A zoo for all the family! (Tropical Wings World of Wildlife)

Member Name: ns1209

Product:	Tropical Wings World of Wildlife
Date:	22/07/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, educational

Disadvantages: Only half a day, can be crowded

Tropical Wings is a small zoo/butterfly house and is in South Woodham Ferrers, Essex. I visited for about the third time earlier today. It is near Southend and Chelmsford and the website has directions about how to get there from these places.

We visited and found that it was very busy and had to go in the overflow car park, most of the visitors were elderly or families with children. It was very busy but I suppose it was because it was in the summer holiday.
At the entrance is the gift shop which sells various bits and bobs but nothing particularly great. There is a desk where you pay admission fees which are £7.75 for adults and £4.75 for children and family tickets are also available at a discounted price.

The first thing in Tropical Wings is the Tropical House which is one of the largest butterfly houses in the UK. It is very hot in there so I would not wear a sweater! The house has many beautiful butterflies and also lots of interesting tropical plants. In the tropical house there is a big pond with some massive (the biggest fish I have seen.) koi carp which can you feed for 30p a bag. Also in the house were a couple of large iguanas, tortoises and some birds that were not parrots that could speak!

Other great parts to visit were the Savannah Plains which is home to 3 enormous sulcata tortoises which are the third largest type of tortoise. The reptile house has tanks with more tortoises, lizards and some cocoons which were all very interesting to look at. Around Tropical Wings there are many birds including parrots, owls, vultures, lovebirds, kookaburras, macaws and many others. Also here are many farm animals such as goats, guinea pigs, a few loose chickens, a donkey, ponies, rabbits. Another great thing to visit was the wallaby paddock which was very large and you could touch the wallabies and each day there is "help feed the wallabies". Most of the wallabies were albino but there were some of other colours. Other animals included marmosets which were very cute, otters, meerkats, lemurs and even chipmunks amongst others!

Around the park there are also lots of picnic areas and there is also a cafe where we had jacket potatoes which tasted quite nice.

There were also various attractions for children including a play area inside, agility course style play area outside which had a couple of swings and logs and ropes to balance across. Also there was digger land where you pay a £1 to go on a little digger.

Among all this there were lots of information about the animals including where they come from, how rare the animals were and other interesting facts.

Overall I found it very enjoyable and I would recommend it to families and elderly people. There are lots of animals and other interesting things but it does not fill up a whole day! The time we spent there was great however and children would also enjoy looking at the various animals especially the large tortoises, talking birds and butterflies while also having a nice free open space with a play area. It is educational and fun which has to be good! A very nice way to spend a morning or afternoon if you live nearby.

5/5 Recommended for a nice half day out!

Summary: Worth visiting!