The final touches have now been largely completed to Parade 5, and the Comedy artwork project, the Tower Festival area and wedding chapel and the tourist information centre, and public realm works at Waterloo Headlands and St Chads.

New attractions along Blackpool Promenade

Designed by Gordon Young and his company, Why Not associates; the Comedy Carpet artwork project paints and sculptures famous catchphrases from comedians that put Blackpool on the map. Tower Festival headland has long been home to comedy performers, and many have gone on to achieve international fame.

The construction of a 20,000 seat venue for outdoor entertainment, sits at the very apex of the Tower Headland, so that Blackpool can accommodate large events, and compete for this business in the northern region.

On Parade 5, the local tramway is a major feature, and with the investment in public works  the Tower Headland is now linked with the wider area. Construction of sea-saws, outdoor play parks, and unique public artworks, see this area transformed into an extension of the Blackpool Promenade, and create a lovely walk between the seaside attractions and the Blackpool Tower.

Not to leave out the keen skateboarding community of Blackpool, the Waterloo Headland has been transformed into a skateboarding park, complete with a variety of jumps and rails. There is also a specially designed BMX area, for practise jumps, pits and competitions. A large adventure playground has been built, for younger children up to teenagers, which now looks a great place for the kids to burn off some energy.

The Las Vegas style wedding venue on the Tower Headland has top environmental credentials and a modern design, in keeping with the sleek look of the promenade. Inside you can find a tourist information bureau, with everything that is on and around Blackpool to do.

The Blackpool Promenade has had a complete facelift, with gorgeous plants and landscaping alongside a railed and paved walkway, all along the sea-side resort shore. The Blackpool Promenade now feels a bit like Spanish and Portugal resort towns, and has made the most of its sea-side location. Make The Blackpool Promenade your first stop.

Many areas in the world are dubbed with the title ‘Golden Mile’ and it is interesting to find out where this expression comes from. Originally from Montreal in Canada, it is believed to refer to the ‘Golden Square Mile’ label attached to a housing area called Mount Royal. The inhabitants of city central Montreal who were gaining wealth decamped to inhabit what was considered more fashionable and wealthy accommodation just out of the town. The area experienced a real-estate boom during the Great Depression and hence forth was known as the ‘Golden Mile’. This is meant to express an area of economic wealth that defies recession.

Holiday fun

Golden Mile Blackpool was dubbed with this name in the early 20^th century also, and it was meant to represent that swathes of tourist visitors, who came once a year in their droves, could live it up like kings and queens on the golden mile of entertainment and amusements. This had special significance, as Blackpool was previously home to wealthy holiday makers, who came for the healing waters of the sea-side.

Once the railways were built and Blackpool became an easier place to get to, many working class people travelled to see Blackpool’s beautiful beaches for themselves, and live the life of luxury for their annual holidays.

Amusements and businesses formed to meet their needs, including dancing for the working class at the Central Pier, which is still to this day a major attraction. On the mile itself, beach street vendors were eventually banned and had to apply for hard-standing room along the mile to peddle their wares and amusements.

Today, the golden mile features an array of rides, big wheels, amusement arcades, fast food, restaurants, pubs, works of street art and quality lighting and illuminations. You can also experience the gorgeous traditional trams and busses as they whiz by, and catch a show at the Blackpool Tower and Winter Gardens complex.

And that gorgeous golden beach has plenty of room to accommodate visitors, with the Golden Mile Blackpool said to attract over five million holidaymakers each year.

Those looking for a guest house in Blackpool will be visiting because there are a host of attractions to see in the area, including the Big One rollercoaster, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, the Blackpool Tower complex and the Tower Circus and newly opened Tower Eye, not to mention the fabulous North, Central and South Piers with their unique cultures and histories attached.

Guest Houses are Friendly Venues

Family run or hotel owner managed guest houses pride themselves on being friendly, welcoming and a little bit unique. Quirky options may present themselves, alongside unusual art deco buildings with all original features attached. Many feel like private homes, and are run that way too, so there are always people around to give you advice on what to see and do when you stay in Blackpool.

