Review: Blackpool Model Village with Resort Pass Plus

Blackpool Model Village and Gardens comes with the tag line “The Biggest Little Village in Lancashire” and offers tended gardens with village scenes creatively placed between in cute miniature. Located on the edge of Stanley Park, immediately next to a skate park and easy walking paths, the location is idyllic and the setting very relaxing. It turns out it’s not all about the seaside when you go to Blackpool and just down the road is an amazing lake absolutely teeming with wildlife and just a five minute drive away is Blackpool Zoo.

We visited Blackpool Model Village and Gardens on our five day trip using Resort Pass Plus, which gets you entry into the model village for free (parking charge of £2.50 still applies). If you don’t have a multi ticket of some kind, then the cost is £7.50 for adults, £6 for children and under threes are free.

Is Blackpool Model Village worth visiting?

I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t super impressed with Blackpool Model Village, although my husband enjoyed it, so mileage may vary. As a child my grandmother loved model villages and we went to quite a few on holiday and I always remember being impressed by the detail and thought of the scenes. As an adult, I’m a bit of a nerd who follows Warhammer painters, and I’ve seen people do some crazy things with a 2 inch miniature. Here, things looked faded and a little haphazard, with very little detail present. My husband on the other hand, who’d never been to a model village, was fascinated. Our two and a half year old also enjoyed it, pointing at lots of different things as he spotted them. Older children may get bored, as there’s nothing specifically to keep children engaged, but a promise of ice cream at the end may keep them in line.

That being said, the gardens are lovely and very well maintained so I found it very relaxing. Water runs through the gardens, and there’s a large pond which had a few birds on it which was very peaceful. Benches were plentiful and the area quiet, so I certainly enjoyed starting the day with a lovely walk – and a visit from the resident kitty too. I’m just not sure there’s enough value to justify £7.50 in doing it as really, you’re only going to spend half hour to an hour here max – but if you have it included in a Resort Pass or other ticket, then it’s absolutely worth spending half hour here to chill out and have a look at the scenes. It felt a very different pace to the previous action-packed attractions we’d been doing and that made a nice change.

So my answer is: Blackpool Model Village is worth visiting if you want to find an attraction to spend a peaceful half hour, or if you already have entry included in a combination ticket such as the Resort Pass Plus.

A quiz was provided which encourages you to check out the scenes in more detail and think about what you’re seeing as well as provide information, but it’s aimed at older children and adults and certainly won’t provide entertainment for pre-schoolers like mine.

Car parking is right next to the entrance and £2.50 is for all day until 7pm, which is a very good parking price for Blackpool, so you could easily spend time at Stanley Park, the skate park or surrounding areas after visiting. The gift shop was very small, basically just an ice cream counter and some snacks, but the ice cream was great quality and prices very reasonable. The toilet block looked very modern with baby change facilities available, and we had no problem taking the pushchair around the whole site, so perfectly suitable for wheelchairs or those with young children.

One of the big advantages for us was Blackpool Model Village opened at 9:30am – where other attractions in Blackpool off season opened much later. Blackpool Zoo didn’t open until 10am, and as (forced by the toddler) early risers, we were happy to get out of the house early, spend half hour here at 9:30am and then head off to Blackpool Zoo at 10am for the rest of the day!

Blackpool Model Village has potential, but I think needs some work. Definitely worth a visit if you already have a ticket, otherwise it’s up to you whether you think the entry price is worth a half hour visit.

Note: We received free entry into Blackpool Model Village with our Resort Pass Plus provided by Visit Blackpool. We were not otherwise compensated for this honest review.