A couple of weekends ago to celebrate Alf’s 10th {?!!!} birthday, we decided to try the new and only one of it’s kind in the UK, the Zip World Fforest Coaster at Betws y Coed.

We booked online the previous evening and seeing all the available slots, we thought it was going to be a quiet day there.  How wrong we were…

The place was packed!  There were people above us on the high ropes screaming and obviously having lots of fun, kids doing the same on the Tree Hoppers, the kids version of high ropes as well as those queuing for the Fforest Coaster.  Sadly, there was one or two people in the queue at Reception, too.  Having booked online, I was hoping this was something we would miss.  Sadly not.  A good 15 minutes of queuing and having being told by Robb to stop stressing over the silliest of things {nothing like your own kid telling you how to behave…!}, we were with our wristbands and told to get in line.

As we were at the back of this queue, I thought we’d be here for a long time, but no, it was soon our turn to get buckled in and head up, up and up into the trees…

The Fforest Coaster is based on the traditional toboggan but runs on rails, which offers an all year, all-weather experience. Start your journey in the heart of the woodland, taking your sledge on your own or in pairs, and travel on the uplift through the trees. You will then fly through the forest at exhilarating speeds!

Taken from the Fforest Coaster website

It is such good fun!  You get 3 runs each, Alf came with me for his first, Paul with his second and Robb for his 3rd.  Alf wore an action camera for all 3 rides and it’s the one with Paul you can view below…because, let’s face it, you want to see how fast it can really go don’t you?  And not how slow it can go and to listen to my screaming…

I didn’t want to bore you all with all 3 videos but I do want to share with you all the hilarious stuff Alfie was saying as we were going up and coming down!  He was obviously nervous and couldn’t stop talking the whole time!  Although he does seem a lot quieter with Paul, must be something to do with the speed they were going at!  Robb, being that little bit older, as ever, took it all in his stride and after some persuasive skills, managed to get Alf to go down with him on his last run.  This was a massive result for us all as Robb has been trying to get Alf to go with him on all sorts for a while now.

Here’s some gems from Alf;

“My mouth has gone dry now!”…”my eyes are crying!”…singing “I feel like a wreckin’ ball”…corrects himself but at a much higher pitch “I came in like a wreckin’ baaaaaall”…”Gosh! How high does this need to go?!  It feels like we’re going to end up in France!”…”Stay still, Mam!”…”ooh, I farted!”…”This is epiiiiiiic”…”Best thing everrrrrrr”…”How funny is it that I’m actually having sex and relationship education?!” {Nope, I’ve no idea what this has to do with the ride, either!}…”Don’t go too fast Dad, or I’ll pee pee!”…Something about snogging Polar Bears…{nope, nor this!}…”I’m going to fart again”…”Robb, when I say break, you break, ok?!  If you don’t, I’ll pinch you!”…to Paul “break a little will you, pal!”…”I’m going to hold onto your trousers the whole time”…attempts to sing Justin Bieber’s Despacito…something about “Sturridge coming out of the straight block…” and finally, “Damn you, Daniel!”  who the bloody hell is Daniel?!  I’ve no idea but nerves, eh?!

Fforest Coaster – definitely something you need to put on your list when you’re next in North Wales or even if you just live 40 minutes away, like we do!

We had such a great afternoon there and have already discussed heading back to try out the high ropes.  There is a cafe on site, but we decided to make a real day out of it and headed to the Dutch Pancake House to finish the afternoon off.

{serious face:  Unfortunately, we haven’t been paid millions for this blog post, we had such a great time and I love to shout about Wales, that I wanted to share it with you all }