A 21st Birthday Surprise (Woburn Safari Park)

Member Name: arnoldhenryrufus

Product:	Woburn Safari Park
Date:	04/09/07 (1770 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A fantastic day out with lots to do for all ages

Disadvantages: A bit steep in parts for a manual wheelchair

~~ Woburn Safari Park ~~

After reading luckyarchers review on Woburn Safari Park I got really excited I loved the sound of it and especially Rainbows End, which leads me to another story which I will tell you about later on. Straight away I went onto the internet to take a look at their website, it was on here that I discovered they did various Special Experiences; one of these happened to be a VIP Tour with a Ranger, where you get right up close to all the animals, this is fantastic and the ideal birthday present for my animal loving daughter for her 21st. All I needed to do now was to arrange who was going and when; I could not wait to discuss this with my daughter who became just as excited about the trip as me, which is just as well as it was her present.

I spoke to the girls father (my ex husband) and my hubby, we then made arrangements to get a date when we could all get the time off work to do the visit, plus co-ordinating this with the Park for a vacant time slot. Believe it or not even though this came at the princely sum of £240.00 for up to 4 persons (50.00 per extra person up to 8), it took us a couple of weeks to find matching dates which happened to be 3 weeks after her 21st Birthday. Sadly my hubby could not make it as he was at work, so it was our two girls, their dad and me that went on this wonderful day out (I will go into more detail on the VIP Tour later in the review).

~~ A Little History ~~

It is hard to believe that this was once the grounds of a wonderful stately home (one I have still yet to visit) Woburn Abbey which belonged to the Russell family in 1619; centuries later in the early 19th to be exact the current owner of that time which was the 6th Duke of Bedford commissioned Humprey Repton (a renowned landscaper of that time) to make a pleasure ground, garden and menagerie around the Abbey. This was completed and originally contained exotic birds such as peacocks and swans, also some exotic animals like antelopes and llamas; over the time the collection of birds and animals grew.

The 11th Duke, Herbrand was the president of the Royal Zoological Society, he and his wife continued the collection and started to breed the animals to send to zoos and over sea collectors.

It was in 1970 that Woburn Safari Park first opened it gates to the general public and became the park it is today, still strongly working on the conservation of the animals and wildlife making it an award winning park with some rare and wonderful breeds.

~~ Our Visit ~~

We arrived around 1000hrs and went straight to the main office as instructed to in our letter for the VIP Tour. The girls dad went inside and spoke to the staff, he then called us all into the office to sign a disclaimer, this was because later that afternoon we were going to get really close to the animals and we had to sign our life away (he, he), we signed the paper to say the park are not liable and we understand the risks, something like that.

After going through the paperwork we got back into our car and headed around the safari drive; my daughters armed with cameras and me doing the driving (very slow and frustrating at times). Although I was driving I still got to see the animals some fairly close and others some distance away. You could always tell where the animals were from the group of cars huddled together and stationary blocking the route in front of you. At one point we were stuck for 10 minutes whilst someone was videoing the animals (this is where it got frustrating as they blocked your view also so you only got to see the car in front).

Anyway, our first animal was a White Rhino all on his own in an enclosure, we found out later on our VIP trip that he was in there because he was too horny and he kept pestering the old lady Rhinos who were just not interested (I know how they feel, lol), he became very frustrated and started charging at the Land Rovers, so he is now separated and living a lonely life in solitary confinement (Take note boys).

It was really exciting spotting the animals as we drove round no longer was it four adults in the car, as we all reverted back to our youth and excitedly shouted out when we spotted a tiger, lion or bear. My daughter even shouted when she saw a wild rabbit and we have hundreds of them around where we live. It was not only the cars stopping to see that animals that made us wait on occasions, it was the animals too. Twice the antelopes decided to perform and cross the road stopping the traffic on two occasions; situations like this happened a couple of times with various animals, we saw the giraffes doing it, a bear and we were lucky enough to see a wolf do it, lucky because they are very nervous of humans and usually hide in the wooded area (we only actually saw one wolf on the hole visit).

On our first drive around the park (yep, our first trip, we went round 3 times in total over the course of the day). We got to see the African Lions, Siberian Tigers, Ankole Cattle, Elands, White Rhino’s, Chapman’s Zebra’s, the Canadian Timber Wolf, North American Black Bear, Giraffe, Grevy’s Zebra, Elephants and others. I have not been to another Safari Park since I was a child, but my two daughters have and they both state that out of Longleat, West Midlands Safari Park and this one, Woburn comes top of the list for this part of the Safari experience.

