Team Bricki's Merry Mancunian Mini Break DAY ONE

[princessnicki]

So this trip includes a couple of lows- usually we tend to focus on the positives but there were a couple of negatives in this one. We have had a few city breaks post Covid (including London) and havent really felt the impact that people have been talking about but we did notice it here. I hate to say it but we felt that Manchester as a city has gone downhill a little bit since we last visited. It felt dodgy and uneasy at times to walk around, i felt less on edge in London. Overall we honestly did have an amazing time and so many laughs though so please dont think the few niggles ruined it.

DAY ONE

With a long day ahead of us, our alarm was set for 7.00am, a lie in for us as we usually get up hours before this for work. I had prebooked the train so we could try and get a seat near our suitcase- i am so paranoid when travelling anywhere that our luggage will go missing! I had booked the taxi days before to pick us up and surprise surprise it didnt turn up (we are having an absolute nightmare getting taxis in our town at the moment!). Luckily another company came straight away and we arrived 10 minutes before the train was due to depart. We picked up a Latte for Brett and Hot Chocolate for me in the station. The train was great, the new ones are so comfortable with lots of leg room.

The first stop was Manchester Victoria so our journey time was less than half an hour! It is so sad walking through Victoria knowing what happened there in 2017, the memorial with all the pictures of the children gets me everytime.
We made the short walk down to Portland Street to drop our bags off at our hotel Ibis Styles. It was just before midday so we were too early to check in but they offered us early access to the room for £10. We decided to pay it so we could safely lock our suitcase away. We were allocated room 120 and to put it bluntly it was awful. It was uncomfortably small and there was a generator outside the window- it was so noisy! Normally we wouldnt complain and would just make the best of it but while we can cope with a rubbish room, we didnt want to risk a bad nights sleep, so i phoned reception and explained the situation. They apologised profusely and moved us to room 615, which was even worse! It was a lot bigger but next to an even louder generator- the room was vibrating when it came on! I called again and they moved us to 633 which was at the opposite side of the hotel. Third time lucky this one seemed ok (spoiler alert, it wasnt!)

We were really late for our lunch reservation now but i had called ahead and they said it wasnt an issue. We walked over to American Pies, which is a place that serves deep dish pizzas- like Giordanos in Orlando. This is a restaurant owned by Brewski which was the former resident of this space (they still have a branch just outside of the city!). Our server was absolutely amazing, she was so friendly and explained the menu in full to us. The famous pizza pies take 40 minutes to bake fresh so we decided to share the Deep Fried Lasagne Bites with Hot Honey Dip first. These were delicious- the sweet honey really worked with the savoury lasagne!

We ordered the 10 inch pizza pie to share- Buffalo Chicken (Brewski Fried Chicken, Buffalo Hot Sauce, Spring Onion, Blue Cheese Sauce) with extra Blue Cheese sauce and Sweet Chilli sauce to dip the crusts in. This was such a good pizza, the marinara sauce was beautiful and full of flavour, there was a good amount of fried chicken topping, so much cheese (look at the cheese pull!) and the crust is made with garlic butter and parmesan. Brett never eats his pizza crusts and he devoured the lot here so that tells you how amazing the pizza is here!

The cocktail menu is small but they can do classics on request. The ones that we tried were gorgeous- so refreshing and fruity, and they certainly didnt skimp on the alcohol!

Brewski Bubble (Rum, Strawberry Liquor, Prosecco, Strawberry)

La Brisa Tranquila (Honey, Tequila, Pineapple, Lime)

Raspberry Caiprioska (Vodka, Raspberry, Lime)

Tingwray (Overproof Rum, Ting, Grapefruit, Lime)

Our next stop was the Science and Industry Museum.

There was a section on the weaving and cotton industry in Manchester. I loved reading about this as I have pretty much always worked in Manufacturing and my Gran used to work in the mill and i remember as a child in the late 80s going to pick her up from work with my Grandad.

