Fantastic Day Out (Longleat Safari Park)

Member Name: soutram

Product:	Longleat Safari Park
Date:	04/09/09 (162 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great day out, its well worth a vist, we all had a fantastic time

Disadvantages: Gets really busy and cost a lot for a large family

Myself my partner and a few friends decided that we would have a day out to Longleat Safari Park on the Bank holiday Monday, I had been to Longleat before but when I was a child, it was a great day out back then and I was hoping it would be even better all these years later.

As it was a bank holiday that we where planning on going on we knew it would be busy so we set of at 8.30am to get there for when it opened which was 10am and I'm so glad we did that because as we predicted it got incredibly busy later on.

Longleat Safari Park has two parts to it, firstly you have the Safari Park itself and then you have the house and gardens which also has various rides and attractions around it.

The Safari Park:
The safari park was opened in1966 and it was the first place outside of Africa to open a drive through safari. The safari park consists of various enclosures - East African Game Reserve which consists of Giraffes, Zebras, Llamas and Camels, you then move onto the Flamingo Valley consisting of you've guessed it Flamingos, then you have the Vulture Venue again consisting of Vultures, next you come across the Monkey Jungle (closed when we visited due to a monkey having Herpes), be warned the monkeys do tend to pull bits of peoples cars, you can go round this section if you wish.

After the monkeys you have the Big Game Reserve which has White Rhinos, Ankole Cattle, Camels and Dear, we had quite a close encounter with a Rhino in here, there are just some animals you don't want to get to close to and that was one of them. Next you have the Dear Park where for £1 you can purchase some food and feed the dear out of your car window.

You then go past Pelican pond consisting of Pelicans and onto Tiger Territory (you are allowed car windows opened until you get to this point), after Tiger Territory you go into Lion Country and then finally onto Wolf Wood.

The whole safari takes about a hour and a half and if you don't wish to take your car around then a safari bus is available for a surcharge (3yrs +). Obviously soft top cars are not allowed to go through the safari and dogs are also not permitted, they do provide free kennels where you can leave you dog whilst you visit the safari.

The House, Gardens and other attractions:

Longleat house is a beautiful Elizabethan stately home which most of is open to the public, it was completed in 1580 and is now the home of the 7th Marquess of Bath, the house is set in 900 acres of landscaped grounds and 8000 acres of woodlands, lakes and farmland.

The house is accessible for wheelchair users, pushchairs are not permitted but they do provide hip carriers for small babies free of charge. It take about an hour to walk around the house, guides are in every room and are very knowledgeable so if you wish to find out more information about something they are more than happy to help.

There are only a few rooms open to the public (these are - The Great Hall, The Red Library, The Lower Dining Room, The State Dining Room, The Salon, The State Drawing Room, The Dress Corridor, the Grand Staircase and the basement where you see the kitchens and a servant quarters) as the house is still lived in, private tours of other rooms are available at a cost of £10 per person but these are only available on certain days throughout the year.

After you have looked around the house you can then move on and explore what the grounds have to offer:

Safari Boats - There are two boats operating on the lake so you don't have to wait to long to get on to this attraction, the boats take you on a tour of the lake and introduce you to the seal lions living there (they swim alongside the boats and jump out of the water to get food), the boats also take you past the Gorilla Island where Nico the Silverback is living (he evens has sky + tv) and if you are really luck you may even spot Longleats most dangerous residents the hippos - Spot and Sonia. Fully accessible to wheelchairs but pushchairs are left by the boat house, the trip take approx 15 minutes.

Adventure Castle - A large castle play are for the kids, you can sit and relax whilst they head inside to play on the various slides and climbing frames etc. Unlike other attractions you can go in this more than once.

Hedge Maze - This maze has been here since 1975, it takes up 1.4 acres of land and a pathway length of 1.6 miles, it also has bridges so you can get a good view of the maze from up high, not suitable for pushchairs of wheelchairs.

Railway - This is a scaled down railway which takes you on a trip around some of the grounds, you head past the lake with the sea lions and through some of the woods, the trip take about 15 mins and is accessible to wheelchairs but pushchairs again are left at he station.

Old Joes Mine - This attractions introduces you to fruit bats, you head through some corridors looking at various spiders and scorpions etc then you enter a room where they have bats flying around, the zoom past you heads so close you can feel the wind from there wings, they do tend to dive bomb you a lot, if you are not a fan of bats stay well clear of this attraction.

Pets corner - Full with a variety of animals including guinea pigs, otters, snakes and more, you can even hold a tarantula if your brave enough. They also do parrot shows throughout the day which are well worth watching, we thoroughly enjoyed the show.

Postman Pat Village - We did not go in here so cant really tell you anything about it, I think it's for smaller children.

Mirror Maze - Is basically a maze made out of mirrors, a fun maze for the kids (old and young) to complete.
There are also two motion simulators here, a tea cup ride, life and times of Lord Bath exhibition, family bygones exhibition and a scale model of Longleat House as well as all the gardens that you can look around.

We had a fantastic day out here, we arrived at 10am and didn't leave until 6pm, most people visiting Longleat go around the Safari park first then visit the house etc, we decided to do it the other way around so we had a look around the house then did the safari on our way out, this worked out really well because the attractions were nice and quite so we went straight on everything, it started to get really busy in the afternoon and waiting times where getting quite long, this is when we went to the safari which was nice and quiet because everyone was now in the house and gardens.

Prices:
The best way to pay for this attraction is to get the Passport ticket which gives you free entry into everything; it saves you almost 50%.

Adult - £23.00
Child (3 - 14yrs) - £15.00
Senior Citizens (60yrs +) - £17

If you bought individual tickets for everything it would cost you £48. (The cheapest attraction is £3 each)

If you only wish to visit the safari then its £12 (£8 for child) and same for the house also £12 (£6 for child)

If you have a large group going (12 people +) then prices are dramatically reduced

Adult - £16.10
Child - £10.50
Senior Citizen - £11.90

Directions
Longleat is just off the A36 between Bath and Salisbury

From the South East: M3 (J8) - A303 - A36 towards Bath - Longleat is just off the A362 between Warminster and Frome

From the South West: A303 in a London direction - A350 towards Warminster - A36 towards Bath - Longleat is just off the A362 between Warminster and Frome

From the North: M4 (J18) - A46 towards Bath - A36 towards Salisbury - Longleat is just off the A362 between Warminster and Frome

Summary: A great day out, its well worth a visit, we all had a fantastic time