~~ Our VIP Tour ~~

As I have been discussing the drive round section of this visit, it seems appropriate to discuss the VIP trip in detail here. As mentioned earlier it cost £240.00 for four of us, and it was absolutely amazing and such a wonderful experience not only do you get exceptionally close to the animals, your guide gives you their names and tells you all about them.

For instance it was our guide that told us about the horny Rhino mentioned earlier, also the male Eland that was the constant shadow of the female Eland that was due in season (is spring in the air  ). Our guide took us right across the bumpy (and we felt every bump) grounds in the Land Rover to get close to the animals, taking us to where some of the animals were asleep or simply keeping out of the hot sun; this was especially good as we got to see the Dwarf Forest Buffalo which were really cute, they had all took themselves undercover so we missed them when we drove ourselves around the park.

She took us close to the zebra’s and explained the differences between the two breeds the Chapman’s Zebra with their shadow stripes that appear to be slightly brown and the Grevy’s Zebra with their thin Black and White stripes.

We were taken within a foot from the North American Black Bear named Ben; he was a young playful bear, he lay on his back and was showing us his paws you could see his pads we were that close.

We travelled around the monkey enclosure, which was fun, as we did not risk damaging our own car here. They do get very playful, it was here that we saw another Ranger speaking to the occupants of a car that had their windows down and were trying to feed them. The park is really strict on this it is 100% not allowed not only for your safety, but for the animals too. We were told that there are some sick humans in this world that have fed the monkeys cigarette butts, baby nappies, excrement etc, and once this caused the monkeys to get Hepatitis B and they had to have all 200 monkeys put to sleep.

In this area we managed to see a Black and White Ruffed Lemur, which were very hard to find as they tend to hide in the top of the trees.

Another highlight was seeing the very young lion cubs and their mother, they were still in the confines of the compound not yet mixing with the pack outside, so this was a very special treat which other visitors would not get to see.

I won’t bore you with every animal, but I have saved the best bit of this until last, our guide took us over to the Giraffes my daughters favourite animal, the guide called Frankie one of the young female giraffes and got her to bend her head down for us to stroke her. It was amazing you really don’t realise just how big and majestic they are until you are up that close. The fully grown male came up for a stroke and his legs came to the top of the Land Rover which we were in. We were also told that the females give birth standing up and the baby giraffe has to fall to the ground, now that’s what I call entering this world with a bang (ok a thud then), the baby giraffe is about 6ft tall from head to toe at birth.

I have just remembered I wanted to tell you about the Bactrian Camel, as our guide told us about their little new comer the baby camel which took them all by surprise, as they had one female, one castrated male and an old gent with his floppy humps (they do that when you get old apparently) whom they thought was totally past it. Well he went on to prove them all wrong and showed that there was plenty of life in the old doge yet (ooops camel  ) and fathered the lovely baby camel.

I could talk forever about this trip, but I will have to settle for just the highlights. I was supposed to be a 1.5 hour trip, but gratefully with our very enthusiastic guide our drip exceeded 2hrs.

~~ Rainbow Landing ~~

It was only my eldest daughter and myself that wanted to go in here, it is a tropical house where you get to see all the wonderful and colourful Rainbow Lorikeets, Dusky Lories and Red Lories. In their own habitats you would find them on the western coast of Australia and the South West Pacific Islands of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. As they have bristles on the end of their tongues to collect the pollen and nectar from flowers. You can purchase some ‘Nekton’ which is a special powder which contains bee pollen, fruit nectar, soya protein, vitamins and minerals all mixed with water at a cost of 70p for 1 tub or 1.00 for 2 tubs.

You open the door carrying your little tub and you are surrounded within seconds, one of them even landed on my head. At one stage I had one on my head and one on each shoulder, one of the cheeky birds even had a wee all down my arm, which thankfully didn’t smell. I was told it was good luck if they wee on you, he, he. Now believe it or not even after this little indiscretion from one of the birds we still went back in with more Nekton as we were enjoying ourselves so much.

~~ Birds in Action ~~

This is found in the walk about section and at certain times of he day the keepers come out holding the birds of prey and tell you about them and give a demonstration of the bird in flight. On our visit we got to see the Green-winged Macaw and a large Blue Parrot. The birds fly right across the amphitheatre so you may find yourself having to duck.

~~ For the little ones ~~

As any parent knows when you take little ones on a day trip you need activities to keep them happy. Although I am now a Granny and did not have any young ones with me I did notice what was on offer for their enjoyment and education. So, on that note I best give you an idea on what was on offer.

Great Woburn Railway – This is a free service and comprises of a short train ride taking you past some of the animals like the elephants, camels and bison.

