4 Hour Traffic Jam at Wales Balloon Festival!
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- Wales Balloon Festival had me stuck in 4 hours of traffic ⛔⛔
We head to Carmarthen showground for the Wales Balloon Festival 2024. The first time this event has been held in Wales.
First of all a massive thank you to the organisers of the Wales balloon festival for the influencer pass for me. After some negative comments on Facebook about the festival Friday we were apprehensive about heading up Saturday but as it's only a 25 minute drive from where we live we took the choice to attend to see for ourselves what this event was like.
A 25 minute drive took 4 hours!!!!
Absolutely gridlocked traffic all the way up resulted in us missing most of the attractions and events that took place at the festival including monster truck shows, BMX stunt shows, transformers, meet and greets, meet the balloon pilots and so much more which of course was very disappointing for us as a family.
The reason for the gridlocked traffic apparently was disorganised parking at the event itself.
Once we made it through the 4 hour traffic jam we headed into the grounds itself. After I say negative comments online we were surprised as to how good it actually was!
We were greeted with a very busy venue with a gigantic circus tent hosting tribute acts and a disco inside which was very popular, not my kind of thing but definitely proved very popular with families and children. Plenty of seating outside for those enjoying drinks and picnics.
We then had the monster truck area which unfortunately I missed the shows due to traffic but we were able to see those who had paid for a ride on a truck. Good to see but at £12 per seat it was quite steep.
Along with this we of course had a giant funfair which hosted some unique machines which I haven't done before including blaze and RockRage. As a funfair enthusiast this was the biggest draw for me and we had a fantastic time even though the ride prices were between £4 to £5 per person.
And of course being a balloon festival we had the hot air balloons. Not as many as advertised but we were treated to a mass of hot air balloons taking to the sky and filling the clouds with colour.
Unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worst later on so the night glow was called off to our disappointment but with hot air balloons the weather plays a massive part in the flights and night glows.
Overall we had a brilliant time even though we had missed most of the events taking place. The time we did have there though definitely made up for the long drive up. I would love to see some major improvement for next year's event as it's fantastic to see such a large scale event like this in Wales and I would personally love to see it returning for 2025.
As always I hope you enjoy the vlog, don't forget to subscribe, comment and like if you enjoyed 😁😁
Thank you Breaking Trails
Awesome video thanks for sharing it sorry about the 4 hours wait hopefully the fair be bigger next year.keep up with your vlogs 👍🏴
Cheers Ian mate 😄
Steam milk mush. Great video
@@Aaron_OConnor cheers son. Steamed milk you slaaaag 😂😂
Awesome vlog looks like a good event , we all know loved the Taylor swift tribute really 😂
Yea was actually brilliant once we got there 😁😁 gahhhh Taylor swift 🤢🤢🤢🤢
I was there
I actually love blaze with my hole heart one of rowlands best purchases
@@Leahplayzzzzz it's certainly up there on my list 😁
Enjoyed watching that. Must admit found the video as a result of the online comments. I do wonder if you would have felt different if you had paid for entry and car parking though. Were the influencer passes given with any conditions regarding what you said about the event? If there were you did a good job in balancing your experience, you didn’t sugar coat a few things. Hopefully this video gets a lot more views, you’ve shown what people are getting and should be expecting, they can then make an informed choice 👍
Thanks for the kind words. Yes I had an influencer pass but I filmed how I saw it as a family. Granted I didn't pay entrance fee and yes I guess with the added entrance I may have saw it differently on a cost side of things. I do feel for those who paid the full price and missed out on alot of the shows. I tried to highlight that on the vlog. But as an influencer my job is to point out the good and the bad of events I attend. Thank you for taking the time to watch and hopefully there will be improvement for next year 😀
Oh dear...your video shows you going over the Towy Bridge in Carmarthen, which means that instead of continuing straight across the Pensarn Roundabout at the end of the A48, you turned right heading into the town - either that or you turned off at Nantycaws - in both cases you added an extra 1-2 miles onto your journey, therefore adding two more miles of nose-to-tail traffic.
At any point, especially getting some idea of heavier traffic, the best idea would have been to use your mobile phone and seek the traffic conditions.
Unfortunately, this particular area is pretty much always chock-a-bloc with traffic, even on an average day. Being summertime and with it the tourist/hoilday traffic, it was inevitable you were going to have long holdups. Going the route you took, the Lesneven roundabout is notorious for long holdups due to the amount of traffic coming from the ferry ports, so the r/a there is just non-stop traffic all day.
I'm glad you got to see some of what was on show - especially for the kids. I managed to get some footage of the ballons going over the town, but that was at 8.30pm.
The weekend after next, the town will be having its river festival with caracle races and other amusements. Its by the river close to where you came over the bridge. If you want to bring the kids, turn sharp right at the end of the bridge junction, and at the far end of the road (200 yards) at the corner, park your car for £1 all day! it'll take you less than ten minutes to walk to the festival.
@@reggriffiths5769 oooo ill definatly look into that thank you
@@breakingtrailsuk You're welcome.
@@reggriffiths5769 by the look of it its like soapbox racing on water 🤣
@@breakingtrailsuk It's a whole mixture of events. You have the genuine coracle fishermen who nly work at night in pairs during the summer, but here they will be taking part in racing against Teifi coraclemen (different shape and type of coracles). They then race against each other. Then there are the raft races - all kinds of crazy and zany floating creations, usually with the "regulation" capsize! The water is only a few feet deep, so no real danger. There used to be the flying competition - the first to fly across the river; it was stopped a few years ago, but I'm not sure if has been reinstituted. All along the quayside there are stalls of all kinds with plenty of food, drink and fancy goods. It's a great day out for the family and all very good natured. There usually demomstrations on how coracle fishing is done - very skilled job that can't be done fully during the day as there are no fish until night (following the incoming tides).
At the same time, there are usually various other side events held in Guildhall Square - singing, dancing, performing acts like stilt walking, animated "trees" walking about. I haven't checked it yet, but if you go to CZcams and type in Carmarthen River festival, it is currently being promoted. Some very good cafe's in the town. Kids love it because there's normally a lot going on. Not sure if they have yet produced a programme of events. Best advice = come early to get your vehicle parked There are also two large car parks in the town - but at a price!! Use the one I mentioned becaise few townspeople use it as it is a climb from there into the town itself The turnoff to it is at the end of the bridge, before the road climbs up.
Was it a 5hr drive? 🤔
20 minute drive but with traffic just over 4 hours pal