Digger Land | Family Days Out in Yorkshire ... The Yorkshire Dad Blog ...

Last week we got the chance to head over to Castleford to visit and play at Digger Land. The park is the Ultimate Adventure Theme Park experience where children and adults can ride, drive and operate real full size construction machinery.

The theme-park is not only based in Yorkshire, you will find Diggerland theme parks in Kent, Devon, Durham and Worcestershire.

For those not familiar with theme park watch the video below, you should get a good idea of what you can expect from of the parks.

In a nut-shell, Diggerland has an array of activities and is the ideal theme park for small to large groups looking for something fun and highly unique. There are indoor and outdoor play areas, sandpits, coin operated rides and the younger guests can let off steam whilst parents can just relax and watch the fun… or join in!

We travelled from Harrogate and the journey was almost effortless; The park is a short-distance from the M62 and was well signed posted. You know when you've arrived as you are instantly hit with huge diggers in the entrance.

The car-park was huge so we had no problem at all find a parking space. I was genuinely impressed on the approach to the entrance, i didn't expect to see such a big and clean building, i was a expecting a farm or a some kind of big field.

We were greeted by the friendly staff and the kids were amazed to see a workman handing out high-fives whilst we waited in the short queue. In terms of tickets prices your best to book in advance and you should look at booking the family tickets are here is were you will save the most money.

Under 90cm get in free!! Check out the tickets prices here and the opening times here.

Before we got stuck into the ride we decided to make a pit-stop. We took the ramp upstairs and visited the cafe which housed plenty of seats and more importantly indoor go-karting.

The food and drinks were reasonable priced, which is always good as sometimes you don't want to be carrying your picnic around with you all day.

We also had to stop to change or 17mo. The facilities were top-notch, well cleaned and easily accessible even with our bugaboo donkey duo we had plenty of room to all fit in the facility and rotate the pram. Before we get into the rides i thought that it was worth mentioning that the ground is all flat; which was great for my father and his wheelchair and for us and our prams.

In terms of entertainment there was plenty of ride to try-out. The spindizzy ride seemed to be the most popular and one for the young adrenaline junkies. The ride is certainly not for every child but it is one that adults will find just as exciting than their fellow young explorers.

The best rides had to be the excavating diggers; after a quick two minute introduction to the controls you are let loose on the earth. You are given free reign to dig up and dump as much earth as you wish. It can take a couple of minutes to get the hang of the control but any computer loving child will be able to pick up the controls in no time at all.

There were skilled challenges on the smaller diggers as well and my personal favourite was the hook-a-duck diggers.

You also had the opportunity to test your driving skills on the Dumper trucks. drive a monster JCB 3CX, or take five and enjoy the views 50ft in the air from the Sky Shuttle.

All the above rides were perfect for those boys and girls who love diggers and who are able to ride all the diggers. For the under 90cm there was still a considerable amount to do considering then could not go on 80% of the diggers.

They had coin operated rides throughout the park that under two's could enjoy along with their parents. They even had two old army truck that have been stripped and converted into climbing-frames.

The best ride for under 90cm had to be the digger-land express; it was a digger towing a trailer through the forest. Inside the forest numerous amounts of friendly dinosaurs. They even had some sweet sound affects that kept the kids entertained for the five minute journey.

Inside, below the cafe, there is a superb soft-play area that rivalled some of the best in Yorkshire. This was a great place to sit and relax for both parents and children after buying food from the cafe and from the sweetie truck outside... they even do fresh doughnuts!

Within the soft-play centre they have a small inflatable bouncy-castle and a small soft-play area for the under twos. The older kids had the pleasure of playing in the bigger soft-play arena; it was huge and house one epic slide. We felt comfortable letting our little ones roam around in both sections and like-minded parents also had the same idea as it was easy to keep an eye on every child young and older from the seating dotted around building.

We spent ages in the soft-play before heading back out to play on the coin operated mini-go-karts and the bumpers cars.

I honestly would recommend a visit to digger-land for any parent with a child who loves the outdoors and vehicles. We spent a good four hours in the park and we didn't queue longer than five minutes for any of the rides. You will definitely get chance to go on the ride more than once and the great thing about the park is that parents can also have a hell of a good time as well.

Before you leave you can pick up a certificate and some goodies from the shop. There are costumes, trucks and books to buy as a memento of your day, we picked up Ted a magnetic digger book and got him some stickers.

You can visit the website here, you can follow then on Twitter here and keep update with offers on their Facebook page here.