Longleat Safari Park

Passport Ticket £23 adult, £8 child
Mummy: What colour are those flamingoes Ted?
Ted: PIMPS!

Big Granwa: What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?
Everyone: grooooooan!

Take one two toddlers, two grandparents and one mummy, put them in a car and send them in to a lion enclosure. What do you get? Excitement over tractors of course.

That’s right folks, the world’s biggest and best beasts can’t even pull Ted out of his tractor obsession. Not when you learn that Longleat uses a ‘buuu track-tooor’ to feed the rhinos. But even for kids who prefer transport to wildlife Longleat is a real treat - they have a train! And a boat! (Ted: ‘BOAT! GAIN! BOAT! GAIN!’) Which you can feed the seals from! (cue a sulk from Lillie when the staff run out of fish).

There’s no denying that entry tickets for Longleat are a little ‘exey’ as the GranwaGranwa - the collective name for Mummy’s parents - would say. But the passport ticket is good value, especially if you plan to visit again. We felt as if in the course of a day we barely scratched the surface of what we could have done. We drove through the impressive safari park where zebras, giraffes, lions, wolves and tigers were close enough to smell tasty toddler. We stroked snakes in pets corner. Or at least Lil did because Mummy is far too much of a chicken. We checked out Postman Pat Village (still smarting over the introduction of a new PP theme tune I must admit that I had a word or two in Mrs Goggins’ ear) and we discovered the new butterfly farm where Ted found the butterflies’ food - bananas of course - more exciting than the exotic insects themselves. Oh well.

Without children we might have checked out the impressive house. As long as Big Granwa promised he wouldn’t make us read EVERY sign. But as it was we compromised with a ride on the teacups and an ice cream because, with a passport ticket visitors are able to come back and do all the things they didn’t get round to last time without paying a second time. Genius.

It was the boring stuff which impressed Mummy most of all at Longleat. The restaurant food really was excellent - cracking fish and chips and, believe it or not chicken goujons made of, well…chicken - The loos, often neglected by family attractions were well kitted out too with child seats in some (take note if you plan to open your own zoo/museum/farm) and, even more excitingly those whizzy Dyson hand dryers. Which were almost as exciting as the tractors and certainly far more interesting than those big yellow catty things.

Mummy x

www.longleat.co.uk