Zip World - Betws-y-Coed

Date of visit - 23/06/2024

I think I may have mentioned it, once or twice, that our Little One is a bit of an adrenaline junkie. He needs things that meet his sensory needs, whether it being driving down the motorway, with his window open feeling the wind in his face, bouncing on his trampoline, spinning on his Gonge Carousel chair or riding a roller coaster, he simply needs to "feel" something happening!

When we had checked out things to do in North Wales we had come across Zip World at Betws-y-Coed. Our original thoughts were that we would like to do one of the zip wire runs, Velocity. Unfortunately further checks revealed that Little One was precisely that, too little...

Going back to their website we found the Fforest Coaster (no, that's not a typo, the double f is a consonant in its own right in Welsh). Anyway, I digress.

The Fforest Coaster is a toboggan style roller coaster on a track that zooms a kilometre through the trees of Gwydir Forest. It's suitable for those over 3, and can be done as a shared experience with an adult, up to the age of 8. Two children can ride together, as long as the driver is over 9.

Our Little One isn't able to understand safety instructions, so I rode with him. To be fair, from a selfish point of view, I wanted to do this too.

On check in we were weighed, as there is a combined weight limit of 150kg per sled and we were issued with our voucher for the videos shown here. You have to pay extra for the videos as you are not allowed to take your own camera on board. I did see a couple of people coming down the run with their mobiles out, taking selfie videos, but I'm not sure that was strictly legit.

Each experience has a 30 minute booked time slot, to allow for your 3 runs. There is a short safety briefing, followed by a wait in a queue while the sleds are loaded up and people make their way off up the track. Little One isn't normally very good at queuing, but I think he knew something was going on, and was really well behaved. The queuing time between each run was around 10 minutes, and should be noted for those that might struggle to wait this long. I don't think there was any system in place for those that might have issues queuing, but it may be worth checking with the site, if you feel this could be an issue.

Once safely harnessed, and our camera secured to the front of the sled we were off. You are expected to harness yourself, with the "driver" secured by a car style shoulder seat belt and the front passenger by a lap belt. The front passenger is additionally secured, as the drivers legs hold the passenger tightly in place too.

When I say driver it is actually more a brake-man, as you have to control the speed of the sled by operating the brakes as you hurtle down the track. I am not 100% certain, but I think there may be some kind of auto braking system to control sleds that are going too fast into the corners, as I am sure on a couple of occasions I approached corners probably faster than I should, and felt the sled applied the brakes for me before I did.

The first part of the ride sees you pulled uphill, through the woods, on a cable propelled system. After a couple of minutes you arrive at the start point of the ride, push the brake lever down, and you're off.

At this point, to say Little One enjoyed it would be an understatement. You can see from the couple of videos I have included the amount of sensory input he is getting. He went through his full range of gestures, from his hand flapping, mouth wide, tongue out, it was all there.

He even threw in a few chest slaps on the second run, turning round and looking at me a couple of times. Little One doesn't do eye contact, often, but I am sure at those moments when he looked round, he was saying silently to me, "I love this"...

I am so glad we did this experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it myself, and Little One was absolutely buzzing afterwards, bouncing his way back to the car! For a sensory dependent child this was heaven! These are the moments he lives for and we strive to give him, as often as possible.