Event report

Pontins 2000 (Blackpool) > April 2000

Friday Evening

On Friday 31st March 2000 at 5:30pm eight of the Summit VSU got onto a minibus with our driver and his girlfriend to start the long journey up to Blackpool, just north of Manchester.

We had all been looking forward to this moment for a long time.

We had a long drive but got ourselves in the mood by playing dance music on the Discman and guitar amplifier that we had brought along for our entertainment.

Friday Night

We arrived at Pontins Blackpool, which is located on the sea front, and were told that we were the last to arrive. We were not surprised as it was 11pm, the bar was open 'till 12:30am so we quickly found our rooms and headed off in that direction.

After a couple of pints in the pub we realised that all of our drinking companions were at least 10 years older than us. We soon found that all of the other Venture Scouts were in the large bingo hall behind which had its own bar (by this time closed) and had a dance floor and a disco had just stopped. We decided that there was not much more to see here so we headed back to our rooms to go to bed...almost fooled you, it was only 12:45am, the night t'was still young.

We wondered around a bit and soon found that one of the rooms belonging to a Unit from Derby had a party in it and this was only a short distance away so we thought we could get back alright.

This carried on until about 5am and then most of us went to bed. Our rooms were brilliant, most of us had a double room all to ourselves. Each room was equipped with a double bed, TV, kettle etc., shower room and plenty of cupboard space. All this and food for the weekend for £35: can't be bad.

Saturday Morning

The next (the same) morning we all woke up at about 8am and all headed off to the on-site swimming pool which we had all to ourselves for about an hour. We went back to our rooms and, realising that we didn't have a clue when breakfast finished being served, headed quickly for the dining hall. Breakfast was a full cooked meal with the works.

After breakfast we went to the bar but found that it hadn't opened yet so played pool and went on the arcade games in the next room. We then went to a meeting in the bingo hall to tell us about the weekend and all the various activities that we could take part in. We opted out of all the activities and returned to playing pool.

Saturday Afternoon

At about noon we met up with our driver and set off for the famous Blackpool Pleasure beach. This is a very compact theme park with just about every sort of ride that you can think of in a very small space. It is nick-named the roller-coaster capital of the world.

The Pepsi Max Big One is the highest and fastest roller-coaster in the world. When you reach the top of the largest drop you can look out over all of Blackpool and realise that you are above the top of the Blackpool Tower. The largest drop can be seen at the top of this page.

We spent most of the afternoon in the Pleasure Beach and didn't spend too much money as the rides were only 80p each and there was no entry fee. At about 5:30pm we all piled back into the minibus and trundled back to Pontins where we quickly ate dinner and went back to our rooms to get ready for a long evening of partying.

Saturday Evening/night

The disco started at about 8pm and ran through to about 2am. There were about 1000 venture scouts at Pontins for the weekend so you can imagine how packed the dance floor was, especially for the cabaret/karaoke part of the evening when champagne was given away.

We danced and drank late into the night. At about 1am we went back towards our rooms and joined a party in one of the other people from Derby's room. There we sat and chatted, listened to music and, of course, drank some more.

In a brief interlude in the party some of us went and attempted to hijack one of those long Pontins trains but it proved too heavy for three of us to push and when one of us got a phone call asking us to come back to the party, we decided to oblige!

Sunday Morning

We came to at about 8:30am and quickly headed off to the swimming pool, this time with some of the friends that we had made the night before. We swam for about an hour and then went for breakfast, aware that we had to be checked out of our rooms before 11am!

After clearing out our rooms and collecting our deposit, for not ruining our rooms, we all got into the minibus and went back to the Pleasure Beach. After a short photo shoot on the promenade in the rain we headed again for The Big One and the other exciting rides.

Sunday Afternoon/Evening

At about 2:30pm we started our journey all the way back to Farnham. It took until 10:30pm as there were a few accidents down the M6 but after that we were on our way. We kept ourselves amused by 'talking' to the crew from Derby all the way back by text-message.

We would like to pass on our thanks to Phil and Annalise for taking us up and being great company while we were there.