Review: West Midland Safari Park

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West Midland Safari Park completely surpassed our expectations today, we had such a brilliant time! The Park in Worcestershire is home to a four mile long drive-through safari which was the highlight for us. Many of the animals on the safari are free to roam right up to your car and they do! We were feeding giraffes through the window, had rhino’s in touching distance of our car and lions walking next to us.

This isn’t all that’s at West Midland Safari Park though. You’ll also find the largest animatronic dinosaur exhibit in the UK, a theme park and many more animals to see and feed on foot.

Drive-Through Safari

The safari took us 2 hours to get round, although you could do it a lot quicker I’m sure. We were overtaken a lot as we stopped to watch the amazing animals. On the drive you will see some of the worlds most critically endangered animals including white and Indian rhinos and Sumatran tigers.

The self-drive safari is divided into African and Asian areas. In the African section some of our favourites were the white rhino calves, zebras and the very friendly giraffe who we had the chance to feed from our car window! In the Asian area we loved the camels, deer and Indian rhinos, with another rhino calf.

The Carnivores section is honestly incredible! We drove into the lion area and not only were they right next to our car but there were so many of them! We had a great view of lions up high on the rock, a couple of younger males having a fight right in front of the car and loads of them running around the enclosure. Straight after we drove into an area with loads of white lions which are so beautiful and then through to the tigers, which are behind fences.


There are also two African elephants, one of which was the first elephant calf to be born at the Park.

You can buy animal feed at the entrance for £4 and feed many of the animals from your car. They are very keen for it too! The whole trip round is much more fun with food, especially for the giraffes!

It’s an amazing experience and beats a visit to a zoo hands down! You are free to do the safari drive-through as many times as you like. We only did it once as there’s lots more to see.

Discovery Trail

Once on foot there are loads of animal attractions to visit, both indoors and outdoors. You can watch the penguins swimming, walk through bats, feed Lorikeets nectar (which is quite the experience!!), see colourful fish in the aquarium and explore the reptile world. In addition to all of the exhibits, there are daily feeds, talks and encounters, including the Sea Lion Show.

Land of the Living Dinosaurs

This was actually Ashley’s favourite part of the day. It’s a huge trail with over 40 life-size, animatronic dinosaurs. Quite a few of them didn’t seem to be moving but it didn’t take away from the trail. Some of them are enormous! There is also a fossil dig area towards the end of the trail.

African Village

At the other side of West Midland Safari Park, past the theme park you’ll find the African Village. This is home to the meerkats, goats and a walk through Lemur Woods where you get up to closer to loads of beautiful Lemurs.

You’ll also walk past the hippos on the way over here.

Adventure Theme Park

As well as all of the animals there is also a whole theme park at West Midland Safari Park! It was absolutely dead today so the rides that were open you could walk straight onto. It’s an additional charge to go on the rides and you can either get a wristband or pay per ride. We didn’t bother today as we were busy doing all of the other attractions. Ashley is under 1m, so there were 7 rides that she could have gone on. Once their over 1m the number of rides they can do jumps up to 16, so it’s a really good small theme park for kids.

In the summer it’s open daily from 11.30am and whilst open today (November) it didn’t look like all of the rides were running.

Boj’s Giggly Park Play Area

This is a really cute multi-sensory play area for younger children based on the CBeebies show Boj. There are 5 interactive zones for them to play one here as well as seating and a food kiosk.

Lantern Festival

There is a light trail running throughout the Park until 5th December. This is an after dark event and features up to 1000 lanterns. This event is separate to your daily entry ticket and none of the animal exhibits or drive-through safari will be open. Click here for more info and to book tickets.

Food and Drink

There are two main restaurants Dino Diner and Burger Co. We ate at Dino Diner and I actually thought the food was really tasty and pretty good value for an attraction. I had fajitas which I really enjoyed and only cost £8.95 which I though was very reasonable. Ashley had the kids lunch box which was a picnic style lunch and came with a little toy dinosaur. This I think was £6 or £7 so a bit more than I expect to pay elsewhere for it, but not bad for a restaurant at a big attraction.

You’ll also find several smaller food kiosks dotted around and a couple of food courts, not all of them were open though.

You are also very welcome to bring your own food and there are picnic benches around the Park.

Safari Lodges

Did you know you can stay at West Midland Safari Park in a luxury Safari Lodge? The lodges look into various different animal enclosures including elepands and cheetahs. They also have a further plans to open lodges with red pandas, giraffes, white rhinos and Sumatran tigers. This is a luxury and unique experience so it’s not cheap, but well worth it for a special occasion. Click here to find out more.

Best bits: Hands down the drive-through safari, we absolutely loved it!

Worst bits: A lorikeet biting my head (I joke, we all found it funny ?). The safari is quite a long drive without a loo stop when you’re with a toddler!

Cost: Adult (16-64) tickets are £25, children (3-15) £20, under 3s are free and concessions are £22. For the theme park it costs £15 for adult wristbands, £13 for children, £14 for concessions and Little Penguin wristbands (0.8m-1m) are £8.

With your ticket you get a free voucher to return within the the next 6 months, so you’re actually getting 2 visits for the price of 1! There are discounts for Blue Light Card  holders and the Defence Discount Service. You can also buy your tickets with Tesco Clubcard vouchers (you don’t get the free return voucher through).

Tickets: Available to purchase in advance online (savings often available) or purchase on the day.

Pram friendly: Yes. You do need to leave it outside at some of the walkthrough animal attractions though.

Bike & scooter friendly: No

Location & parking: Bewdley in Worcestershire. Free parking onsite.

Sat nav: DY12 1LE

Baby in Bucks Top Tips

If you can go off peak and late in the season like we did it’s so worth it as you’ll find it so much quieter! We experienced no queues all day and were free to spend as much time sat watching the animals in the drive-through as we wanted.

During peak times I’ve heard it can get incredibly busy with a lot of queues to get round. If you are going in peak times then I recommend getting there for it opening so you are near the front of the queue to get in. It also tends to be quieter to drive round later in the day.

There is nowhere to stop on the safari so make sure you take your little ones to the toilet before you drive in and load up with snacks in case they get restless!

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