The unique combination of guest house accommodation, which belongs firmly to the England of the past, and the new, whizzy modern attractions of Blackpool’s fun fair rides and carnival atmosphere, makes visiting the town a lot of fun. Bed and breakfast is always provided, and this hearty meal should see you through the day, until you are tempted by one of the promenade restaurants or many meal combinations and offers you will come across.

Slightly outside of town you can visit Stanley Park, with its gorgeous Victorian Heritage features and miniature model village world to see. Blackpool Zoo is well worth the trip and has many fun activities for children, and a large range of animals to see along the way. A visit to the Blackpool castle may interest you, or the Blackpool caves. Blackpool has a long and interesting history, and the Blackpool Museum can shed some light for you on the reason why the town is named Blackpool.

A guest house is the perfect accommodation in a town that receives six million visitors a year. For that personal touch, stay in a guest house or hotel owner managed accommodation.

Those looking for a hotel in Blackpool will be pleasantly surprised by the range of attractions to see and the knowledge of the friendly staff, who can tell you where to go out.  More famous sites include the North, Central and South Piers with their pleasure rides, restaurants, entertainment and leisure activities to do. Other recommendations might be the Blackpool Tower Circus, The brand new Tower Eye skywalk, the Pleasure Beach, Sandcastle Water-park and the promenade walk.

Hotels have Long Histories

Most Blackpool Hotels have been owned and run by the same family or company for a long time who are pleased with their role as ambassadors for tourism in the UK. Neat, tidy and clean, many buildings feature Victoria or Georgian architecture, and reflect the historical trade of tourism in Blackpool, which began around 1895.

Blackpool centre prides itself on being up to date with the latest white knuckle rides and attractions, providing musical, boardwalk and dance hall entertainment that draws world class acts and bands. Bed and breakfast is the best way to start the day, with Lancashire being the place for a hearty breakfast prepared by your Blackpool Hotel in true northern style.

 If you venture outside of town, using the zooming trams and colourful buses to travel on, you can visit the Marton Mere Nature Reserve and see the amazing wildlife and history associated with this wetland area. Stanley Park, more to the centre of town, boasts over forty acres of park, with several attractions within including the miniature model village, showcasing historical England village life. A visit to one of the many conventions that Blackpool attracts may interest you, as at different times of the year you can see international championship events in darts, dance, hairdressing, golf and cheerleading!

A hotel, run by people who know Blackpool well, is the ideal venue to stay in when you go to a place that attracts six million visitors every year. Stay in a Blackpool Hotel to experience stylish accommodation, with great service and that special local touch.

Blackpool has created four specially signposted “Explorer Routes” to cater for tourism and sightseeing on bicycles. Named as one of Englands “Cycle Towns”, this green initiative is a great way for yourself, friends, or the family to safely cycle around the Promenade, Golden Mile, and inland attractions.

Easy access

The bikes are housed in gateway shelters and alongside great stops along the seafront and promenade areas, Stanley Park and Blackpool Zoo are signposted inland destinations. It is an especially good way to see Stanley Park, as there are several gateways in the park where you can leave the bikes for a while.

The Blackpool Bike Hire scheme is modelled on those being used in European capitals at the moment, like Paris and Amsterdam. The gateways are also known as hubs, and the route markers can be easily spotted as you ride, as they are in the form of illuminated bike images on signposts.

It is easy to pick up a bike and hire it. You can pay for a day or half day hire over the phone, receive a pin number which you put into the keyboard at the bike station. You can then return the bike later on to any station, not necessarily the one you hired it from, which makes things very convenient for combining walking with cycling.

The best thing about cycling in Blackpool is that it is relatively flat, so you can enjoy a leisurely cycle without feeling like you have to train for a marathon. There are also quite low levels of car ownership, due to the strong public transport available in the form of trams and buses, so cycling is very pleasant and relatively free of pollution.

Municipal cycling is a fairly new idea for the UK, and like many innovations that are eco-friendly, is very suitable to Blackpool. Using Blackpool Bike Hire facilities is an excellent way to get around the resort, and much quicker than walking, and just as pleasant.

