***PAULTONS PARK***
Paultons Park is located near the New Forest in Hampshire and is a great place to take the kids for a day out. It's easier to get to Paultons Park by car, how-ever you can also get there by bus and train and all the directions are given on Paultons Park website, to help you get there. This park has lots to do and see including different rides for all ages, animals to see and beautiful gardens to walk round. There are lots of different places to eat and plenty of things to do to keep the children entertained. At the beginning of this year they opened Peppa Pig World in the park which has proven to be very popular, with my friend's taking their children there.

I went to paultons park many years ago when I was a child, but there isn't much I remember. Whilst most school's were back, my nephew hadn't started school yet so we decided to take him to Paultons Park, mainly for Peppa Pig world as he loves watching the programme and also has lots of Peppa Pig toys. We were supposed to take him there for his birthday in April but this was when Peppa Pig World had opened, so we avoided it, as we knew it would be very busy.

***PURCHASING TICKETS***
We chose to purchase our tickets before we actually got to the park and this was very easy to do via their website. We actually purchased a family of 4 ticket which cost us £74.00 and normal ticket price on the gate would be £80 so this did actually save us a bit of money. Although my nephew is only 4, he was over 1 metre so we had to pay full price for him. The full paying price for adults and children over 1 metre is £21.00, how-ever prices can vary during different times of the year. As soon as you purchase the tickets they are sent to your e-mail address and you can then simply print them off and take them with you.

***CAR-PARK/ENTERING THE PARK***
Judging by the look on the car-park I would say they were re-surfacing it, as there was quite a bit of gravel about and there were no markings in the car park. There was how-ever staff pointing you into the right direction and showing you where to park. There is seperate parking for disabled which is located closer to the entrance. There was some building work going on in the car-park, how-ever this didn't make any difference to the car park itself. The park opens at 10:30am (this time varies through-out the year and you can check their website for this information). We got to the park at about 11am, and there was lots of parking and now waiting time to get through the entrance. We were given a park map and made our way to Peppa pig Land which was located a short walk across the park.

***PEPPA PIG WORLD***
I am going to write a bit about this as this seems to be the main thing in the park that most people go to. This was without a doubt the busist part of the park, there were already queues for some of the rides. As you walked under the Peppa Pig World sign you can hear magical music and bright colours surround you. There are various rides including a Helicopter Ferris Wheel. Car Ride, Train Ride and play areas. There are of course other rides in this part of the park as well. You could even go inside Peppa Pig's house as well and inside were the Peppa Pig Family. We took my nephew into the school where you could pay £8 to have your picture taken in there. This looked great as it had all the other Peppa Pig characters in it and was put into a nice frame as well. Although there were queues for some rides, we stood in a queue for no longer than about 5 minutes. My nephew espicially loved the Train and the Car ride and he went on this twice. There is a huge Peppa Pig themed shop, which sell books, clothing, accessories and other Peppa Pig items. This may seem quite expensive, but isn't anymore expensive than any other shop selling Peppa Pig merchandise. On the rides as you are going round it takes your pictures and you can see them on the screen after the ride. You have the option to purchase these if you wish which will cost £7.00 or you can buy 2 for £10. They also do magnets and keyrings as well.

***EATING AT THE PARK***
There was a large eating place just outside Peppa Pig world. They sold kids meals and a selections of salad's, sandwiches, drinks and snacks. I wasn't very impressed with the selection avaliable, as for the kids it was just an option of chicken nuggets with chips or a sausage and chips. The chips weren't very nice and I thought the food was very expensive costing nearly £5.00 for one meal. I had a salad and that alone cost me £4.50 as well. There are other places to eat beside this one and each restaurant/shop sells different things to eat. It tells you all of this information on the map.

There are many toilets located around the park, these are also shown on the map. The toilets are very clean and I think it's great that they not only have a normal seat on them but a children's seat on it too which you can pull down. There were maybe a few times where we had to wait a few minutes to use the toilets but we weren't waiting for too long.

***THE REST OF THE PARK***

Rides - There was a ladybird, mouse, tractor and digger ride. He loved the Digger ride and went on this twice, as well as the tractor ride. My nephew also loved playing in the different play areas as well which included slides, swings and other things such as tunnels and a big tree house. In terms of adult rides there isn't really much. Me & my sister went on 2 rollercoasters and a log flume. The best rollercoaster in the park by far is Cobra which goes round twists and up and down dips at a fast speed. We all went on the train ride which goes around the park and past Peppa Pig world, this took about 15/20mins but it was nice to sit down and see the rest of the park with us altogether. There were other rides in the park including Swinging Ship, Tea-cup Ride and other, more gentle rides. Some of the rides do have a height restriction or require an adult to go on with a child if they are a under a certain age. The details of this are at each ride though along with a height chart for the children.

Animals/Scenery - We walked around the land of the dinosaurs which was set in a woodland part of the park. The speakers hidden in the trees played dinosaur noises as you walked round and looked at the huge dinosaurs. We also walked around some of the gardens and looked at some of the birds they had in the park, these included flamingo's, pelican's and some beautiful red parrots. Some of the gardens have some beautiful shapes hedges which have been shaped into different animals. There is a Riverside walk which you can go on, we didn't do this as it wasn't something my nephew would have enjoyed.

Other things to do - My nephew particularly liked panning for gold. This cost £2.50 and you got a metal pan which you would dip into the sand and water to try and ffind gold pieces. You could then take the gold pieces to the shed and it would be exchanged for a gold medal. He really enjoyed doing this and even took some of the small gold pieces with him. There are other small things in the park to do such as using water jets to shoot targets and small game stands where you can win prizes.

***GIFT SHOPS***
There are 2 shops just before you leave the park. One of these sell's a large range of gifts and toys for both adults and children. The other shop sells sweet, biscuits and s range of toys for smaller children. Although both shops are quite expensive it was only right to treat my nephew to something small from the shop.

***OVERALL OPINION***
At first we thought £21 was quite expensive to get into the park, how-ever when you think of all the free ride's, the price isn't too bad. We chose a very good time to go with most children back at school so we didn't have to queue long, how-ever if you went here in the school holiday's I think there would be a much longer waiting time for the rides and Peppa Pig world would be crowded. If Peppa Pig World wasn't there I don't think the park would really be worth visiting, as they don't have many animals or other rides there. I would probably take my nephew here aagain just so he can go to Peppa Pig world again but in terms of the rest of the park there really isn't much here. My nephew enjoyed his time here and was very tired by the end of the day. If we did go again, I think we would most definately take our own food with us as it's just too expensive for a whole family to eat here. I would recommend others to go here, but for the Peppa Pig world only!!

For information about the park you can visit their website which is https://paultonspark.co.uk/home


(review also on ciao)