Magical family time at Chester Zoo's Lantern Magic

One of the first things we did when we moved to Chester was get ourselves a family membership to the Chester Zoo. Growing up not far from here I have so many happy childhood memories of visiting and I wanted the little man to have the same. Besides, I think the zoo does amazing work and I want to support that work.

We spent so many weekends visiting the animals and having picnics there that when our subscription ran out a few months back and we didn't have the spare cash to renew (boo to the cost of buying a house in the UK!) we've kinda been having withdrawal symptoms from the place.

Each Christmas we usually treat ourselves to a family outing so when we saw that the zoo was holding 'Latern Magic' we booked our tickets right away and we're so glad we did.

All of the kids got to 'make' their own lantern (pour some sand in a paper cup and stick some stickers on it) which even at the age of 10 our little man enjoyed.

The big kids got given a big lantern on a stick to carry around. It was really cool seeing all the different colours all lit up in the dark bobbing around the zoo.

This was right before we went into the bat cave. Whilst most of the animals were tucked away all snug in their beds the bat cave was kept open (which we were excited about as it's one of our favourite bits of the zoo). They'd just been fed them so they were going pretty crazy in there. By the time we came out it was pretty dark and a whole lot colder.

We all got given these awesome glasses that looked like those paper 3D glasses you get but instead they turned all the lights into bats! I love bats!

Not the best picture, I know, but I just wanted to show you how awesome the costumes were that the staff were wearing. (I missed out on getting a picture of the cool elf that was wearing batman leggings!!) This lady was handing out 'wish' stars that the kids got to hang up on a special tree. There were elves and Christmas music everywhere. Super magical.

Right before we got to see the main man we followed a trail of animal lanterns. This is only a small selection of what was there as my camera just wasn't playing ball with the low light.

There was an elf flying this guy around so I'm pretty pleased to have got this picture!

We had an amazing time and it was a new experience to have my photo taken with Santa listening to a lion roaring only a few feet away! On the way round we were given hot chocolate and we paid extra when we booked the tickets to get the hot supper (we found you could also just buy this on the night). There were a few options to choose from but we went for the pork and stuffing bap which was pretty darn tasty and it was as big as my face!

All in all this was money well spent and I'd highly recommend it if you have kids and live locally. The little man said it was epic and I'm so grateful to make some more amazing Christmas memories with my boys.

xxx