Swiss relative who'd recently passed away. And some of the experiences on that trip were really, really special and memorable. Diavolezza, the chair lifts - it's a really special place to go to, especially Pontressina, when you're up so high in the mountains. And again, if you follow my profile, you'll be notified when I publish a blog post on that.
Musicals and shows
My list included a lot of shows. I went to see Wicked at the beginning of the year - the stage show musical of Wicked - and I absolutely loved it. I didn't really expect to. I felt like it was a new-fangled musical, even though I think it was celebrating its 20th year that still felt new to me (am I showing my age?), but I just felt like it was one that had been talked about enough that I wanted to know what the story was. This was before I knew there was going to be a film of it or any of that hype. It was just because I'd always heard about the musical. I really liked the song Popular when I'd heard it on the radio recently and I just wanted to see the show and I was really, really pleasantly surprised. It had so much more of a moral and social commentary than I expected. I came away just full of what a strong story it was telling.
We also saw Hamilton this year. This didn't make it onto my husband's list because it's quite long and it hurt his neck because I put us in the cheap seats right at the top at the back of the Bristol Hippodrome,even though it was actually my husband who'd originally wanted to see it because of the different style of music. But he also doesn't really like musicals, so it wasn't really his cup of tea. But I loved it. I found the way the scenery moved to be brilliant and some of the performances were just amazing. The cast's energy really made it. I've written up my full review here.
Another show I saw, which is a little different, was Take That. My sister-in-law and I went to see Take That at Ashton Gate, and it was brilliant. I'm not the most massive Take That fan, but I've heard them all my formulative years, so I knew pretty much all the songs. There was an amazing fireworks display at the end, and I never go on an adventure that involves trains with my sister-in-law so it was just lovely to do.
On the topics of shows and stories, my 10 year old picked Wonka for his final list, going to see Wonka at the cinema right back in the beginning of January at the end of the Christmas holidays. And he really classed that as a highlight. It is a really, really lovely film.
Bridgwater Carnival
Something quite local and a bit unique that both my 10 year old and I picked was Carnival. If you haven't been to Bridgwater carnival or one of the Bridgwater Circuit carnivals, you absolutely should. They are really unique. They are memorable, they are special, they are just... they absolutely make my tummy flip and my spine tingle because I grew up with them and they're such an iconic part of my childhood that they still get me really buzzing. I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to carnival I'm afraid.
Again, something I haven't written up yet, but that my husband and I have done for the last 2 years running has been having a night away in Malvern, because it's quite close to my mother-in-law, so she looks after the kids whilst we go. So I need to write up the itineraries of what we've done there and where we've stayed. But it's Just a lovely little getaway - a lovely town to have a wander around, and great for walks or just pub crawls.
In my itinerary of a day in London, I mentioned how we went to Frameless, and my seven year old and I absolutely loved it. We would highly, highly recommend everyone goes to Frameless in 2025. It's an immersive art experience with four different rooms, each room depicting a different type of art, and we were just mesmerized by it.
The last thing on my list is an evening of Sip and Paint. It's just a small hour and a half hour activity, but it was the first time in a long time that I'd actually been able to just completely get engrossed in an artistic, creative activity and just completely be present in what I was doing. It's all guided, it's very easy and it's just an easy, nice night out. With a piece of art at the end to remember it by.
My 10 year old's list actually went over 10 items. And so another that he had on there was Caffryns farm where we went camping in the summer. We've been there a couple of years running. It's a very well equipped campsite, it's a lovely walk down to a beautiful beach and you can do activities that are organised by the campsite such as horse riding. (We didn't do them, but it's very easy to book them if you want to.) My husband and I find the campsite a little expensive in the cafe and restaurant and the people working there can sometimes seem a little jaded. Maybe they need a break themselves, but my 10 year old loves it mainly because there's lots of space and we go with friends and they just play cricket for 3 days.
And then we have it. That's pretty much our top picks of 2024. Things that didn't make the list include Wake the Tiger, which we all thought were was very interesting, but just didn't quite push enough buttons to be something we would really, really highly recommend. We also this year joined the National Trust, and that was a great filler for anywhere we went - there were always places to visit. We just feel maybe there aren't enough places local to us in North Somerset to use it as much as we might when we were at home, but certainly when we went to Devon, there were lots of places to visit. So overall we did enjoy our National Trust membership, but it wasn't something that the kids would rank as their top 10.
As for little days out, my daughter loves Airhop and Clip and Climb. I don't mean that we're the sort of family who just do those "big" things on a random Saturday, but I mean when it's been someone's birthday and we've done something like that, she absolutely would choose those things over pretty much everything else on this list apart from Disney. The kids also really loved climbing at Redpoint Worcester, which they did for their cousin's birthday.
Restaurant wise, I should also mention, although it didn't make the list, the Ivy in Bristol because we really love it there. And ice skating at the Tropicana, which everyone enjoyed. I really liked the Luxmuralis, which were lights at Bristol cathedral. I can't help but wonder if they are more prominent to me because they were quite recent, we did it just before Christmas, so I'm not sure they'd beat everything else on my top 10, but I would really, really highly recommend you go and see them. Everyone loved Paddington 3, but we didn't particularly enjoy Grease the Musical - it was too convoluted and lost the main plot. My son, who is obsessed with animals, hence loving Rainforest Cafe, absolutely loves Paignton Zoo, so sees that as an absolute highlight anytime, but none of the rest of us loved it that much this time. We have done in the past, but we felt it was a little sparse on animals this year. My seven year old did also love the Postal Museum and the garden at 120 on our big day out in London, as well as Quay West with her brother and horse riding, which we did local to home. Whilst they didn't quite make the top 10, the big wheel in Torquay was very popular, as was the Little Acorns soft play in Worcester.
And I think that really pretty much is it. Now I just need to find a whole list of things for us to do in 2025...
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