One day good - two days better! (Longleat Safari Park)

Member Name: azana

Product:	Longleat Safari Park
Date:	06/06/09 (341 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: So much to see and do

Disadvantages: Too much for one day?

Longleat is more than just a safari park, I've just spent two days with my family there and needed that amount of time to see just about everything. It is situated in Wiltshire near to Warminster and Frome, and is a great place to visit.

Longleat belongs to the Marquess of Bath and visitors can see the house, the Safari Park, maze and a number of other attractions.

Full details of opening times and current prices can be found at www.longleat.co.uk. For 2009 a passport ticket allowing you to visit all of the attractions once at any time of the season was £23 for adults and £15 for children, though buying the passport through Tesco clubcard deals as I did is a lot cheaper and there is also a slight discount if you buy ahead of time via the longleat website. You can also choose to visit just some of the attractions and pay individually - the safari park for example is £12.

The attractions:

There is a lot to see. We vistited pretty well everything, and found that even on a busy Saturday we didn't feel too crowded. I will give a brief summary of the things we did and our impressions, and have done so in the order on the passport ticket rather than the order we visited them, each attraction was stamped as we visited them. If you are vaguely thinking of visiting you could skip to the end of the section below - but if you are planning a day only hopefully my thoughts will enable you to pick out the best. If I only had a day I would be sure to do the safari and the safari boats.

Safari Park:

The park was apparently the first to be established in the UK in 1966. It is an extensive site that you drive around, it takes at least an hour to do so. You can walk around the first reserve that you come to and see the giraffes up close - there was a CD commentary that you were given on arrival, which struck the right note of informing without being annoying. We thoroughly enjoyed the drive around the park and especially driving through the tiger and lion enclosures and getting really close to them.
It was good to see that the park does have a conservation role and that the animals have plenty of space to roam, though the two bird aviaries housing flamingos and ibis were huge but I still don't really like seeing birds in captivity.
The monkey jungle was closed on our visit and is so for the forseeable future so I wonder whether they had a few problems with monkeys and cars.
I think anyone would enjoy a drive around the safari park whatever the weather.

Longleat House:

The house is an impressive Elizabethan house set in 900 acres and is at the exit of the safari park - if you go to the house first it will take you 10-15 minutes to drive to the park through Longleat's grounds.
Pushchairs must be left outside and phones switched off. It takes about an hour to visit the house - there is no guided tour but the guides on the way round are happy to answer questions. The state rooms are impressive from the great hall to formal reception and dining rooms - a guide I asked told me there were 128 rooms in all.
I would have liked to linger longer to look at all the artefacts and some personal items on show, only I had two small children with me, nonetheless I enjoyed wandering around and the sense of history was palpable.
The grounds are exceptionally well maintained and the gardens are beautiful.

Safari Boats:

We all agreed that this was the highlight of our two days. The boat goes up and down the manmade lake (which apparently was dug by hand back when Capability Brown was landscaping the gardens.
Nowadays the island is home to an elderly widowed gorilla with a Sky habit (seriously), and you can see the sea lions swim up to the boat to be fed, fish was £1 for a small pot. There are also hippos in the lake. Our guide Bill made us feel like we were the only visitors he had shown all this magic to all day - no doubt his patter was the same every trip but his enthusiasm and knowledge really made the trip for all of us.

Old Joe's mine:

This is on one level and was a walkthrough to see bats, and a few night dwelling animals. I was a little perturbed by the eyeless cave dwelling fish and the children didn't much like the bats flying around but worth a visit.

Motion simulator:

This wasn't the newest simulator ever and for visitors 1.2m and more, it was good fun however - I went on the gorilla visit ride and though the film was a bit grainy it was still enjoyable.

Pets Corner:

This is being expanded currently with a new "animal adventure" section opening in Summer 2009. The Pets Corner was enjoyable for children, particularly the parrots and opportunity to pet a snake or a guinea pig. This is a small part of the park but still big enough to while away half an hour or so.

Longleat Railway:

The railway ride is charming and takes you on a circuit past the lake and some sculptures - sure to appeal to all.

Longleat Hedge Maze:

The maze is huge, beautiful and scary - it apparently takes 60 minutes plus to do in full - we cheated a little and were directed to the lookout tower and had a mini wander - great fun though and I would think a real challenge to those not hindered by having small people with them.

Postman Pat village:

If you have a child who likes Pat this child height village with all the characters and buttons to push and moving figures would probably appeal or, if you are my two year old, freak your child out - hard to tell. The five year old enjoyed it though and it is was quite well done though I wonder if Pat's popularity is on the wane somewhat.

Adventure castle:

This was for 14 year olds only and best enjoyed in good weather - there were quite challenging walkways and slides for older children and a range of things for smaller children including a small indoor soft play tent and a few swings slides and an outside water play area (take a towel). All very well done and good for children to enjoy for a while

Teacup ride: a small ride for those too little to go on the simulator.

We also visited the Mirror Maze but didn't quite have time to see "meet my ancestors" about Lord Bath's family, or his murals, but we did have two very full and exhausting days.

Other practical things:

Generally accesssibility was good, and there were the usual food and drink possibilities. The food looked ok, not the cheapest but not rip off prices either. Shops had a good range of pocket money items and more expensive things too, some with an art twist perhaps influenced by the Lord of Bath. We chose to picnic and provision for this was good too. There were ample toilets, baby change and staff were very helpful.

Special events:

During our visit there was a Tractor Ted roadshow, which was free to passport holders, and was quite good with duck herding, sheep shearing and tractor rides. There are other events planned such as a Lazy Town event, so again check before you go.

Overall:

I thoroughly enjoyed my two days at the park and really felt that it was actually quite good value for all we did, especially using the Tesco deal vouchers. I think that Longleat is a great place to visit, though we were lucky with the weather and I suspect inclement weather would not allow for as much relaxing and wandering around as we were able to enjoy. I hope to go back to Longleat one day and can't believe that I haven't been before in all my 40 years - highly recommended and great memories from a lovely family time here.

Summary: My first ever trip here but I think that I explored it pretty thoroughly.