Ardsley House Hotel - Day Two - Magna & Giraffe

We had a good nights sleep in the hotel and woke at about 7:45, got ready and went down for breakfast. It was half buffet - cereal, fruit juices, tinned fruits, yogurt, croissants and half table service - tea, coffee and cooked items. Lauren can always make a good job of a breakfast and proceeded to polish off a bowl of mixed Cornflakes and Rice Krispies, a croissant with raspberry jam and a peach yogurt. She loves the atmosphere of hotel breakfasts and all the little bits of cutlery and napkins etc. I ordered an egg on toast and that, after a while and a mix up with table numbers, was exactly what I got. An egg on a slice of toast, no toast for the yolk, so I ordered a rack of toast, which didn't come and I had to order again. That seemed to be the flavour of the breakfast service, a couple next to us also had to reorder their toast and got the wrong breakfast and I saw two couples across the way swapping plates as they been given each others breakfast! Still, you couldn't be annoyed with the staff as they were very pleasant and working hard.
Our plan for the day was to visit Magna Science Adventure Centre. It was only a twenty minute drive from the hotel, well, unless you disobey your satnav and go on a wild goose chase. (guilty!) Despite me going rogue, we got there 10 minutes after opening time. There was a queue at the door, which when we got in found out was due to a broken ticket machine. We'd bought our tickets on line and all we had to do for entry was show a text message, this also allowed us to collect an annual pass. We had seen on the way in that Magna had a brilliant outdoor play area, including water play, but given that it was pouring with rain and late October we weren't going to discover that aspect today, so an annual pass will come in handy for future visits.
As soon as we'd climbed the stairs and come out into the main body of Magna, it became apparent that it was no ordinary visitor attraction. Lauren was immediately on guard, it was huge - as it would be, given that it's an old steel works - dark, cold (you must take a coat, or a cardigan at the least), all the things that put her on edge. The interactive activities started as soon as you went through onto the huge suspended walkway, although disappointingly some were showing signs of a hectic half term and were out of order. Along the way there were big search lights so you could examine the interior of the centre and seek out hidden gangways and huge hooks and in one place we found a hanging jug and a skeleton, even a ghost man. In this section there was also a scary looking zip wire attraction for all ages.

We carried on to an antechamber filled with buzzing electricity conductors, again Lauren was hesitant and I had to reassure her that she wouldn't be electrocuted! We stopped to operate a hot air balloon, heat it up and see how high it would go....the answer is up to an intriguing looking air ship suspended at the top of the works.
Our first proper stop was called The Big Melt, it's a demonstration of an "E" (electric arc) furnace, lights and pyrotechnics displaying how the furnace (now no longer working) would have performed. The answer is it must have been like hell, the heat, the noise, the sparks, the moving parts and the demonstration was pretty intense, I felt bad as I really wanted to witness it all, but Lauren clearly didn't, she clung to my leg and whimpered, but I was vindicated when later she watched it from a different part of the building and said it was brilliant. Our first pavilion was "Fire", again Lauren was clingy and grizzly, but I'm glad we stuck it out as once we'd done this pavilion she came to life and we ended up coming back to "Fire" again later and she couldn't rave enough about it. The highlight of this area was the Fire Tornado, make the most of it, it will be the warmest you get in this building.
Next we went up to the Air Pavilion, housed in the aforementioned Air Ship, with fascinating interactive air activities and a brilliant film about the famous Tacoma "Galloping Gertie" Bridge. Check it out on You Tube if you've never seen it before.
The only way to go from the air is down, down to the Water Pavilion. I found this Pavilion the most disappointing, but Lauren loved it. Lots of water based activities, she got absolutely soaked. Super squirters, wave machines, an icy hand rail along with other very wet, water activities.
The final Pavilion was the one Lauren loved the most, the Earth Pavilion. It starts off with some tunnels, then there is a collaborative activity. It all starts with a film about a quarry, at the end of the film you press a detonator, the film shows the rock face erupting, then rubber rocks fall out from behind the screen. You take these to a conveyor where eventually they are collected by children with hard hats and wheel barrows who take them off to a stone sorter and the process starts all over again. There were also some JCB diggers and a sand pit and thankfully for the little ones, a quiet room, as apart from the Big melt this is the noisy part of the day, I was in here waiting for Lauren for over an hour and it was like being in hell...banging, clanging, explosions and engines, scraping and clattering - all added to the sounds of over excited children...good grief!
We went for lunch in the Fuel restaurant, we just shared a panini but the meals looked nice, it was very noisy and busy in there but they got everything out really quickly. After lunch, we did it all again and didn't leave until well after 4pm.

We didn't want to eat in the hotel again so we headed for the Meadow Hall food court, we were there until after 7pm and it was still buzzing with shoppers when we left.
The newly refurbished food court was an inviting place to eat, it has a nice vibe. There is a good choice of restaurants with a few more to come, we checked them all out before making our decision TGIs, Las Iguanas, Zizzi's, Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge, Coal, Frankie and Benny's, Handmade Burger Company, Harvester and more.
My choice was Zizzi's but I was overruled by Lauren who wanted Giraffe and what a great choice. The food
was fresh and delicious and the staff friendly and attentive but not overpowering and so nice to Lauren.
For a starter we tried and shared some Chicken Potstickers, I expected them to be little dumplings, but they were like tiny little pies filled with spring onions and chicken, they came with a sweet chili sauce and were surprisingly tasty, leaving us fighting for the last one.
For main I had a Thai Duck Stir Fry, it came with chopsticks which I obediently used, to Lauren's amusement. It was just the right amount of crisp vegetables, lovely pak choi, shredded duck all the way through and soft noodles in a delicious but not particularly Thai sauce.
Lauren had kids steak and chips, I wasn't
impressed with the chips as we have been spoilt lately with proper chips, but the steak despite being a minute steak was cooked pink and was tender. Lauren wouldn't eat it because it was char grilled and "she doesn't do brown", but after a bit of encouragement she had a go.

All that meant that Lauren had space for a Chocolate Brownie pudding, a scoop of ice cream, scattered with cubes of brownie and a rich chocolate sauce. She did it justice but I think she was a bit tired, she said she didn't like the sauce and she isn't known for finishing her ice cream, so I had to help out a little, but that kind of dessert is not my thing.

The bill came to just short of £30 including drinks which for the two of us was quite a lot really, I think I will stick to hunting out discount vouchers in the future, but we did that and had Frankie and Benny's last time in Oxford and had a horrible meal, so is it worth it?
We had to do a bit of emergency shopping as my lovely real leather, birthday purse broke and I had to get an emergency replacement from Next, so by the time we got back to the hotel it was nearly half past eight and to my horror there was a conference and a party going on so all the parking spaces had gone, after nearly getting my car stuck in an impossible space we finally got parked round by the Health Spa and we headed off for a quiet night despite everything that was going on.