Tag: kids books

Children, Children's Books, Christmas, Cinema, Families, Family Life, Kids Days Out, Large Families, London, Memories, Reviews, Reviews

The Snowman Experience:Review

by thejoyoffiveLeave a Comment on The Snowman Experience:Review

We are huge fans of the Backyard Cinema and the themed cinematic experiences they offer.

Over the past few year we have swung through the jungle to see the jungle book and walked through a winter night garden to watch Elf, but this year when we were asked to come go along to Winter Wonderland to The Snowman Experience it was even more amazing than I had imagined and they have certainly built in their fantastic idea and gone all out to create the mot spectacular experience.

Inside the hustle and bustle of Winter Wonderland is a huge cinema offering much more than just a screening.

This year the iconic book – The Snowman by Raymond Briggs is celebrating it’s 40th with this extra special showing.

As I’m sure you will all agree, The Snowman is the epitome of Christmas. The charming tale of a small boy and his adventures with his snowman friend fill my heart with the joy of Christmas and I will never tire of this story. However I didn’t expect it to be transformed as it was for us this weekend.

We stepped inside a wooded area and weaved our away into the cinema, stopping for a photo first. As we took to our seats we saw the screen surrounded by brilliant props that made the illusion we were inside the story. As the film began we were treated to a few surprises from the stage that the kids were amazed by.

After a short while we were unexpectedly whisked through to another room where the huge curved screen allowed us to feel that we had taken flight with the snowman himself.

The last room was set up ready for the grand finale where everyone was ready to party. With flashing lights and familiar tunes the boys loved dancing along whilst watching the big screen. But the biggest surprise of all was The Snowman himself making an appearance to a crowd of excited children all eager to meet him.

The Backyard Cinema really have excelled themselves this time and have given us a experience to remember for many years to come.

The experience is running from 10am – 10pm up until 6th January 2019 and it’s not to be missed!

* We were given tickets for the purpose of this review and they are all my own, honest opinions.

Children, Children's Books, Families, Family Life

Monkey On A Plane Launch With Emirates 

by thejoyoffiveLeave a Comment on Monkey On A Plane Launch With Emirates 

Ever since the Emirates airline went up all those years ago I have promised myself a trip on them.

Time passes quickly and as with so many things in London, I push them to the back of the list due to my complacency of being lucky enough to live here.

With this in mind when I was asked along to the Emirates Aviation Experience for the launch of their exciting new book I was excited by the book launch and the chance to experience the airline in equal measures.

After a quick ride we arrived at North  Greenwich and made the short walk to the Aviation Experience where we were going to hear all about the fantastic new book launch of Monkey On The Plane.

Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre the dynamic duo behind this book have cleverly taken the ideas of a four year competition winner who’s brilliant ideas were picked to be turned into a real life  book that is perfect to spark the love of travel in any child.

The children got themselves super cosy on a selection of beanbags and listened intently to the adventures of Enrico the the monkey who was fed up with his boring life in the forest and was ready to take of on all kinds of exciting adventures.

Sarah and Philip kept the children engaged throughout with their brilliant storytelling and interactive activities that allowed them to try their hand at their own illustrations.

They were then able to get their own books signed by the authors whilst sitting inside a super cool replica A380.

The Aviation Experience is the perfect place to experience the trill of flying whist on terra firma.

As well as being able to sit onboard a plane the can climb inside the cockpit and try their hand at being a pilot, get up close to the Rolls-Royce engine, take in all the information in the interactive displays or climb on board on of the simulators that get you as close to flying a plane as possible.


Next up we were ready to take to the sky onboard the airline.

I have to say that although I really wanted to experience this I’m not the best with heights!

Sweating palms and shouting at the children to sit still and not even dare to stand up we slowly climbed to the top and made our way across the river.


Once I hit the top my nerves settled and I was able to enjoy the trip and point out all the famous landmarks to the children with the help of the onboard guide.

With thoughts of travel firmly in the little ones heads our journey home was spend reading their books and planning all the places they would like to visit themselves.

If you have a trip abroad planned soon or you just want your little one to have a little more knowledge of the wonderful world of travel then Monkey On The Plane is available to download ‘here’ .

I would love to know what you think.