Just past Wembley Stadium, and a stones throw from my usual North London haunt of IKEA, there is a fairly new outlet centre, with loads of stores like Clarkes, GAP, every single running and outdoors retailer you could think of, and some nice restaurants. There are a couple of huge multi-storey car parks, and you get free parking if you spend over £30. Even with the additional 15% off voucher that we got for going skating, my shoes at Clarkes came to just over that, so parking was free- hurrah!
The ice rink is set up next to a great kids play park. Since there were road works on the North Circular, we set off in plenty of time and obviously whizzed straight through them without an issue. Fortunately the kids spent the half an hour that we were early on the swings, slides and climbing frames, which saved us sitting around and kept them all warm.
The rink has it’s own website, is open daily until 3rd January (closed Christmas Day) and tickets start at £7 for adults and £5 for kids, which includes skate hire and 45 minutes on the ice. Penguins are a fiver, and lockers cost a non refundable £2. Afterwards you can gorge on some lovely street food- the pizza was great, the meatballs even better, but we were all jealous of the boys burger- before you hit the shops.
We had a great day out, which really surprised me but it just goes to show you need to have an open mind when it comes to new stuff- lesson learnt!