A savvy mom thought she had found a way to save money on a family trip to a theme park, but a sudden moment of panic the night before led to her taking some unusual steps to try and get some peace of mind.
Alaina Salsbury runs the business Patty Cakes in the U.K. and thought she had found a way to cut the costs of a recent family trip to Peppa Pig World in Paultons Park. As she lay in bed the night before the big trip, she realized that she might be facing a bigger bill than she expected.
“It suddenly dawned on me that my two-year-old might be over one meter in height,” she told Newsweek. “If he was over that height we would have to pay.”
Salsbury had purchased a season ticket for the family at the price of £260 ($337). “We live close to Peppa Pig World,” she explained. However, if her son had been over one meter in height, she would have to pay another £50 or so on top, or face being turned away.
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Lying in bed, thinking over every possible scenario, Salsbury ultimately let the intrusive thoughts win. She got up, headed downstairs and to the toolbox where she found a tape measure.
“I was hoping I didn’t get it wrong,” she said.
Painfully aware of the absurdity of what she was doing, Salsbury decided to record herself as she tiptoed into her toddler’s room to try and measure him. “You bought theme park tickets and forgot to check your toddler’s height the night before,” an accompanying caption to her TikTok video reads.
What followed was captured in a clip she posted to the pattycakesUK channel. It shows Salsbury trying, but perhaps unsurprisingly failing, to properly measure her son’s height while he was fast asleep.
“It was very tricky measuring him while he was asleep,” Salsbury said.
The video proved popular, with viewers desperate to know how Salsbury’s family got on when they visited Peppa Pig World the very next day.
Salsbury said she was “nervous approaching the park” and noticed staff there were “turning lots of people away and sending them to buy more tickets.”
She said they tried to get around it by having her son stay in his pram. However, staff ultimately ordered him out so they could determine whether he was too tall to go in for free.
Either divine intervention occurred that day or Salsbury had been worried for nothing all along. Her son was let in, having been deemed to be within the height requirements.
That left Salsbury and her family to enjoy a well earned day out together.
The benefits of going on family trips together go far beyond the simple enjoyment of a change of scenery or new experience. In 2022, researchers collected data from 217 families with elementary school age kids who had recently gone on holiday.
The results, which were published in the journal Tourism Management, revealed how parents’ well-being and children’s generic skills were boosted significantly as a result of these shared experiences.
Trips away and days out can prove expensive though, so it’s important for parents to be savvy when it comes to planning.