Our day at Lollibop 2013 in the Olympic Park

My husband is constantly keeping an eye out for a bargain, and a couple of weeks ago he came across tickets for Lollibop 2013 from Little Bird at 50% off. I'd heard good things about Lollibop in the past, and as a bonus it was being held at the Olympic Park in Stratford. We spent a lot of time there last summer, knew that we could get there fairly easily, and were keen to see how the site is looking now, so we snapped up the tickets. We paid £11.75 each, £47 for the four of us.

Lollibop this year ran from Friday 16th August 2013 - Sunday 18th August 2013 and we had tickets for the Saturday. On the Friday night while we were planning our day I spent a bit of time online looking through reviews of the Friday. I became a little worried while looking at the Lollibop Facebook page, because there were a lot of negative reviews up there. It did make us a little apprehensive as to what to expect.

Well I'm pleased to report that we had a really enjoyable day! The children had a fantastic time, and of course that's the main thing. It was very busy naturally, but we are quite used to busy places, and we just avoided the attractions that you had to queue for. This did mean that we didn't really see much of what was going on at the main stage or the smaller stages, but we still found plenty to do to keep the children busy for almost the whole day.

It was a bit of a drive up to London for us, but we found it very easy to park at Westfield Shopping Centre, and it cost us just £5 to park for the day. We arrived early, and after a short walk to the site, which we were expecting, we entered the festival without a queue through the Little Bird lane. It was pretty empty when we arrived, although it did fill up quickly. We headed straight for the middle and started with the Barny Bear tent. They were very generous with the handing out of free cakes, and we passed by quite a lot during the day! There was some colouring for the children, and an interactive wall which Harry could explore using an iPad and headphones, he was fascinated.

We also spent quite a bit of time in the National Geographic tent. Harry coloured in a mask and they both played digging for bones in a big sandpit. There were also some nice activities in the Science Museum tent. We found that there were plenty of crafty activities around the site to keep the children entertained. Many of them were based around colouring in, but that's something that our children love doing and it can keep them busy for a little while. There were no queues at the craft activities, and we just walked straight up. They also decorated a festival scarf by stamping, made pin wheels, decorated rubber ducks and coloured in bunting.

We managed to find some balloon modellers that were just setting up and got Harry in the queue. He had to wait a short while, so I kept Mia entertained in the dance tent next door which she loved, with loud music and energetic dancers showing us the moves. Harry requested a large hat and that's what he got, but I can't say that we were too disappointed to find that it had disappeared when we left the pushchair to go into a tent (I would imagine it was blown away by the wind rather than taken!). In this area Harry also enjoyed throwing wellies around with Shaun the Sheep.

We saw Katy from I Can Cook doing a little show and Andy and Sid from CBeebies doing their thing in the smaller tent. But for some reason Harry was completely freaked out seeing them in real life, so we didn't stop long although plenty of other children were enjoying the shows!

It was a real delight to stop at the sweet Magic Belles tent and have a chat with Maxine, one of the creators of the Magic Belles and a lady that I enjoy chatting to on Twitter. Harry loved colouring in a magical postcard to send to the Magic Belles and posting it in the fairy postbox.

The main queues that we saw were to meet characters. Fortunately ours aren't bothered by that and were quite happy to watch them from a distance rather than needing to go up and meet them. There were also very large queues at the food vans, but luckily we always take our own food, and there was no problem with taking a picnic along.

We did find that most of the entertainment on the main stage was geared around shows that were unfamiliar to us, so we didn't see a lot there. We were keen to see Justin Fletcher but it was very busy, and there was no way that we could get close to the stage at the last minute. We stood at the back and watched for five minutes before the children lost interest. It did look like a fantastic show though for those closer by, Justin certainly knows how to entertain a young audience. We took advantage of many people being in that area to return to the attractions nearer the entrance that we had missed on the way in.

The Lalaloopsy tent was also worth a visit, with more colouring for Harry, a plastic house for Mia to monopolise, and a goody bag with real actual toys in which were a big hit when we got home. They also absolutely loved the Happy Hopperz out for them to bounce around on.

We spent a good amount of time in the Lego Duplo tent, where my children are very happy to spend ages playing with a big box of Duplo, despite having plenty at home! We also queued for five minutes for the Little Tikes area, which they loved. There was a selection of cars, play houses and so on for small groups to play in at a time in a very well organised system. With hindsight, we should have gone here first, as it was one of their favourite areas. They also loved the WOW toys tent opposite, with lots of smaller toys out for them to play with.

We were in the Baby Annabelle enclosure nearby playing with dolls just as the rain started, and by a lucky chance there was a show just starting in the Toddler Sense tent next door. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the day, an interactive, singing and dancing experience for little ones which they both loved, even though Harry is really at the top end of the age range.

By this time it was around 4.30pm, the wind had picked up and although the rain had passed it was getting quite chilly. Both children were tired and it was still quite busy, so we decided to call it a day. I couldn't drag my husband away from Westfield though without a stop at Franco Manca for some of the delicious pizza which we discovered last year.

A lot of what made our day so enjoyable was that both children were impeccably behaved, excited to be there and not bothered about the things that they missed out on. It was a real delight to take them out, and I was almost sad to put them to bed when we got home (and that's not something I say very often!). I find it a lot easier taking toddlers out than babies, and it's a good sign for the future that these days out are becoming a bit less of a mission.

We didn't spent any money at Lollibop apart from the cost of our ticket, and I think that our tickets represented good value. Full price is expensive, and it does add up especially as only babies under 1 year are free. I'd love to go again, and we'll certainly look out for the reduced tickets next year.

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