13 Theme Parks this Year - 6: West Midlands Safari Park

[HEMANCLOFTY]

6: West Midlands Safari Park
Sunday 1st July 2018

The Index is here

We’d spent a few days pondering what our 6th theme park of the year would be, and hadn’t even decided when we went to bed on Saturday night, but we woke up to a beautiful sunny day and made the decision to head to West Midlands Safari Park - 1) because it was the closest, and 2) because (unlike Drayton Manor which is also close), there are no online discounts for booking in advance.

I made a packed lunch, and we stopped at the local shop for some bottled drinks and we were on our way by 10am. By Half past, we were pulling into the park and joined the queue to pay / get in. The queue was moving slowly and took about 15-20 mins until we were at the ticket booth – paying £24 each for me and Rich and £19 for Tom (this includes a ticket for a free return during the season).

Most cars seemed to be heading for the safari, so we parked up and went into the zoo area first, checking out the Penguins...

...and then heading into the bat cave. It must’ve been a bit too early for the bats though, as we only felt 1 or 2 flying around (last time we came there were loads).

It was really hot by the time we came out from the bats, so we stopped and sun sprayed up, then headed into the new Ice Age area – this was really well done, with some great animatronics and lots of signage and info about the various species – I took a few photos o my phone, but my battery died on me...

Rich and Tom took a few pics for once...

Rich even did a few selfies...

We went to see the Lorikeets next, paying about £1.50 for a pot of food, which I ended up holding – I was instantly descended on by this little fella, who drank the whole lot in about 30 seconds...

Next was the Dinosaur walkthrough, although this section is older, just like the Ice Age area it was very well done, and the animatronics were impressive...

There may have been some humming of the Jurassic park theme tune whilst walking around here .

It was probably about 12ish by now, so we headed around to the Adventure Theme Park area. It was an extra £14 each (£12 for Tom) for wristbands, or we could get tokens from £2 each. We had a quick wander around to check out the rides before deciding which to buy – there were enough rides that we fancied that would make the wristbands worthwhile, so we headed back to the booths to buy them.

We all went on Black Fly first, which is Frisbee...

NB - due to my battery running out, all the pics of rides included are from Google

We don’t usually like spinny flat rides, but we all thought we should at least give it a try. It was nowhere near as bad as Maelstrom at Drayton Manor, and Tom and I would probably do it again, but it wasn’t for Rich at all .

Next up was Wild river Rafting, which is a “travelling” raft ride...

We'd been on this once before, when we came for the Fireworks a few years ago, and it’s not a bad little raft ride. We didn’t bother putting our flip flops on as we hadn’t got too wet last time, but our feet were immediately soaked by the pool of water in the bottom of the raft. It was another good ride and we didn’t get much wetter on the way round (other than our shoes).

Tom and I did the Jungle Swings next, thinking that a couple of laps spinning in the air would help to dry off our shoes a bit. I also really want to do the Worlds Tallest Star Flyer on iDrive next time we go to Orlando, so I need to work my way up to it .

It was about 12:30 by now and we were all peckish, so we grabbed a pic-nic table next to Hippo lank and tucked into our packed lunch of ham sandwiches and Walkers French Fries.

There were some snake slides near the pic-nic area that I fancied having a go on. The boys weren’t too fussed so I went to go on by myself. However I could see that guests without sleeved tops were being given a bit oversized fleece to wear, which I didn’t really fancy so I let it and went back to the boys.

There was a lemur talk on at 1pm, so we headed up to Lemur wood next, arriving at the talk spot just in time. About 10 lemurs came to the keeper for the talk, which was quite interesting, and it was nice to sit on the bench and listen. We found out that this is the biggest lemur enclosure in Britain...

There were Goats and Meercats just after the Lemurs, so we mooched around these for a while – “talking” to one particularly noisy goat, which was funny .

It was time for some more rides next – we’d seen on a Theme Park Worldwide vlog that the drop-tower Viper was quite good so we headed for that next...

We ending up riding 3 times in a row – we didn’t even have t get out of our seats between the 2nd and 3rd drops . It was really good and we all enjoyed the forceful drop and Rich and I agreed it was better than Hurakan Condor at PortAventura.

Next was the Rhinocoaster...

...which was ok, a typical family Vekoma, but quite fast and it was a 2 lap special .

We doubled back on ourselves to do Kong next, which is a Zamperla Mega Disc’O..

It was the first time we’d ever tried one of these rides and, despite the back restraints being a bit snug, we all loved it – there was soooo much airtime at the top ends.

Tom and I went on the African Big Apple junior coaster next...

...this wasn’t exciting at all, but it was another “coaster credit” in the bank.

We all did Zambizi Water Splash next. We all like this style of “travelling” log flume, and the saw-mill theming added by the park was very good. We had a good soaking too .

We were all quite thirsty by now, but decided to do Walls Twister next...

This was the only ride of the day that we had to properly queue for, and even then it was only 5-10 mins at the most. I usually really enjoy this type of wild-mouse ride, but this one was really rough, and it wasn’t helped by my bare legs getting pinched against the seats – it was quite painful at times.

Tom wanted to do the Jungle Cat Dodgems next and as there was no one else queuing and it would be boring on his own, I agreed to go on with him whilst Rich went to get a drink. We ended up waiting a few minutes for the riders before us to finish, and it was very hot and uncomfortable by now (seeing Rich over the other side with a drink didn’t help).

We were all ridden out by now (abut 2:30) and I was starting to feel a bit iffy – the drink didn’t help, so I thought something to eat might. I really couldn’t decide what to have though – the only counter without a queue in the rides area was Jacket Potatoes, but I wanted something salty like chips and tom was hungry too so we agreed to head down towards the entrance to see what they had there.

There wasn’t much, just a chicken and pizza place, so Tom got in the queue whilst I got another drink in the sweet shop. I was going to get a bar of chocolate, but they all felt a bit melty.

Rich and I stood waiting for Tom – the queue was moving so slowly, he’d been in it for over 10 minutes and had barely moved through a 3rd of it. I felt a little bit better after my drink, so I suggested he leave the queue and we could get something later.

The Sea Lion show wasn’t until 3:30, so we walked back and had a look around the Reptile House, and then sat down and watched the 3pm snake talk. This was ok, but I felt it was spoiled by most of the other guests not paying attention and talking quite loudly – I’m guessing they were just taking advantage of the shaded seating.

We mooched over to watch the Sea Lions, which was ok (apart from a young girl doing a very wet sneeze all over my back!). There was lots of Disney music whilst we waited for the show to start.

I was still feeling a bit drained and definitely needed something salty to eat now, so we agreed not to do the Safari drive and to get a cheeky Maccy Ds on the way home. It was 4pm when we left and we were in Maccys by 4:30 enjoying Quarter Ponder meals all round. I even had a cheeky chocolate milkshake too and felt much better afterwards.

When we got home I realised that I had a pretty nasty bite under my boob – it was very painful and itchy and when Rich googled, we came to the conclusion that that must be a horsefly bite, which would explain why I felt so unwell.

Despite my funny turn, it was a really good day – we thought the rides were really good, we barely queued at all (apart from the aborted food queue) and we’ll probably take advantage of our free return later in the year, as we still have the Safari Drive to do, and we’d only need to pay for ride wristbands next time.

[Guest]

How much do I love the Rhinocoaster?

ADORABLE!

That looks like a really fun day out; I think the regional parks are often underrated.


But OUCH to a horsefly bite in the bosom region.