Skegness Attractions and Skegness Tourist Information

The SEAS Festival Finale at the Embassy Theater was a fitting end to another poorly organised Skegness event. I arrived at the Embassy with my young son, we were welcomed into the theater by The Jolly Fisherman to what I was assured was a family night of musical entertainment.

Here’s the information Skegness residents/visitors and the Skegness Tourist Information Center/Embassy Theater staff had available to decide if the Finale was a family friendly event.

From Skegness / Mablethorpe Programme of Events.

6-10.30pm: Grand Finale, Tower Gardens start/Embassy Theatre – musical evening

From SEAS Newsletter 3 – Black/North SEAS
Skegness International, Contemporary Arts Festival
25th September – 3rd October 2009

Everybody loves a good laugh and that’s just what you’ll get if you go to see these guys and gals, the Graffiti Classics show was brilliant, we laughed our socks off all the way through the entertainment

We saw the group Graffiti Classics play in St Mathews Church in Skegness as their contribution to the SEAS Festival (see our SEAS Festival Review).

How has the Skegness Embassy Theater ever missed this great gem of a band!! They are sensational. Although we saw them in a church, Graffiti Classics normally plays in theaters and tours around the world. The best musical show we’ve seen by far, wonderful, if they come back to Skegness we’ll see them again.

Graffiti Classics are a quartet of talented musicians that add a comical twist to their musical performance. Laughter rang out loud in the church and the applause was long after each act ended. I have been to many a theater production and have never seen the audience so eager to give thanks, and a well deserved standing ovation at the end.

Yes you read the title of this post correctly, East Lindsey District Council will STOP the green bin collections completely over the winter period (November to March)!

I’m all for recycling and saving money and have always thought fortnightly collection of green bins throughout the year a waste of resources, even in summer our green bins are rarely full (small garden). I also thought it a bit strange we got a full size green bin and a half size black bin, should have been the other way around IMO: and as a family we have managed to fit black bin waste in the half sized black bin, but struggle with the over flowing full size grey recycling bin (businesses give us too much recyclable material as packaging!) and at times have to put it in the black bin.

The Embassy Swimming Pool has an indoor heated pool and a traditional seaside outdoor heated swimming pool.

Both of the Embassy Swimming Pools are basic rectangular pools, there are no bells or whistles to this East Lindsey County Council run swimming pool in that it doesn’t have fancy flumes, sprinklers or jacuzzi , but the Embassy Swimming pool in Skeg is a nice pool to have a swim.

The Embassy Swimming Pool can be found on Grand parade next to the Embassy Theatre

PRICES: £3.25 adults, over 60’s free and children under 16 free

Session vary so call ahead on: Tel: 01754 610675 or look online for basic info

Skegness Embassy Outdoor Swimming Pool

The outdoor swimming pool is an OK Skegness attraction for those brave enough to use it on the two days a year when it’s warm enough to swim outside in Skegness

Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve is Skegness’s very own National Nature Reserve, part of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust it’s three and a half miles down Drummond road. The beginning of Drummond Road can be found opposite Tower Cinema.

If you are fit enough you can cycle to Gibraltar Point. The top of Drummond Road is not too busy, the beginning of the road can be a little hectic during holidays with cars trying to park in the car park, if you have children I would suggest cycling on the path at the beginning part of the road.
Don’t cycle on footpaths in Skegness a £30 fine for cycling on footpaths in Skegness was introduced in October 2009!

The rest of the road is a quiet country road, half way up Drummond Road there is a cycle path on the right hand side, but it doesn’t go all the way to Gibraltar point.

Skegness Bottons Pleasure Beach is located on the Skegness Sea Front

Admission Prices:
£12.00 for a full day wrist band.
£8.00 for an evening wrist band.
Or you can buy tokens a pound each.

My kids have dragged me to Bottons Pleasure Beach many times, we go at least 3 times a year, and it’s always a fun filled evening for them and me, which lets face it as parent it’s always a bonus since we usually get left out of the fun drinking tea/coffee as slooowwwly as possible!, while the kids run off and have a blast.

Skegness Bottons Pleasure Beach is a traditional fun fair, it doesn’t have any of the big rides like roller coasters, (it’s not an Alton Towers sized attraction) but it does still have enough for the thrill seekers with the pirate ship and the surf rider in particular and if your up for a good spin every ones all time favorite the waltzer.

Skegness Tower Gardens is the only recreational grounds in Skegness, it has three/four playing fields one main grass area with smaller fields where ball games can be played.

The park is a beautiful scenic place to have a picnic or sit and enjoy some peace and quiet either on the grass areas or under one of the many trees that’s in Tower Gardens.

If you have little ones you can feed the ducks on the pond or let them play in the kiddies play area. Tower Gardens small kiddies play ground is for children aged 0-12, for older children there is a small assault course this could do with being updated and improved, but it’s OK for the older kids to let of a bit of steam for a few minutes. I often race my kids on the assault course

There are two secondary schools in Skegness, The Skegness Grammar School, which is obviously a grammar school and St Clements College a comprehensive school.