Bobcat Run – enjoy reliving your childhood with the kids and come down the big sledge ride. You know the ones where you take a sack and come down a wavy slide.

Adventure Ark – this is a building in the shape of Noah’s Ark, where the children can enjoy scramble nets, rope bridges, ball pools and a vertical drop slide (Yuk, I remember these from when my children were little, they scared me to death). You can also get refreshments here whilst your children play. There is an age and height restriction on some of the areas here (you may want to check on their website).

Tiny Tots Safari Trail – especially for the under fives is a little inflatable safari where they can bounce around, slide and climb is safe surroundings.

Swan Boats – take the children for a rest and have a lovely paddle around the small lake.

Badger Valley – this is a little playground where the under fives can have some fun, it is a mini adventure playground with a little slide, and a bridge to walk over.


Tree Tops Action Trail – now this I don’t remember seeing, but from the brochure it is an adventure playground for the bigger kids including mom and dad , there are height restrictions that apply in this area.

~~ Disabilities ~~

My health has been deteriorating for the past couple of years, to the extent that I have to use a wheelchair as I cannot walk further than a few yards. Woburn offer a wheelchair service, which means someone has to push you around the park, they do not offer any motorised scooters for hire, which is a shame as these would make the experience a lot better for the disabled visitor.

Not all areas of the park are suitable for wheelchair users, and those areas that are, you will find have very steep gradients, so unless you are extremely light in weight it will be hard on the person that is trying to control the wheelchair. My girls pushed me around the park, so I managed to get to most places, except for the Sea lions, the gradient was just too steep to attempt; we also did not make it into the Australian Workabout, which was a bit of a downer as I would have liked to have seen the Wallaby’s. I did get to see the penguins which I loved.

You will find on the map that you get free to help guide you around the park that they mark out the certain areas that are not accessible for the wheelchair; these are found in the Australian Walkabout and the Bobcat Run. As I said before through the gradients also make it not wheelchair friendly. It would be nice if they invested in some scooters to help their disabled visitors, they could even charge a small lending fee, as these would make those hills a lot easier to cope with.

There are also disabled toilets available and disabled parking bays available.

~~ Special Experiences ~~

This is the section where you can get something extra special, like we did for our daughters 21st birthday.

VIP Tour with a Ranger – I have already described our experience on this and the price, but you also get a certificate and a full colour brochure with your letter confirming your booking. It runs from March until the end of the season in October.

According to their website and a leaflet I picked up there are other special experiences on offer, here are a few:-

Shadow A Ranger for the day – you do exactly what it says you stay with a keeper for the day, you get to go behind the scenes whilst they go about their duties including mucking out and feeding (we kept teasing my daughter saying she had to muck out the giraffes) . You also get to meet the friendly and playful lemurs in the walk through land of the lemurs. This comes at a cost of £195 per person; you can get more details off their site.

VIP Tour Plus Walk and Talk – This is what we had plus the extra of a supervised walk around the smaller animals. This comes at a cost of £290.00 for 4 persons plus £60.00 per extra person up to 8 people; more details available on line.

Breakfast with the Carnivores – for £240.00 for 4 people you can meet the lions and tigers in their enclosures before the park opens, you are also there when they are let out for the day. This trip lasts for one hour – available March until October for more details again please look at their web site.

Elephant Experience – this is an elephant walk experience, where you need to be fit and be adorned in suitable attire and footwear; this comes at a cost of £100.00 per person and be prepared to walk.

Adopt an Animal – I wish we had known about this before, but my daughters’ dad had already adopted a giraffe at Chester Zoo for my daughters’ birthday. Looking at what you get from Woburn in the adoption package it is a lot better than what we got from Chester Zoo, and for the same price of £50.00.

You get a certificate of adoption, a photograph and fact sheet about your animal, a complimentary ticket to the park (this is worth 17.00) and a guide book (worth 5.00). There is also Adoption Plus available (which I thought was brilliant) for an extra £40.00 you can get to meet your adopted animal for about 30 mins accompanied by a ranger. This is a wonderful idea for the animal lover that adopts one.

~~ Refreshments ~~

There are many small pit stops around the park which sell ice creams, drinks and hot dogs (which were lovely and not bad for £3.00)

There are also two restaurants on the park, one by the gift shop and the other half way round the park adjoining the mammoth play ark.

At the mammoth play ark you have the Two by Two Restaurant where you can get many snacks and leave the children to play safely inside the ark. Sorry we did not eat here or check out the menu, we chose to have a picnic on the tables in the grassed out to the right of the Ark.

