Exploring West Midland Safari Park

Exploring West Midland Safari Park

We were looking for fun things to do during half term recently and decided we’d spend a day exploring West Midland Safari Park.  We’d last visited when my nearly 8 year old son was only a few years old so he really didn’t remember it.  I promised him he’d get to see his beloved giraffes and I really wanted to get a peek at baby Fahari, the one month old white rhino.

Exploring West Midlands Safari Park

West Midland Safari Park is in Worcestershire, not too far from Kidderminster and features a four mile drive through safari, theme park and the Land of the Living Dinosaurs which opened in 2015.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather and made sure we arrived shortly before opening time so we could maximise our time. We headed straight into the African Plains to get out first sightings of Rhinos and Elephants. The baby rhino was teasing us by being just out of proper sight. She’s certainly the star of the show so you need to be patient and wait your turn to get a glimpse of this little lady.

Seeing big cats is always a highlight for us and exploring West Midland Safari Park would give us plenty of chances to admire these beautiful beasts. The cheetahs were doing a great impression of a three-headed beast at one point. The White Tigers clearly didn’t want to be photographed and we admired them from a far but the lions were quite happy to chew on a bone for all to see.  The White Lions spent the morning basking in the sunshine against the wall but we had more luck seeing them on our second drive through in the afternoon.

My son was in giraffe heaven, especially when they walked up to our car. I think it made his week to have been that close to these beautiful animals.

As we spent time exploring West Midland Safari Park on the drive through safari we got to see plenty of other animals too, from the Ankole cattle to Congo Buffalo, Zebra and Camels. As well as African Painted Dogs and Dhole.

After our first drive through we parked the car and headed into the main walking park of the safari park in search of lunch. There is a toilet block close to the car park, as well as an outdoors catering facility and picnic benches.  We opted for Fish and Chips in the Dino Diner. The service was good and the food was hot and tasty when it arrived.

A stand out memory for me on previous trips exploring West Midland Safari Park has been the hippo feeding sessions and we were lucky enough to end up standing right next to the keeper with her barrow full of cabbages this time around.  My normally reserved son was straight in there picking his cabbages and throwing them over the fence to the waiting hungry hippos. He had so much fun and it was lovely to watch. Another first, another memory made.

Meerkats and Lemurs are always good fun to watch so we headed to the African Village and on to the Lemur Woods for a bit of animal spotting.  There’s also a walk through Goat Park to explore.

The Walk Through part of West Midland Safari is very child friendly, easy for buggies and quite compact really. For younger visitors there is now the Boj Giggly Park area which opened this summer offering a play area and character meet ups.

There is an Adventure Theme Park area within West Midland Safari Park with chargeable rides. You can buy tickets for specific rides or wristbands for multiple rides. My son isn’t a thrill seeker and was more interested in seeing the animals so we didn’t try this part of the park out really, but lots of other families were clearly enjoying the additional facilities in this area.

I hadn’t mentioned the Land of the Living Dinosaurs to my 7 year old son before we arrived as I wanted this to be an extra surprise for him, and I wasn’t totally sure what to expect myself. We all agreed that this area was really good fun and very well done.  With all sorts of moving dinosaurs my son was in seventh heaven. There are forty different dinosaurs to come face to face with in the largest animatronics dinosaur attraction in the UK. As well as seeing the moving dinosaurs you can also dig for dinosaur fossils and learn about their eggs, and brains!

We also got to see bats flying around in the dark as well as lots of reptiles, penguins , insects and fish.  We didn’t get our timings right to enjoy the sea-lion show sadly, and the lorikeet landing area was closed on the day we were Exploring West Midland Safari Park.  But we still had a full day out and everyone enjoyed themselves.

The great thing about exploring West midland Safari Park is that you can go on the drive through safari as many times as you like throughout the day.  It’s certainly busier in the afternoon, but even on a busy, sunny half term day we didn’t feel as if the second drive through was particularly longer than the first.  But probably worth making sure everyone has been for a pit stop beforehand. I always recommend doing at least two safari drives at different points in the day so you stand a good chance of seeing all the animals up close.  It worked for us again this time and my son got to see so many giraffes he was a very happy boy.

We spent a wonderful day exploring West Midland Safari Park, and we even saw a steam train ride past from the Severn Valley Railway, which was an added bonus.  My eldest niece went to the Firework Festival last weekend and had a great evening, and it looks as if there is lots of festive fun to be had with the Santa Safari which you can pre-book on-line.  There’s also an option to upgrade your entrance tickets to annual passes which gives you some great reductions across the park.

Have you been before?  If not, why not pin this post for later?

Exploring West Midlands Safari Park

Country Kids
disclosure:  we were given complimentary tickets in exchange for an honest review.

3 thoughts on “Exploring West Midland Safari Park

  1. This really takes me back, West Midlands Safari Park was the first Safari park I ever visited. I must have been Monkey’s age or younger and still remember the purple trousers I wore and my Aunt and Uncle taking me and jokingly threatening to feed me to the monkeys if I wasn’t good – I was just young enough to be unsure if they were kidding or not! The animals look every bit as impressive as I remember and clearly still come up close to you. The adventure playground and Dinosaur land is all new and looks amazing fun. This is a real full on day out, but definitely worth the journey.

    Thank you for sharing with me on #CountryKids

  2. I love all your photos of the animals – such stunning shots. How amazing that the giraffes came up so close to you – my girls would have loved that too. The Land of the Living Dinosaurs looks like an amazing attraction as well 🙂 #countrykids

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