In the basement there was a whole exhibit on Cancer. They only let a few people visit this at a time due to the sensitive nature of the subject. It was a very moving area, reading about peoples experiences. I hate to use the word interesting about a subject like cancer but it was very educational to read about the new treatments in development and what scientists hope to achieve in the future. It was a very emotional exhibit handled very tastefully by the museum. There was a wall at the end asking people to leave messages for loved ones or words of encouragement for those fighting so Brett wrote a little note.

We headed up to the top floor, Experiment, which was the hands on learning exhibit. This was aimed at children but it was a lot of fun for big kids too

Overall we really enjoyed this experience, it was a lot shorter than the museums we visited in London as a lot of the buildings were closed, but it was really interesting. We were a bit gutted the Air and Space area has gone for good.

Brett loves to walk through city centres so we just walked and walked round for a while, racking up 18000 steps.

We were a bit thirsty now so decided to call in the TGI Fridays that we stumbled upon. This is a bar we used to come to all the time when we first got together and we used to love sitting at the bar. For a chain it always had a pretty decent varied cocktail menu. Unfortunately that has now gone and is basically classic cocktails with a handful of TGI favourites.
We ordered Purple Rain (Havana Club Rum, Vodka, Berry Liquor, Blue Curacao, Lemon, Grenadine)

and Silver Mercedes (Vodka, Prosecco, Orange Sorbet)

And to be honest they were awful! I would be surprised if there was any alcohol in them at all. The Purple Rain just tasted sour like it was full of lemon juice. And the little bit of Prosecco in the Silver Mercedes ended up all over the bar as they overfilled the glass.

We headed out towards Manchester Arena for our next stop- Disney On Ice! The short walk over there wasnt very pleasant. We walked past the Arndale where a bunch of idiots were throwing giant xmas baubles from the xmas tree at people! Next was a huge group of drunk football fans arguing amongst themselves. And another group being very racially abusive towards the security at the Co-op store There was a huge police presence and they handled everything perfectly. When we arrived at the Arena there was a lot of security checks going on and police dogs roaming around- i dont know if this is the norm now after the tragedy in 2017 or if they were expecting something to happen. We were told to have Covid passes or negative tests ready for checking but nobody asked. We headed down to our seats, block 103, row G, seats 1 and 2. I was really impressed with these and we had a great close view of the show.

The line-up for this tour suited me and Brett perfectly as he loves new school Disney and i am very much 80s/90s Disney (sorry Classic Disney i do love you too!). The show opened with the main gang Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald

It then moved onto The Little Mermaid. This was definitely the best section of the whole show in terms of skating, the tricks by Ariel were amazing.

Moana and Tangled were next, these were shorter sections than the rest of the show covering two songs from each film. Moana is a firm favourite of Bretts so it was a shame they didnt feature Pua and Hei Hei and all the other amazing characters.

After a short interval, there was a full musical tribute to Beauty and The Beast. This was absolutely fantastic as well, Gaston was hilarious and it was great to see all the main characters. Be Our Guest was my favourite number of the whole show

Finally we had Bretts favourite film- Frozen! I can see why Disney always capitalise on this as it got the biggest reaction from the audience, the crowd went wild for Olaf! Let It Go was amazing as Elsa transformed from Queen to Ice Queen- she did fall over at one point bless her but she got up so quickly it was barely noticeable (i bet she is feeling it today though!)

This was our first Disney On Ice but definitely wont be our last as we absolutely loved it! Brett even said it was better than Marvel Live that we saw on his birthday in 2019, which is huge praise from the king of all things Marvel!

We had planned now to go to the Blues Kitchen for a quick bite to eat and to watch the live blues and soul band but we were feeling a bit defeated and not hungry enough for a sit down meal. We walked back to the hotel and stumbled upon a Byron across the road from where we were staying. I completely forgot to take pictures so had to borrow from the website.

