Save £250 on Summer School Holidays with Anglo Welsh
and say hello to Harry Potter, Thomas the Tank Engine and Naked Mole-rats!
Ask a canal enthusiast how they first got hooked on narrowboats and the answer will most likely involve reminiscences about family holidays when they were a child. There is definitely something magical about hazy summer days on the UK’s historic waterways.
As a family-friendly company, Anglo Welsh has always offered good value getaways for school holidays. The latest example is our 2017 ‘Summer Holiday’ promotion on holidays departing between 14th July and 1st September – book before 28th February and you could save £175 off a short break or as much as £250 off a week’s holiday.
The magic of canal boat holidays casts an everlasting spell. Children never forget navigating on the water, picnicking on deck, feeding the ducks and telling dad how to steer. And when it’s time for an adventure on dry land, Anglo Welsh’s 11 bases and 10 canal circuits offer easy access to some of Britain’s most popular family attractions.
Alton Towers is close to canals near our Great Haywood base and has all the ingredients for a memorable day out – rollercoasters, water coasters, runaway trains, enchanted forests and sensory gardens. Nearby Drayton Manor Park is located in acres of beautiful parkland and boasts an equally mouth-watering range of attractions. It even offers rides on Thomas the Tank Engine at his permanent home in Thomas Land.
Anglo Welsh doesn’t offer train rides from Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross but our narrowboats can transport you along the Thames to Oxford, a must visit destination for any Harry Potter fan worth their Shimmering Silver Salt Drops.
First stop in Oxford has to be the ‘real’ Great Hall inside Christ Church College, reached via that most famous of cinematic stairways. Other magical Oxford locations include Bodleian Library, aka the Hogwarts Infirmary, and Duke Humfrey’s reading room where Harry dons his invisibility cloak to seek clues about the Philosopher’s Stone. Wizards and Muggles are equally welcome at Anglo Welsh’s Oxford base on the River Thames!
There are no hippogriffs or house-elves at Chester Zoo but the UK’s most visited zoo is home to 15,000 animals and 500 different species, including Asian elephants, Andean bears, Sumatran tigers and the scary looking naked mole-rat, who we hasten to add is no relation to the loveable water voles who build their nesting chambers in steep canals on the nearby Shropshire Union Canal.
Birmingham Sea Life Centre is another destination with the wow factor for animal-loving kids. Encounter sharks, penguins, stingrays and a giant green sea turtle in the UK’s only 360° Ocean Tunnel, where you can get closer than ever to incredible creatures and be transported to life beneath the ocean’s waves – without the need for a snorkel! And it’s just 5 hours and no locks from our base at Tardebigge.
For the budding scientists in your family, At-Bristol Science Centre joins the dots between science, arts and culture with live shows and hands-on exhibits. Close to moorings on the Kennet and Avon Canal, At-Bristol uses cutting-edge multimedia to inspire the next generation of Einsteins and boasts the UK’s only 3D ultra-high definition Planetarium where visitors can fly through the universe from the comfort of their own seats.
Anglo Welsh has provided great family holidays for over 40 years and many of the children who first discovered the joys of the waterways with their parents now come back every summer with their own offspring. Given the natural wonders of our canals and the proximity of so many world-class attractions en route, who can blame them?