The unfortunate thing with St Clements College is the Skegness Grammar School is selective and pretty much gets the top 25% of students from the Skegness and surrounding areas. This has resulted in many of the students at St Clements College listed as requiring special educational needs, lost the source now, but read about 1/4 of their pupils are SEN! From the BBC website almost 35% of the 171 students who sat GCSE’s at St Clements College in 2008 were special needs! In comparison of the 111 students from Skegness Grammar School who sat GCSE’s in 2008, none of them had SEN. So it’s unfair to directly compare these two schools (that being said our experience of both Skegness secondary schools has been far from impressive).

There are several attractions in Skegness for small children, but because my children are all too old for these attractions, (youngest is 13 years old now) I’m afraid I can’t give an in depth review for fun things to keep your toddlers happy during your holiday in Skegness.

I hate to give the usual blurb about an attraction, you know the type of information, seen through rose coloured glasses making out this is the best attraction since sliced bread, which never helps anyone let alone visitors with children to Skegness, you always find they are never true

That’s why my reviews come from a first hand experience of a Skegness Attraction, I like to give a truthful and honest run down of an attractions (the good, the bad and the ugly) and I hope that’s what makes the Skegness Attractions Reviews unique.

The SEAS Festival is coming to Skegness on the 25th September – 3rd October. See Skegness SEAS Festival Review.

I’m a little dubious about this Arts Festival, I’ve been going through the list of events and it all seems very adult based and dry, there’s not much at all for families and the fun factor seems to be missing, but we’re willing to give the SEAS Festival a try.

The SEAS Festival seems to be aimed at, as my old mum would say Arty Farty types, you know the one who like to feel self important by pretending they know more than you!

Drives me nuts!! I’m artistic myself and I feel that artists should be allowed to just express themselves without coming out with some ridiculous reason for trying something new and creativity. Artists should have the freedom to express themselves, for no other reason than they want too.

Every year at around the second week in September Skegness Bottons Pleasure Beach closes it’s doors at the end of the summer season with a free fireworks display on the Skegness beach.

For a free fire works display it’s quite good, we’ve been to the Lewes fireworks displays and torch led prosessions in the streets (it’s like 12 hours of fireworks all over the town of Lewes) which are awesome, so we know what makes a great fireworks show.

This year we finally worked out how to use the fireworks setting on our digital camera and at long last got some good quality firework photographs

The fireworks videos turned out quite well also, we rarley try the digital cameras movie making abilities.

First time we’ve put one of our videos online as well (uploaded to Youtube).

The Skegness WebCam picture below is brought to you by Skegness RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) and BBC.co.uk.

The camera is set on top of the Skegness Royal National Lifeboat Institution tower looking across the Skegness beach.

The Skegness WebCam updates every 10 minutes.

Skegness WebCam

The Skegness WebCam pans across the beach andsometimes points towards Bottons Pleasure Beach, sometimes you’ll see their big wheel.

Archived Skegness WebCam Pictures

Click for full size image

Skegness RNLI

When I was around 12 years old I was on holiday in Skegness, Ingoldmells (caravanning on the Eastgate caravan site) and I went out from Ingoldmells beach in a two man dingy and the current caught me! From the beach I could be seen on the horizon and the Skegness life boat had to be called out to get me, apparently a life boat had broken down so it took some time to pick me up.

We all know how much a holiday by the sea can cost, with every attraction trying to snatch the money out of your wallet.

So Skegness Attractions has come up with the Skegness for Free Guide, giving you ideas of things to do for Free in Skegness.

Skegness Beach

Number one has to be the Skegness beach, miles of the East coasts golden sands, much better than the pebble beach they have at Brighton on the East Sussex coast. I should know I used to live near Brighton before we moved to Skegness. One of the reasons we moved to Skegness from down South was the pebble beaches, we got sick to the back teeth that the kids couldn’t build a sand castle and sunbathing on aggregate isn’t very comfortable or relaxing , so we moved back to the East coast for the glorious sand.

The Embassy Theatre has a lot to answer for, we have been struck with the theater bug since we moved to Skegness. Who knew, certainly not us until we gave it a go as a family and the verdict is WE LOVE THE THEATER!

I would recommend the Embassy Theatre as one of, if not the best Skegness Attractions for families visiting Skegness. If you have never given the theater a go, trust me, go see what shows the Embassy has on when you are visiting Skegness (just try the theatre once). Even my husband now enjoys the theater and admits that had it not been for me wanting to see the Chinese State Circus as a family he would have never thought to even try a theatre performance let alone go multiple times a year. My husband prefers to watch things on TV in comfort, but since trying out the Embassy theatre he sees there is something to being up close and personal to the performance.

Hardy’s Animal Farm is quite far down Anchor Lane in Ingoldmells, Skegness particularly if your walking like we where, so stick with it and you’ll get there eventually

I must say I was quite nervous that my 11 year old son wouldn’t like Hardy’s Farm. When we arrived, the outside although clean and tidy didn’t give any indication as to what to expect. It was so sparse of anything interesting I actually asked my son if he was sure he wanted to go in!

Hardy’s Animal Farm Gift Shop

The entrance is attached to a gift shop and I have to say it is very spacious. Hardy’s Farm have excelled with there gift shop where other attractions fail.

Hardy’s gift shop had lots of beautiful trinkets and souvenirs, but where it pleased me the most was the space and lay out, you can wander around freely, the atmosphere is relaxing, and the lady who greeted us was helpful and welcoming.