We shared the food whilst watching Spectre back in the room. The food was absolutely delicious and cooked fresh in the open kitchen while we waited. A nice end to a fun day overall

[WIGGYSMUM]

Wow the appetiser and pizza looked delicious 😋
What a shame the hotel was a let down and some of the cocktails too 😢
Hope tomorrow is better 🙏🏻

[princessnicki]

Originally Posted by WIGGYSMUM

Wow the appetiser and pizza looked delicious 😋
What a shame the hotel was a let down and some of the cocktails too 😢
Hope tomorrow is better 🙏🏻

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Thank you Disney on Ice and the food more than made up for the hotel hassle

[P&S]

Welcome to Manchester Disney on Ice looks amazing as does the pizza

Although I live a 30 mins tram ride away in the suburbs of Manchester I do agree it has really gone downhill in recent years so I rarely ever go there such a shame although they are starting on a project for Piccadilly Gardens soon

Looking forward to your next day

[princessnicki]

Originally Posted by P&S

Welcome to Manchester Disney on Ice looks amazing as does the pizza

Although I live a 30 mins tram ride away in the suburbs of Manchester I do agree it has really gone downhill in recent years so I rarely ever go there such a shame although they are starting on a project for Piccadilly Gardens soon

Looking forward to your next day

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This was our first visit since Bretts birthday 2 years ago and the vibe felt really different. Disney on Ice was fabulous and i could eat that pizza again right now

[Sparksy72]

What a great day (except for the rubbish room). The Museum looked great and your pizza was amazing- the flavours sound fab! Disney on Ice looked fantastic and I also love Moana with a special mention for Frozen. So sorry you found the location not great(it doesn’t help when people are being foolish), hopefully it gets better. We do enjoy a Byron Burger, glad to hear that it was delicious. A great way to end the day and I’m looking forward to more cocktails that yiu actually enjoy. 💝. Xx

[princessnicki]

Originally Posted by Sparksy72

What a great day (except for the rubbish room). The Museum looked great and your pizza was amazing- the flavours sound fab! Disney on Ice looked fantastic and I also love Moana with a special mention for Frozen. So sorry you found the location not great(it doesn’t help when people are being foolish), hopefully it gets better. We do enjoy a Byron Burger, glad to hear that it was delicious. A great way to end the day and I’m looking forward to more cocktails that yiu actually enjoy. 💝. Xx

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Disney on ice was so good, we struck lucky with the choice of films included (although i guess you cant really go wrong with any of them!) Pizza was amazing, very filling, i struggled to finish 2 slices! Always enjoyed Manchester but definitely noticed a difference in atmosphere this time and the weed smell was everywhere. Its good to see how busy it was though, even on weekday lunchtime the restaurants had a decent amount of people in

[smithlane]

What a fantastic day!
It's been donkeys years since I've been to Manchester, it's a shame to hear it's gone downhill, although it might be worth a trip purely for that pizza The museum looks really fun too.
I now really want to see the latest Disney on Ice, the last one I saw at Wembley a few years ago didn't have Moana or Frozen and they're two of my faves. Although I'm like you and love the 80's/90's Disney the best, especially The Little Mermaid!

[Goldia]

Some fantastic cocktails and the pizza looked delicious. I bet that kept you going while walking around the city. Lots of fab photos of the Disney on Ice, it seems you both really enjoyed it. We've only done this once at O2 and it was fab.

[princessnicki]

Originally Posted by smithlane

What a fantastic day!
It's been donkeys years since I've been to Manchester, it's a shame to hear it's gone downhill, although it might be worth a trip purely for that pizza The museum looks really fun too.
I now really want to see the latest Disney on Ice, the last one I saw at Wembley a few years ago didn't have Moana or Frozen and they're two of my faves. Although I'm like you and love the 80's/90's Disney the best, especially The Little Mermaid!

See more...

The pizza was so good, still thinking about the parmesan garlic crust! Disney on Ice was great, definitely check this tour out its a good mix of films- Be Our Guest was fabulous and the tricks Ariel does in Part Of Your World were amazing