Reviews written in capitals are written by Brian all others written by Tanya.
We live in Cheltenham...
Reviews written in capitals are written by Brian all others written by Tanya.
We live in Cheltenham with our children Courtney 7, Oliver 4 and Samuel 11 weeks.
Member since:25.01.2004
Reviews:50
Members who trust:14
We took our daughter here in the summer holidays last year. Not the greatest we have been too. They call it ‘No ordinary zoo’ but honestly id say its ‘No ordinary farm’ Don’t get me wrong it’s a nice enough place, but it smells just like a farm. Even my daughter was commenting about the smell. Don’t want to put you off, just it was very smelly, even getting out the car you could smell it. Im not to sure if it was because it was summer and being hot and all or just because it’s a smelly farm.
Okay well Drusillas Park is just off the A27 at Alfriston, East Sussex. Which is between Seaford and Eastbourne. To get to the park is something of an adventure as it’s not very well signposted. We did find it hard to find, we just tripped over it. We thought we were going the wrong way (we should have just followed the smell)
There open everyday, apart from
the normal days you wouldn’t expect them to be open like Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day. They open at 10am.
Prices Adults and children over 12 will cost £9.99 Children 2 – 12 years will cost £9.49 (I didn’t think that was a great difference in price for child rates, and was disappointed in that) Senior Citizens £8.99 and Disabled £8.49 Under 2’s are free.
They do have family tickets Family of 3 £27.45, Family of 4 £36.45, Family of 5 £44.95
Their car park is big so there’s no problem in parking. When we went it wasn’t at all busy. We didn’t have to queue to pay either.
They accept most methods of payment. Credit cards and cash. Not too sure about cheques but im sure they do with a bankers card.
There are some great animals to have a look at. You will find Meerkats, Penguins, Snakes, Crocodiles, Bats, Beavers, Lemurs, Otters, Monkeys, Flamingos and lots more.
We saw the Penguins being feed, and the Otters, which was great fun. You get a talk from the person feeding about the animals. There are certain times for feeding so make sure you know what times they are.
They do birthday parties, which could be great fun. It’s a long way for us now to go as we have just moved. A good thing if my kids were older was they could be a junior keeper for the day. You have to be aged 6-9 years old. You get to learn about the animals, what the eat. I also believe you get to feed them. If only I was 6 again, think I would have enjoyed that.
Explorer’s café, which serves hot and cold food, snacks, ice creams and drinks. It’s a themed café, with an indoor play area.
Oasis café is were we got something to eat, reasonable priced. Serves hot fast food, things like burgers, hot dogs. They do picnic boxes for the kids, which have animals on. Daughter loved them. The have seating outside aswell as in the cafes.
There are baby changing facilities, toilets and disabled facilities.
The train around the park is a good way to see a lot of the park. Check out the times they run, as it wasn’t too great in the times when we were there.
There is a lot of new things that they have added to the park, so it would be good to go back to see it, when we are down that way it will be on my list.
There is plenty to do at the park. My daughter liked toddler’s village, it’s a playhouse with a ball pool in and different things to play with. You do have to take your shoes off if I remember correctly.
My boyfriend had a go at the shooting gallery, you have to hit the targets, he wasn’t too bad. You do have to pay extra for this. As with ‘Panning for gold’ an extra fee if you want to play this.
Zoolympics is fun, my daughter was a little young for it, even though she can be a monkey sometimes, she needs practice to hang like one. All you do is see how long you can hang for, just like monkeys.
Monkey kingdom is a big outdoor playing area. Our daughter liked playing on all this rather than looking at the animals. So we did spend most the day with her playing on all this.
When we went there was a massive bouncy castle, I don’t know if its there normally, but I would think it would be.
There is a discovery centre which we didn’t really spent to much time in, its probably more interesting for older children, its all about the animals and finding out all about them.
We walked through the bat enclosure part and it was interesting too see them all hanging upside down.
The is adventure golf to, but we didn’t have a go at this There are a few more attractions and they have probably got new animals too.
There is a gift shop, which we had to stop off at. You would find the normal stuff in there.
The downsides to the park, was defiantly the smell. After a while you couldn’t smell it, but you were use to it by then. It isn’t that big really. We spent half a day there, as that was enough for all of us.
The feeding time of the animals is a great thing to watch we all enjoyed that. On the journey home we got 101 questions from our daughter about all the animals and can she have them.
Overall the entire park is a nice place, but not somewhere id go back to in a hurry.
One thing id say is get directions on multimap before travelling, as it’s badly signposted. We didn’t get directions and got totally lost.
Crickey, the admission charges are steep now. We went about 8 years ago and I honestly can't remember paying that much to get in even though everything else sounds pretty much the same. I remember there being a sign saying "the most dangerous animal on earth" with a mirror below it. The children found that quite thought provoking. ~Sharon
Jami74 05.05.2004 22:35
It was years ago that I went but as soon as I read your review I remembered the smell thing too!
torr 17.04.2004 00:01
We took our kids there many years ago when they were tiny. They loved it, though we thought it was a bit ordinary. Looks like the price has rocketed a bit since then, from what you say. Best wishes, Duncan
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Apr 13th, 2004
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