When I saw that Friends Fest was coming to Newcastle I knew I had to go! I have been a Friends fan for as long as I can remember, often getting told to ‘shhh’ when watching episodes and repeating them word for word! Held in Castle Farm Fields on the outskirts of the city, fans get the chance to recreate a host of famous scenes such as the sofa PIVOT scene, the opening credits with umbrellas as well as getting the opportunity to visit 3 of the apartment sets! Various props are also laid around the festival in tents, my favourite being Phoebe’s 3d artwork.  You can also stop by the famous Central Perk coffee shop, where you can hang out on the sofa and join in with a verse of ‘Smelly Cat’.

The 3 apartment sets that you can visit are:  Ross’s (where you can recreate the UNAGI scene), Monica’s apartment, the setting of so many classic clips and Joey’s iconic apartment. It is any Friends fan dream to wander these sets and I was in complete awe to be able to get to experience them! Each year another new apartment is added, this year was Ross’s so be sure to look out for what’s new in 2019!

Fans are allocated a time slot for the set tours, as you can imagine it does get very busy once the group is allowed onto each set to take photos, so don’t be afraid to jump in the canoe or behind the curtain to get that photo you want as others don’t hang around! My favourite part of the tour had to be visiting Monica’s apartment, the backdrop of so many great scenes in the iconic TV show. There was so many great props laid out, a particular highlight was seeing the cookbook from which Rachael whips up her sweet and savoury trifle!

As well as visiting the sets, you can also grab some get iconic merchandise such as a bar of ‘mocklate’, your own real life Huggys or the poster that sits above Monica’s TV. I, of course made sure that I dressed for the occasion with a ‘we were on a break’ t-shirt that I picked up from Primark before the visit!

 Most of the fest is laid out in large tents which is great as if like me you visit on a day of terrible weather – we even got stuck in Ross’s apartment on the tour due to heavy rain and wind outside! Though there is a huge screen set up with deck chairs playing episodes on a loop if you manage to visit on a sunny day! Although the tickets for the fest aren’t exactly cheap, it is such an amazing day out for any Friends fan, I am already waiting for the 2019 tour to be announced!

The travel video for our amazing holidays to NYC and Florida is now live! We got the chance to visit New York in February ask Jonny whisked us away to celebrate my 21st. You can read the full travel blog here. While we spent 2 weeks in the spring in Orlando, to celebrate Johns 25th – I am hoping to have the full blog post up soon! I had so much fun putting this video together, I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I do!

I have finally had the chance to upload the video I made from our gorgeous first holiday together in Marmaris, Turkey. We stayed in the most beautiful all inclusive private 5* star hotel, TUI BLUE MARMARIS and as you can see from the video, had a pretty amazing time!

I wanted to do something memorable for my last week in Newcastle before I moved home for the summer, so Johnny suggested that we give ‘Exit’ a go. Having not previously heard of it, I decided to do some research before we booked. Exit is a live escape game located in Newcastle where you are locked in with friends and/or family and you have to solve a series of puzzles and mysteries to escape. You are given 60 minutes to work together as a team and reach the exit before the time is up! The price is £60 per game so the bigger the group the less you pay per person, however if you play as a pair like we did then this fee is reduced to £50. After reading the reviews I booked us into the ‘Save the City’ room, which although is rated medium difficulty, is said to be the easiest out of the 3 rooms on offer. Unsure of what to expect, we were greeted in the quirky reception room by a lovely and enthusiastic staff member and she told us all that we needed to know before being locked in our room.  I don’t want to give anything away to spoil the experience, so this extract describing Save the City is taken from the Exit website ‘Above the busy streets of Newcastle’s city centre only you can stop the evil genius Ignatius Gouge, diffuse the bomb, and exit the game before its too late. Will you solve the clues, crack the codes and find the exit before the time is up?’.

At first we thought £50 for a couple was quite steep but after taking part in the game, we decided it was worth every penny. It’s difficult to put the experience into words, the hour seemed the fly by and unfortunately we didn’t manage to escape however it was such a unique and thrilling experience we will definitely be back to try the other rooms! Save the City may be for beginners but it certainly wasn’t easy- it was so exhilarating working together to try and complete the game, with music subtly playing in the background adding to the drama and becoming more apparent the nearer to the hour you get.

It’s hard to write about something without ruining the experience for others as this is something you definitely have to try for yourself rather than just read about it! I think we were at a slight disadvantage going in as a couple as the rooms take up to teams of 8 people, so we will certainly be gathering our friends together when we tackle the next room so we can hopefully escape this time! It’s definitely a one off and unique experience that you wont find anywhere else and with 3 rooms to try it’s well worth a visit!