There is much to see and do in Blackpool, depending on what time of year you visit. One thing you can be assured of is that Blackpool never sleeps, and will always have something to offer you. If you love rides and roller-coasters, you can visit the Blackpool Pleasure Beach resort and sample over 125 of them, including one of the largest roller-coasters in the world; The Pepsi Max Big One.

Plenty to see and do

If you enjoy themed attractions and want to see a lot of them at once, a visit to the Blackpool Tower and the new Tower Eye sightseeing platform is for you. While there you can catch the Blackpool Alien Attack, and see what happened to the missing Roswell captive, and then go and gasp at the life-like waxworks on display at Madame Tussauds.

If you hunger for a glimpse of Broadway check what showbiz tickets are available. Will you see Hot Ice, with beautiful choreography and stunning ice skating figure displays? Is it Joe Longthorne or Daniel O’Donnell in concert that you want to see? Perhaps a visit to the rocking Dancing Queen show at the Grand Theatre, or The Pier; The Legends, rock and roll tribute night is what you need to do?

At any time of year you may experience a niche that Blackpool plays host to. For example if you are visiting during the Blackpool Punk Festival you will see some colourful characters about. The World Matchplay Darts is held here, and so is the 2012 Open Golf Tournament, and many will stay around the Promenade to be entertained during the time in-between these fabulous sporting events. Between September and November you will see  world-class Illuminations light the Promenade are, as a tribute to Blackpool’s long relationship with technology and electrical displays.

Blackpool is the spiritual home of ballroom dancing too, and hosts many British Championship events, including the Strictly Come Dancing final at the Empress Ballroom, in the Winter Gardens complex, this December. The performance art you will find in Blackpool is top standard, and so are the beautiful venues, with architecture dating back to the 19^th century Victorian era. The beautiful trams and historic transport vehicles are all part of the charm of Blackpool.

Wherever you go in Blackpool, a new adventure awaits you.

The name of this attraction gives it away, a model village is exactly what it says on the tin. Yet nothing prepares you for the respect you feel for the modeller, and the detail evident in every aspect of each building and dwelling you see displayed. There are little miniature people living in different places, at work, in the outdoors, at leisure, and you feel like you are a giant helicopter, hovering over this small town and observing it.

Design features

Historical architecture features the Tudor period, and close attention has been paid to the layout of Tudor style villages and the size, shape and purpose of the dwellings.  Canal life is represented by boathouses and mini-waterways in homage to England’s most reliable mode of transport in 19^th century. Before the trains took over. It is fitting that the latest exhibit for 2011 is a model railway dedicated to early 20^th century steam engines.

In other sections you can go back in time to medieval Scottish Castles and life within, and what is surprising as you continue doing the historical quiz, is how absorbed you become with this miniature world. The full size shrubs that loom in the background are forgotten as you study, giraffe-like, the goings on, and speculate how life might have been then.

More village scenes are present in the form of a cricket match on the green, visits to Sunday church, and workers in the mills. Life wouldn’t be complete without a tavern, a grocery and some outbuildings, including a miniature farm. Travellers are included with a group of decorative caravans parked on the common land stopped to cook up a pot of broth.

With the 40^th anniversary of the Blackpool Model Village and Gardens due to fall in 2012, I recommend you visit this little world and exercise those history brain muscles.

Waterslides seem to be something that appeals to children and teenagers universally, and for any adults who remember the joy of riding slides, they are a big draw for them too.  There is no special rate for spectators so mums, dads and all ages are encouraged to get moving and take those slides on.

Top facilities

The Blackpool Sandcastle Waterpark boasts top facilities including an adult steam and sauna facility, fully catered snack options, arcade game features and swimming pools for junior tots and adults. With 18 super slides on offer, the park will keep you very busy and super fit if you choose to take advantage of multi-pass options.

Like all Blackpool attractions, the park has invested in a unique ride, the Atzec Falls slide, the completely in-the-dark slide. Housed within an Atzec Temple, it is a lay down on your mat slide for serious riders, with a steep dark chute followed by several spins and turns and a corkscrew exit.

