Visit Great Yarmouth- Merrivale model village

The biggest littlest adventure in town

Disclosure– We received gifted tickets in return for a review however, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

We recently explored The Merrivale model village during our long weekend stay at Great Yarmouth. I can’t remember the last time I had visited the seaside in Great Yarmouth however, I do remember walking past the signs for this attraction and always wondering what it looked like inside.

Leo, my son has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair for distances so part of this weekend away was to explore accessibility for wheelchair users or people with limited mobility. Fortunately for Leo he did not need the wheelchair around this attraction as there were plenty of seats to stop and rest on and he held on to David’s arm for support. We kept his wheelchair behind reception ready for when we finished.

The village

Upon entrance you are asked if you’d like your photo taken in front of a green screen background, If you did they would give you a ticket to take the the gift shop at the end of your visit where you can view and purchase your photo’s if you wish.

Recently, we have been playing a lot of crazy golf wherever we go and was really surprised when we saw that they had a free crazy golf on site. The clubs and the balls are in buckets for you to use and there are 10 courses to complete. You are advised to wash your hands after you have played which is what we did and would of have done anyway.

We started our visit with a trip through the royal exhibition which was very fitting considering the Queens Jubilee is coming up. Buckingham palace looked incredible with all the mini guards marching in front of the beautiful, iconic building. Emily spotted the Queens corgi within the grounds which made her day as she adores dogs, there were plenty of little model dogs around the village for her to find.

There is so much to see here. Everywhere you look something is happening in the village. The kids enjoyed pressing the buttons to make the models become interactive, and there were quite a few buttons to press which kept young children engaged. I particularly enjoyed finding all the little Banksy artwork around the village, it was fascinating.

We came across an opticians called Spectaculars with Dr I. Lash and a Dentist called Dr McCavity which made us adults laugh as well as the kids. Not only did that make us laugh but if you looked closely at some of the mini characters not all of them are obvious unless you are really looking to see what they are doing but, they will make you chuckle (especially the streaker) so make sure you look at everything. It was all very captivating and we easily spent a good few hours there looking around at all the different scenarios happening, there is definitely something here for everyone and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

There is plenty of benches around for you to sit down and take a breather whilst lapping up the overhead views of this magnificent model village. The entire village is landscaped to showcase beautiful flowers beds for you to appreciate whilst you are there.

In the middle of the village there is a pond full of large, colourful, majestic Koi carps which you could feed. There is a little candy type machine of fish food which costs 20p per turn. The kids really loved doing this and the fish loved it too so I recommend you bring some change with you.

When you have finished looking around you will exit via the gift shop. The green screen pictures that were taken of us upon entrance looked great but Emily had blinked on ours so we didn’t purchase any, the lady behind the counter did say to us that we could have them retaken if we went back to reception but by this time the kids were all hungry and Leos legs were really aching so we decided not to.

Gift shop and Arcade

In the gift shop I was expecting to be able to buy little mini figures like the ones we had just seen in the village but was surprised that they didn’t sell anything like that. Maybe this is something they could considering doing? Not only did I have my own girls telling me how much they would like to create something similar in our garden but I also heard other peoples children telling their parents the same.

Once you have finished in the gift shop you will then walk into the past to an old penny arcade which Leo absolutely loved, he loves retro stuff like this and it was pretty cool to be able to see how arcades used to look. £1 would get you 12 coins but the kids wanted to go through to the more ‘modern’ arcade with the 2p machines as they got more coins for their money, fair enough. We spent a good half hour in here and it completed our visit perfectly.

To summarise our visit to Merrivale model village I can honestly say we all had a great time here, this attraction is definitely worth a visit if you are planning a trip to Great Yarmouth.

You can read more of my Great Yarmouth reviews here

Accessibility

As I mentioned earlier in the post I am looking particularly at accessibility during our adventures. The model village is set on a platform with the reception, toilets and crazy golf being at the top. There is a smooth path taking you down into the village, this is a steady path down so there are no steep hills to worry about. The only steps here are at the opposite side of the smooth path leading you back up to the toilets but you can still get back to the toilets using the the side you came down on.

The paths can get narrow at some points and in my opinion you can can’t cross other wheelchair users if you are in a wheelchair, you would have to wait at a wider part of the path for your turn. Double buggies will not fit but it is very much accessible for wheelchair users.

Entrance

Let’s talk about the cost of entrance for a moment. No only is it affordable but you can also re-enter for 7 consecutive days for free (upon proof of purchase) and there is so much to see here.

Toilets

If you are anything like me I like to know if the places I am visiting have toilets. When your out and about with little ones the last thing you want is to be caught short and have to go on a mad dash to find one. This attraction does have toilets and a slightly larger disabled toilet. They weren’t great but they were clean and did the job.

Parking

Whilst we were at Great Yarmouth we parked in St Nicholas car park which is opposite the sea front attractions. It is a long stay carpark as we were visiting the sea front pretty much all day so that it why we decided to park here.

£6.00 for up to 4 hours
£9.30 for over 4 hours

Try find another working pay machine if one is not working, It will suggest you pay using there app but this adds an additional charge of 20p (It’s not much but it’s a bit cheeky if you have to do this because of there faulty machine).

We parked in the disabled bay however, we did discover on the second day that Blue badge holders can park on the sea front for Free for however long they needed.

See more of my Great Yarmouth reviews here.