26th Milton Keynes Coniston Cubs took part in MK District Cubs sleepover at Gulliver’s Land Theme Park Resort, along with other Cub Scout packs across Milton Keynes.
Upon arriving, Coniston Cubs setup their sleeping bags and totally lucked out by having two super cosy corners: an area for the boys and another area for the girls. This was then followed by dinner in the restaurant, which was a treaty meal of chips, chicken/veggie nuggets and pop drinks.
Magical Land of Lights and Movies Before Bed
As if having a sleepover at Gulliver’s wasn’t exciting enough, the event started with a magical self-led tour of the Land of Lights lantern festival. Following a wiggly 1-mile path across the Dinosaur park at night, Coniston Cubs were wowed by the variety of magical lanterns: Christmas, Mexican Día de Muertos, fairy tale castles, wild animals, jungles savannahs with African animals, mega-insects, ocean seascapes, farmyard, snowflakes, dinosaurs and more.
It was spectacular and Coniston Cubs not only enjoyed looking at the lanterns, but also creeping through the small animal enclosure barn (without torchlights, so as not to scare the rabbits or guineapigs). Along the magical atmospheric trail of lanterns, a friendship also blossomed…
Once back at ‘camp’ Coniston Cubs enjoyed watching a movie along with Cub across the district before settling to sleep and lights out.
(Many thanks to the six leaders and Assistant District Commissioner for Cubs Claire Harris and her team who kept watch over all the Cubs overnight.)
Exciting rides, games, adventure and more…
The next morning, Coniston Cubs woke up bright and early, got all their stuff packed (only one lost item in the whole pack, so that’s pretty good going!) and had brekkie of cereal, juice and pastries.
There was some downtime before the first activity of a Gulliver’s-guided Jurassic tour of the Dinosaur Park, so Coniston Cubs played the card game of werewolves for their first time. Coniston Cubs love playing the ‘wink wink murder’ guessing game as a pack, so needless to say that Werewolves was a hit! The ‘werewolves’ got a bit savvy by the third/fourth round as they killed off all the ‘villagers’ who kept peeking (aka cheating) in the game. Great fun was had by all… Coniston Cubs can’t wait to teach this game to the rest of the Cub pack members who didn’t make it to this event.
Coniston Cubs enjoyed the daytime tour of the Dinosaur Park with some Cubs self-containing themselves in a cage, and others inhabiting giant dinosaur eggs.
By 10am Gulliver’s Resort opened, so Coniston Cubs were free to explore the park as a pack and go on a range of rides. Thanks to Cub Leader Raksha, who had been to Gulliver’s many times before, Coniston Cubs had their very own private guide who knew all the shortcuts and best places to go, starting with Adventure Land and Gully Town. Coniston Cubs went on the Grand Prix Racer ride, the Tree Top swing ride, The Buccaneer swinging ship, Carousel and explore The Maze before lunch.
Throughout the morning, Akela was super impressed by the kindness and Scout values showed by all Coniston Cubs as they carried things for each other, shared snacks, went on rides together, reassured each other and buddied up. Coniston Cubs should be super proud of themselves.
Once Coniston Cubs was recharged from their packed lunch of crisps, cheese sandwiches and drink, they visited the shop, spent some money and completed their exploration of Adventure Land with the Jungle River Ride, followed by Dodgems in Toy Land, Rio Bravo ride in Discovery Bay and the grand finale of the Log Flume – five Cubs were super brave as they didn’t mind the cold or wet. Great fun was had by all members of Coniston Cubs.
A super big thank you to MK District Cubs team, Claire Harris and others for organising this wonderful sleepover event that had a great community feel. Coniston Cubs greatly enjoyed meeting friends they already knew and making new acquaintances in the family of Scouting.
