Quick Recap: Part two ended with me explaining my first encounter with escapism at a theme park. Therefore I’m picking up where I left off, so thank you for joining me again! It always surprises me how many of you guys are interested in us!
Alton Towers:
A year after that visit to Drayton Manor things got quite hard again in my personal life. But half way through possibly the hardest year of my life my school was doing a school trip to Alton Towers. Therefore I knew I had to snap it up & saved my pocket money to go. I never had a feeling quite like it before, it just felt so homely to me. From that moment I had fell in love with Alton Towers. But I also knew this was something I had to explore more off too.
Becoming Annual Passholders:
Once I met Ant we had our first date at Drayton Manor then I brought him tickets to Alton Towers for his birthday. We of course visited Pleasure Beach in between hand too. Luckily for me Ant began to get into theme parks as well. It came to a point we were visiting Drayton Manor every other day in between my college days and it started to get costly. So we decided to buy our first season passes. Then once we visited Alton Towers together Ant suggested buying the Merlin Annual Pass. At which I was admittedly very unsure on. Mainly due to my anxiety regarding travelling & visiting London, I can’t explain it. But I managed to overcome the London theme parks yet to get over the centre of London. It was at that point we knew it had become a hobby to us.
Content Creators / The Embarrassment:
If I’m honest when we began to visit parks every week, we never had a very nice reception from people around us. We had a lot of indirect statuses, snide remarks, bitchy behind our backs & the piss taken out of us a lot. It wasn’t until I discovered theme park content creators that I began to understand there’s an entire community doing the exact same thing as us. At that moment I managed to shake of the shame & embarrassment I felt and really enjoy it for what it was. But also acknowledge the fact theme parks are incredibly helpful for my mental health & wellbeing & all round happiness. The fact I’m lucky enough to have a fiancé who feels the same way makes it even more special.
Part 4 coming soon!
Thank you so much for reading!!