Easter at Rathwood

Rathwood is located in Co Carlow. It is a garden centre, cafe and gift shop. They are well known for holding various events throughout the year, such as their Santa train at Christmas. These events are quite pricey but I had heard good reviews so I decided to check it out for Easter and take L and A on an Easter Egg Hunt.

The event started off well. We watched a fun show featuring the Easter Bunny and then we went to the ‘station’ to wait for the Easter train to take us on a trip to the woods. The journey was enjoyable. We reached a cabin in the woods where we disembarked. Inside we made some Easter decorations.

There was then a delay – I presume from the group ahead of us – and we were kept in the cabin for quite a while. The staff did their best to entertain the kids with some music and dancing but L and A were getting restless. Eventually it was our turn to get back on the train. The next stop was the maze. This is a maze in the shape of Ireland. Small plastic eggs were hidden throughout the maze. The children were told to collect the eggs and then bring them to a ‘machine’ where the eggs would be turned into chocolate eggs.

This was the poorest part of the event for us. The older kids dashed off and grabbed loads of the plastic eggs. They also stepped on many of the eggs. It was a free for all. L and A tried to navigate the maze but kept finding broken pieces of plastic. They were so disappointed. We made our way to the easter egg machine for them to receive their Easter egg. They waited patiently in line behind the others but when we reached the machine there were no chocolate eggs left! Thankfully a member of staff went off to get them some but the whole thing was really disappointing.