The Safari Restaurant is the one we chose to sit outside of and have a rest whilst waiting for our Ranger. It is situated right in the centre where you start and finish your tour of the park, right next to the gift shops and toilets. Whilst sitting here I took a look at the menu, as we did not eat here I cannot say if it was well cooked, but it looked nice when we saw other people eating.

This restaurant offered a good selection of descent sized meals ranging from £6.00 for an all day breakfast to £7.50 for half a roast chicken, with potatoes and seasonal vegetables. There was also a range of sandwiches and baguettes priced on average £3.00 – £4.00, cakes, pastries and little snacks at various prices, salads at £5.75, Yorkshire pudding meals at £5.50, Jacket Potatoes with various fillings for £5.00 or just settle for the soup of the day with a nice crusty roll at £2.95.

Hot drinks, cold drinks, wine or lager are also available; they do offer a pretty good selection.

You can get cheaper and smaller children portions.

I felt that the prices were on par with other tourist locations, slightly over priced, but they do have a captive hungry customer.

~~ How to get there ~~

It is quite easy to get to actually, but it is a bit of a boring ride (scenery wise) as it is mainly motorway driving, well for me anyway.

Woburn Safari park is just of Junction 12 or 13 of the M1 and it s clearly signposted from there. You just follow the brown signs and within minutes you have reached your destination.

When you leave the park you come out through the wonderful picturesque village of Woburn.

Address –

Woburn Safari Park
Woburn
Bedfordshire
MK17 9QN

01525 290407

www.woburnsafari.co.uk

~~ Prices and Tickets ~~

Prices for the Safari Park vary on the season but they range about £15.50 - £17.00 per adult and £11.50 - £13.00 per child. If you like historic houses you may want to consider getting a passport ticket that lasts for 12 months, this gives you a saving of £7.50 for adults and £3.50 for children on the two prices combined giving you a visit to Woburn Abbey and the Safari Park. Please be aware though that it would be difficult and would spoil your enjoyment to try to do both these in the one day. Something that is worth thinking about if you are travelling long way, as we did.

Woburn also offer an annual ticket to the park giving you unlimited visits during that year, this is great value if you are fairly local.

To find out more please take a look at their web site.

~~ Gift Shop ~~

The gift shop has a wonderful array of soft toys and animal related merchandise at varying prices, some of which are reasonable and others like the t-shirts at £18.00 each are totally over the top.

The gift shop is also the focal point of the park it is where you go to arrange to meet your Ranger for the special experiences; it is where you go if you have loaned a wheelchair, you mention it to the staff and they arrange for someone to bring it over to you; the staff are also very friendly and helpful.

I mentioned t-shirts earlier in the gift shop; there is also another gift shop solely for t-shirts where they are all on display on the walls for your perusal.

~~ Education ~~

It would not be fair not to make a short mention to the fact that Woburn Safari Park like to get involved in educating children, teaching them to respect the animals, but also teaching them basic skills such as team work by helping each other. They run many educational trips for schools etc. It may be worth while looking at their site if you want to learn more.

~~ Toilets ~~

These were very clean and adequate; we visited on Monday 6th August 2007 during the school holidays, even though it was a busy time of year there was no queuing for the main toilets.

The disabled toilet however there was a slight queue as this is shared with both sexes for the disabled use and also for mothers and babies.

Sorry I did not go in the gents so cannot comment on how clean they were and somehow it never came up in conversation with my ex husband either.

~~ Overall ~~

Overall, we were over the moon with our visit, and very impressed with the care the rangers give to the animals. I neglected to say earlier but we were stopped by staff even before we got through the gates, they were checking where we had travelled from and if we had any contact with livestock. The reason for this was due to the recent outbreak of foot and mouth in Surrey. This may be worth noting if you want to visit and you live in an infected area as you may not be able to get in. I would suggest that you make contact to find out prior to your visit. I am aware that the scare is now over, but these things can crop up unannounced at any time.

We all had our own personal highlights of the day, which was great as this meant we all got something from the visit. Even though our visit was made a lot more exciting due to the VIP Tour we would have still enjoyed it, as there was something for all ages.

As mentioned throughout my review there are a couple of minor niggles, but these niggles did not spoil the overall enjoyment of the facilities and our day.

My children tell me that Longleat won hands down on the walking section of the park, so sorry Woburn this is an area you may want to look at if you want to be the best.

So overall I highly recommend it for a visit, we had a magnificent day and I would love to go again, but possibly stay over night and visit the Abbey the next day.

Summary: Highly recommended and fun entertainment for all the family