Today, we went to visit the Wild Winter Safari, West Midland Safari Park thanks to moneysupermarket.com who gave us family tickets for us to do this review. It didn’t take us long to reach the place as there were lot of signs. We were greeted by friendly staff but unfortunately we weren’t allowed to upgrade our tickets to see Santa because they were fully booked until 4pm.
Upon arrival, you can decide whether you want to drive through the four miles of Safari or explore the park first on foot. We chose the latter. The first stop is the Lost City Plaza. There are souvenir, sweet, coffee shops and lots more. There are also interesting window displays: https://youtu.be/IPNZ3zNd7jc
Next, we entered the Discovery Trail, home to Santa Safari and the Discovery Room. I took a short clip of the numerous and amazing animals you can meet in there. Both of my children really enjoying visiting them and learn their names and history. Ms C (three years old) is a bit too young to understand but she enjoyed every minute of it. In the Discovery Trail, there are: Penguin Cove, to see one of the Park’s latest exhibits; Twilight Cave, home to free flying bats and jumping rats and the Reptile House, where there are all kinds of snakes and reptiles from all over the world. Additionally, there are the Creepy Crawlies Exhibit and Seaquarium.
This is our video: https://youtu.be/qi3uo6pVOO4
There are two Sea Lion Shows at 12:30 pm and 2:30 pm. The video below shows a few highlights of the amazing sea lion. We all really enjoyed watching Calum the sea lion perform his repertoire of tricks.
This is a short clip: https://youtu.be/EupL-FrLPDU
We also dug for a fossil where the children had to find their dinosaur eggs and find a prize in there. It was not very easy to hammer it! Both children needed to wear safety goggles and also needed our help to smash the egg. Inside there is a toy dinosaur and each get a sticker or badge set with it. The children really enjoyed finding and smashing it. This activity costs £3 per child.
Around midday, we had our lunch at the Explorers Cafe and we spent £25 on food and drink for the whole family. The food was quite acceptable and affordable.
We were lucky with our visit in a couple of ways – not only did we have the best weather (no rain and not too cold), for the first time this winter the Park’s African Village was open. This is the ideal time to visit Meerkats beyond compare in Meerkat Mayhem and walk with Lemurs in the largest lemur walk-through in the UK.
The amusement area and rides are closed for winter. Train ride video: https://youtu.be/Xt8i9vuazRY
Later, we went for a train ride which took us back to the the Lost City Plaza. We then went to the car park and start the four mile drive through safari. There’s also the only pride of rare White Lions in the UK; the largest family group of White Tigers and more than 600 exotic animals from Elephants to Wild Dogs and Giraffe to Rhino.
This is our video: https://youtu.be/ocmORSsYsYI
I rated this day outing 5 stars out of 5. It was very educational and enjoyable trip for the whole family. We will definitely go back again.
Disclosure: We were given family tickets to visit West Midland Safari Parks as part of the Tots100 and Moneysupermarket search for the #BritainsBestDaysOut.