The weekend was here and we didn’t have a plan for Saturday afternoon. Gloomy miserable weather was forecast so whatever we did had to be indoors. After asking our lovely facebook crew for recommendations of places to go bowling was suggested. Lane 7 had been the first bowling lane to spring to mind, we had been wanting to visit for ages. However, after inquiring, Lane 7 wasn’t to be as every lane was fully booked. Boo! Eldon Bowl Newcastle (another recommendation) had space for us so we booked a lane for 3pm. Rendezvous point arranged we were sorted for an afternoon at Eldon Bowl with my parents.
Eldon Leisure
Eldon Bowl is located within the heart of Newcastle City Centre in Eldon Square Intu Shopping Centre. Eldon Leisure has had a big refit in the past few years with addictions such as a Vertigo clip and climb wall, Jungle Jack’s children’s soft play and of course our destination Eldon Bowl. Having been run by the City Council for years, the Better group now run the centre adding to the 200 or so leisure centres they already run throughout the country.
Grey’s Quarter
Eldon Leisure was in what I would describe as the ‘neck’ end of town for many years, surrounded by many closed down stores and an empty Green market. However times have changed and it now finds itself smack bang in the middle of the foodie’s dream Grey’s Quarter. Eldon Leisure Centre is accessible by a lift or escalator just in front of Giraffe World Kitchen and Pizza Storm. Easy to locate and very handy to combine with a bite to eat afterwards.
Eldon Bowl Newcastle
The bowling lane is pretty hidden just past the modern gym. Its not huge and has only 8 lanes. A cafe bar serves drinks, chips and sandwiches. Furniture is modern and the whole place is clean and fresh. An hour bowling for the 6 of us was £25. It’s been so long since we went bowling I’m not entirely sure if this is on par with others.
At the counter the guy serving said that the lanes were running late and that we would be on around 10 minutes after our booked time. This was fine as not in any rush, so we got our funky bowling shoes and grabbed a drink. The guys at this bowling lane are such hard workers they were running around serving drinks, clearing away, spraying shoes. Total machines! Abigail’s size of shoe were completely out as the bowling lane seemed to have been taken over by kids so she had to wait for a pre-warmed pair!
Ready to Bowl
We were allotted lane number 1 in the corner and popped in the names and specified who required the bumpers. Modern technology has definitely improved, back in the day it was everyone had them or no one did. There were lots of frames available for the kids to use too which Abigail made good use of.
After our first bowls we noticed something very weird. The pins were on string. Like a weird hypnotic puppet show after each go the string tugged the pins up and dropped them back. Very strange…and we were convinced it was harder to get a strike because of this. Or it may have been we are all just rubbish?
At a mid point Alan spotted that he was winning and refuses to accept any scores after this point.
(My Dad won and Alan came second, but we’ll not mention that again!)
It was soon time for our hour to be up. Everyone had fun and would definitely pop back if we were in town and looking for some bowling fun. Thanks for the recommend facebook friends!
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