Review: Buckt - Birmingham and Beyond!

There are many things we love but high up on our list are:

• The city we live in - Birmingham
• Days Out
• Great Value
• Doing things together

So anything that allows us to do any of these things, or a combination of these things is something we can get behind. Buckt is one of those things!

You may remember last year we were lucky enough to be invited by Buckt to try our their subscription box for Birmingham (and surrounding areas), we shared our experience of what we got up to in these posts:
Buckt: A Great New Way To Explore Birmingham
Buckt: A Great New Way To Explore Birmingham and Beyond

A few of our highlights included Rage Room, Magic Lantern Festival, Ice Hockey Game, Bingo, Meditation and many more.

We've been invited to try out the subscription again, this time our box includes: A 20-20 cricket game, swimming in a quarry, trying (or retrying in our case) Subway sandwiches, a tour of Birmingham's Coffin Works AND taking on THE MONSTER - the worlds largest inflatable assault course.

We actually started with this activity and we may have made an error.....we are aching! But we had so much fun. Check out our Instagram stories for all the action!

Buckt is a great concept for so many reasons but a major thing for us is the opportunity to find and do activities that we have never heard about, in our own city. We would have never considered getting tickets for The Monster but we would have missed out. Being big kids for an afternoon was liberating. We don't often get out as a couple and of we do it's for dinner, it's not to do something out of our comfort zone or something as ridiculous as sliding down 18 metre inflatable slides, lounging in an inflatable Unicorn ball pond or climbing 8ft vertical walls.

The other amazing thing about Buckt is the value. It's £25 for a two people box and The Monster would have been £25 per person!!! It's also great value if you want to take friends along to the activity - they were offering friends of the Buckt subscriber The Monster tickets at £17.50!

We can't get a meal for two for £25 let alone 5 activities if we were left to our own devices.

When we arrived at the NEC we followed signs to 'The Monster' and followed the flow of sport clothes wearing people into the venue. The queuing took 10 minutes and then before we knew it we were in a massive hall converted into a party. The music was pumping, the food stalls smelt amazing and The Monster was imposing.

As we walked in we spotted the beer pong tables set up, a giant bouncy castle and a giant inflatable Unicorn jam-packed with balls. A DJ booth and stage was welcoming people and at the back of the hall was a free cloakroom where we could leave the belongings we didn't want to lose on the assault course. If you time it right they have drag queen karaoke, boozy bingo and lots of other things going on.

They also have family friendly sessions on offer earlier in the day.

Walking towards the start we both took a deep breath and joined in with the warm up. There had been a bottle neck created on The Monster so we were being held for 5 minutes - not ideal as we could see what was ahead for the entire time. When the siren did sound for us to start it was intense. You run in through the mouth in groups of 6 and are straight into the obstacles.

The course has you going over, under, round, through, up, down you name in you will do it. From hurdling inflatable fences to battling through rings, sliding down slides and climbing walls you will use every muscle in your body. The wall itself is a feat not everyone achieves. They even have staff there to give you an extra boost at the end as the top foot rungs are slippy and require every bit of upper body strength. I managed it in my first attempt and helped a few other girls up as Laura - dutifully and very Britishly queued! - when it was her turn she did it in two and I was so proud. She could have easily given up but she took a deep breath and before I could get a video she was up and over and on to the next. My wife is a warrior!

It took us half an hour to get around the course and by the end we were exhausted, sweaty and very proud. When we first saw what we had to do we were intimidated, when we finished we realised just how capable we were and best of all we did it together, as a team. It was invigorating.

We finished with a bounce for fun on the giant castle and rested our weary bodies in the ball pond before summoning the strength we had left to get us back to the car and into a warm bath.

The Monster is in Birmingham until the 20th of August then 23-28th of August in London.