On a visit to Weymouth Sealife Centre we were excited to find out that the new Weymouth Tower was infact run by Merlin Group and as such we could use our annual Merlin passes to get in.
It has only been open four weeks and we were excited to be one of the first few to go up the 170ft tower. As we drove towards it I was a little unimpressed, it didn’t seem as big or visually stunning as I expected like Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth.
Up close however, the tower soars high above the resort of Weymouth and provides a stunning view of the Jurassic Coastline – The UK’s only World Heritage site, Weymouth Bay, Portland and Chesil Beach. The capsule rotates at the top so there is no need to even get out of your seat if you don’t want to!
It was a short wait to get on, and after we presented our tickets we had to sit on a bench in front of a green screen and have our photograph taken.
We then got in the queue ready for the next “flight”
The viewing platform holds 70 people but there was only 29 of us on our flight, so we got to space out a bit. Isaac was intent on looking down to see if he could see how deep the foundations went!
There isn’t much to see at first, as the platform is surrounded by boards. You get a brief safety briefing from the flight attendant and then off you go, raising gently into the sky.
The views of Weymouth Bay, Weymouth town, the Jurassic Coastline, Portland and Chesil beach are breathtaking. The flight attendant talked us through what could be seen as we rotated at the top of the tower. It was quite a hazy day, so I was disappointed that I couldn’t make out Durdle Door, but we got a good view of The White Horse on Osmington Hill, along with a brief history as to why it was there.
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Weymouth Bay |
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Weymouth Bay |
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Weymouth Harbour |
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Jurassic Coast |
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Looking down! |
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Portland and Chesil Beach |
If you are visiting Weymouth then I highly recommend you take this amazing flight. My only grumble is that it is very short (approximately 5 minutes).
The photograph taken at the beginning became clear as we got off. They super-imposed our picture onto a picture of the tower as if we were sitting on top of it. It was quite expensive so we didn’t buy it as our photo wasn’t very good, but it is a nice souvenir of the day.
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going up |
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and up |
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and up!! |