The second big opener for 2012 is the Montazooma slide, which continues the Atzec Hopi tribe theme. This ride involves the sensation of falling at high speed down steep 360 degree loops. This is meant to represent the giddy heights the Montazuma cave dwellers lived in when they chiselled high rise dwellings into cliff faces way back in 700AD, in Arizona.

The Sandcastle Waterpark has won two Lancashire and Blackpool Tourism Awards for 2011, including best Large Visitor Attraction and the diversity award, Best Accessibility. There are specialist areas within the park specific to parents and toddlers, including swimming lessons that can be booked at no extra cost. These kinds of services have proven very successful in attracting repeat visits from the millions of tourists that descend upon Blackpool each year.

Dedicated park mascots, Bling and Balula provide fun antics to entertain children. For those who want to experience the more daring rides in the park, there is the Master Blaster, the Hyperzone and the . The Master Blaster is 250 metres in length and operates as a water roller-coaster. It is the longest indoor water coaster in the world, and also has sections where you travel uphill, powered by water jets.

The Blackpool Sandcastle Waterpark is a great day out for all ages, and is situated opposite the Pleasure Beach resort.

Only three coasters survive that were build by Charles Paige, who is famous for the Mobius Loop series of roller-coasters. Essentially, Mobius Loop coasters race side by side or have a duel, and The Grand National is the only one in all of Eurasia, and this makes it a must do it ride when you visit Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach Resort.

Racetrack coaster

To mimic the style of the English Grand National Race, the carriages climb the first leg of height and pass a sign to say “They’re Off!” Just like the horses have to walk and canter until many are in light with the starter tape in the race, so too, the roller coaster carriages get off to an even start.

The next feature sees them race through Becher’s Brook, which is another reference to The Grand National horse race. It is the sixth fence the horses have to jump in the steeplechase and is notorious for its severity and has been an obstacle to many and the cause of falls and injuries. So to, the steepest initial part of this ride feels dangerous and scary.

The ride is 62 ft high and 3,300 ft long and has references to “Valentine’s” jump and “Canal Turn“ before the carriages finally reach the “Winning Post”.  The origin of the name “Canal Turn” comes from the original race course route where the horses would take a country lane jump and then find themselves headed toward Leeds and Liverpool Canal. They would ride into it if not commandeered well by their jockeys.

The race was designed as a cross country steeplechase, so the ditches, hedges and gates that had to be met along the way were designed to created difficulty for the riders and test their skills.  The majority of the race used to take place in the countryside. Now it is run on an official course at Aintree, Liverpool.

The Grand National roller-coaster is a fun ride, with a circular track and your opponent carriage by your side. Enjoy the ride!

Of course, this has caused many people to upload YouTube videos on the Valhalla Ride so if you want a sneaky preview you can always check it out. Be prepared for a wet ride if you try it out for real, and one that embodies the spirit and the terrors that the Vikings of the legends underwent.

You will cruise out in a Viking-shaped wooden boat, and journey through fire, ice and snow and at times your journey will be pitch black. There is Viking-themed music playing over, and plenty of sights, sounds and scary pop ups as you travel along the dangerous fjords.

The big tip from the online reviews is that there is a big dip at the start, and to hang on so you don’t bang your knees from the impact. After that is it a very cool ride, with the sensation of you being vulnerable and in a boat adding to the stress and fear the atmosphere creates.

The Valhalla Ride Blackpool was designed by a creative company called Sarner, in the UK, who specialise in ride effects and electronics. Valhalla is based on the legends from Norse mythology, which dates back to the 11^th century and was a religious system which made use of rune stones and amulets to assist its warriors in war and to pass to the other side after death.

The lifestyle of the Vikings is represented in the ride, with traditional log flume boat craft looks established to dramatise the ride experience. The Vikings were leaders in marine travel and this is the main reason they were successful conquerors and feared.

The ride itself lasts for over 6 minutes and it is all interior and hence known as a dark ride. The building it is in is over 80 feet tall and uses 35,000 cubic feet of gas per hour to provide flames, and 100,000 imperial gallons of water cycling through the system each minute. It is truly an engineering masterpiece.

If you are visiting the Pleasure Beach Blackpool, make sure you ride the Valhalla Ride Blackpool, if only to experience the most expensive dark ride in the UK.