THERE’S still time to take advantage of the ‘stay for a night, play for a year’ theme park offer for huge savings.
The deal means that my family can visit theme parks and attractions like Alton Towers and Legoland all year round, plus enjoy an overnight stay and breakfast for less than it would normally cost for two annual passes.
We’re avid fans of rollercoasters and rides and last year visited Alton Towers, Chessington, Thorpe Park and Warwick Castle, so I couldn’t believe my eyes when this offer popped up.
I paid less than £250 for an overnight stay at Thorpe Park, which includes breakfast and free parking during your stay, and now have four Merlin passes that I can use all year round.
An essential pass is normally £139, so it’s a massive saving just on the passes alone.
You need to be clever about how you use the deal, which ends this weekend, to get the most for your money.
First of all, try to find a midweek date for your theme park stay by checking out if you have a school inset day during the promotion period, which runs until June.
If you go in the school holidays or on a Saturday night, an overnight stay will invariably cost more.
Luckily we have an inset day in May, which is the perfect time to make the most of this offer.
Secondly, take a look at all the different Merlin attractions that offer accommodation, as there’s often a huge difference in room prices.
In general, I’ve found Thorpe Park to be the cheapest and Legoland or Alton Towers the most expensive.
Don’t forget to check out Warwick Castle as it’s easy to overlook that as a place that offers overnight stays and the rooms there tend to be good value for money, especially if you’re visiting with small children.
My friend found a room for her family of four for just £219.
My third tip would be to think carefully about what combination of people you’ll book for.
We have two adults and three children in my family and if I book an overnight stay for all of us, that rules out some of the cheaper accommodation options because the camping pods at both Alton Towers and Legoland can only sleep four.
There’s more choice for a smaller family, so it could be more cost-effective to choose that, especially if some of your family won’t be available for the overnight stay anyway.
I have children at both primary and secondary schools now, so they don’t all have the same inset days.
If you go down that route, you won’t then have free passes for all your family members.
But an easy hack to sort that is to sign up for Sun Club membership, as you get two free tickets to many Merlin attractions like Chessington and Alton Towers with that.
So you can book your pair of free tickets when they are on offer with Sun Club and then use your annual passes for entry for the rest of your party on the same day.
There are a few pitfalls you need to watch out for – some dates are excluded from the essential pass, but maybe not as many as you might expect.
The 25 days you can’t use your pass mainly fall on bank holiday weekends and Saturdays in August. I was pleasantly surprised by how many dates were included.
Remember that you’ll need to pay for parking each visit as that’s not covered by the essential pass.
If you’re going to be visiting a lot, a gold pass costing £239 does include parking, so it may be worth grabbing one for a single family member to use alongside your essential passes.
Parking at Alton Towers has risen to £13 this year and the other parks aren’t far behind, so it can quickly add up if you visit multiple times over the year.
It’s not just theme parks that are covered – you get free entry to 20 attractions like Cadbury World in Birmingham, the London Eye and the Legoland Discovery Centres in Birmingham and Manchester with the pass.
One notable exception is the Alton Towers waterpark, but you do get discounted entry with your annual pass.
So don’t miss out – book before this bargain ends for a full year of family fun.
For more on theme parks, one writer went to the European theme park where you ‘travel through time’ and the rides roar past your hotel room.
And another writer spent three days at Universal’s huge new £7bn theme park – all the things worth doing… and the bits to skip.