Coronation Street Blog: Our visit to the Coronation Street Tour #CorrieTour

We've just arrived back home from an amazing visit to the Coronation Street Tour. Our friend Paul from @CorrieArt went on the Corrie Tour last weekend and you can read his review here. And now it's our turn to tell it like it is - an honest review is necessary because there's been a lot of comments (both good and bad) about the new Corrie Tour online.

And so, here we go.

Me outside Preston's Petals

The new Corrie Tour is a visit to the external set only at the Trafford Wharf site near to Salford Quays. If you've been on the old Corrie set tour at Quay Street then it's very different to that, and you need to arrange your expectations accordingly. The set you'll visit on the new Corrie Tour is that of a working television set. It's not a Corrie theme-park style experience, it's not a museum. Therefore, we didn't get to see any internal sets, no costume, make-up or wardrobe. It's the external set only. Fortunately for us, it was a warm and sunny day as we walked around the cobbles.

Our Tour Guide Graham

We met our Tour Guide in Media City and away we went on a walk over the bridge to ITV's Coronation Street building. Our guide was Graham and he was great, full of knowledge and he gave us a potted history of each building on the set. He was entertaining and educational and a credit to Continuum who run the tours on behalf of ITV.

My husband @SunnyJimBaz outside of the new tram station

The set tour lasted for approx. 70 minutes. We took in Coronation Street and then the new Victoria Street set too. I've already been to the Coronation Street set a few times since ITV moved there and deliberately turned down the chance of seeing the new Victoria Street set extension on press day as I wanted to visit as a fan, pure and simple. The joy of going into the set with a coach-full of Corrie fans was a joy beyond words. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Here's the best and the worst of the Corrie tour in a nutshell.

I'm going to address the two main concerns of most fans first:

The cost. It's not cheap. It's £35 per person with under 3s going free. If you want a framed photo taken by a professional photographer outside of the Rovers Return (we did) then it's £7.50 extra, see picture above. Fortunately, we were given our framed photograph free today, and our friend Paul was given the same free deal last weekend too, so that's an added bonus.

It's a much more organised tour than the old one at Quay Street, but as I mentioned above, that's because this is a working set. There's no time for wandering off or ambling on the cobbles. It's very much a tour where you walk with your guide, you listen to what they tell you, ask questions if you want to and then you move on and off the set to let the next tour group through.

It felt a little rushed, to be honest, and I would have liked more time to take photographs. Continuum gave us a questionnaire at the end of the tour and I have left the above comments in my feedback for them. Let's hope things improve. But even though it did feel a little rushed, it was still magical. I got that tingle down my spine when I walked onto the set again.

View up the ginnel, but you can't walk up it

As I've said, it's a working set so you know that the cobbles you stand on will be stood on by the cast the following day, or the day after. It's where they film right now, it's the future of the show. However, this means that areas such as the ginnel are out of bounds for the tour group, as was the new community garden. No tour groups are allowed into these areas but you could stand at the end of the ginnel to take photos and of course you can see the community garden through the fenced off area.

As it's a live, working set there's a positive energy to the place that the old set didn't have. If you can afford it, I'd say go otherwise you might regret not doing so.

The shop / merchandise area could have been better and again, I've fed this back to Continuum. The very limited amount and variety of items for sale were branded as Coronation Street Tour. There weren't any ITV Coronation Street items, apart from jigsaws. There was a £5 tour guide booklet.

However, we were given a good map of the street, which was great. We were also given lanyards with our set tour passes on them and I'll keep all of these as souvenirs.

We also had a sighting of Jimmi Harkishin (Dev Alahan) as he made his way across the bridge when our tour group headed to the set. He was very gracious and smiled and waved and said hello to everyone. What a treat!

Back to the cost. If you're also thinking about hotel accommodation and travel on top of your tour ticket cost, then do what we did and travel there with National Holidays. Our weekend came courtesy of National Holidays and here's what was included for just £99 each...

Our hotel

Two day break over a Saturday and Sunday
Your ticket to the Coronation Street tour
Overnight stay on Saturday night - our hotel was a very pleasant Holiday Inn with a swimming pool and beer garden
Dinner at the hotel
Breakfast at the hotel the next morning
Visit to Liverpool on Day 1 with plenty of time for sightseeing in this amazing city which I have fallen in love with
Visit to Coronation Street set on Day 2 with plenty of time for lunch and a walk around Salford Quays afterwards
Free wifi on the coach

It's been a fantastic weekend, I've enjoyed it loads. There's a ton more photos of the Corrie Tour visit on our twitter feed at @CoroStreetBlog

Find out more about the Corrie Tour visit with National Holidays.

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