Following on from a busy day at Tapnell Farm, I expected to have a nice peaceful nights sleep but it sadly wasn’t. Both P2 and P3 were very unsettled from about 3am onwards. The Easter Bunny didn’t have a chance to bring his treats to the girls so I cracked on with the breakfast.
When the girls went back to get dressed, they were so shocked to find a chocolate egg each and a little painting kit too. So of course with it being Easter Sunday, the girls were very ok to eat some chocolate for their second breakfast. They then got tucked in to some early morning crafting whilst I got myself ready. Once again it was such a lovely morning at The Orchards Holiday Park.
Before our trip I looked for places that had Easter events or activities going on for the kids to take part in. I found Monkey Haven which I’d never been to before in fact I didn’t even know it was there. They had an Easter theme going for the Sunday and Monday, with an Easter hunt too so that was exactly where I wanted us to be for our own Easter Sunday.
It’s a small Primate Rescue Centre. It costs £44 for a family of five (2 adults and 3 children) and this also has a free 7 day return too which would be perfect for holiday makers trying to find something to wear the kids out. There’s also free parking and fantastic disabled access too.
We had a quick wander round to the first play ground area (there are two). This one was for older children although with a little help and assistance P3 managed it just fine. There was a very vocal monkey having a swing around its enclosure which caught the girls attention and allowed us to naturally leave the playground to take a look and learn more about the monkeys.
Not only are there primates at Monkey Haven, there is also a range of owls and a kookaburra there too. I have never heard a Kookaburra make noises and was delighted to hear this one sing us a really great tune. We had a quick look at the birds and then made our way for the cafe.
The cafe was kitted out with the Alice in Monkeyland theme for Easter. They were offering tea with the Mad Hatter there over Easter too. We opted for a tuna pannini melt and the kids shared a tuna sandwich. Right next to the cafe there is the younger child’s playground area, it has a great car area which P3 adored, Hubby and I could watch them from the warmth of the cafe conservatory.
P2 had caught her eye on the free glitter tattoos being offered so after we’d had some food, warmed up a little bit we decided to head for some. P1 chose to have a lizard on her arm and P2 had a paw print. We couldn’t persuade P3 to have hers done sadly.
As I said above, Monkey Haven had organised an Easter Hunt. I wasn’t sure what to expect but the staff were all so enthusiastic, dressed up in character. They’d hidden laminated Easter Eggs around the entire park including two golden eggs. P2 had her mind set on finding one of the golden eggs. I loved the community spirit this hunt promoted. Children and their adults worked together to find the eggs and it was lovely. The size of Monkey Haven meant I felt quite content with P1 searching by herself. Each child was given three little chocolate eggs as a prize.
Throughout the day Monkey Haven have little talks. We decided to join in on some. One of the staff who was dressed as Alice told us about each monkey. She moved around the park and the girls were really interested. I found some of the stories really hard to listen to, about the poor monkey being abused or kept in a tiny cage. It was just awful! P2 got really involved with asking questions including “what colour is monkey poo?” because that’s obviously really important to a five year old!
We didn’t spend the entire day at Monkey Haven, it is a smaller venue, but we were there for a good few hours and thoroughly enjoyed it. With the late afternoon left, we decided to make our way to Shanklin beach. There’s a soft play there called Jungle Jims which is right at the back of the arcades. I don’t think it gets advertised enough because it is always relatively quiet whenever we’ve been.
We visited this soft play within the first few hours of ever visiting the Isle Of Wight and loved it. From an adults perspective, it could use an update but from the kids point of view, they had hours of fun! They honestly love it and it cost us just £10.50 for all three girls. Very cheap!
After saying goodbye to the little friend P3 had made, we headed back down to the arcades and out along the seafront. The weather was cold and windy but weirdly we didn’t let that destroy our fun. I knew that we wouldn’t be sunning ourselves on the beach this trip, so we popped down for a wander and to throw stones into the sea anyway.
I actually managed to capture a family photo where P3 doesn’t have a bottle attached to her, albeit is a little grumpy but it’s still a photo of all five of us on the beach.
I think we’d all had enough of being outside for one day so we headed back to the holiday park to chill out a bit. The girls had a quick play in the playground there before I started to cook our family favourite – Spaghetti Bolognese. This meal went down so well with everybody having seconds.
After getting the girls to sleep, Hubby and I snuggled up in front of the fire to watch some YouTube videos. I honestly felt so content, exhausted but content.
I have eight blog posts from our most recent trip to the Isle of Wight and there’s a whole playlist for my Isle Of Wight holiday videos and I’d love it if you could pop over and take a watch. I hope you enjoy our video below and see you tomorrow for our third day on the Isle Of Wight.
The post Easter Hunt At Monkey Haven – IOW 2018 appeared first on Life With Pink Princesses.