Woburn Safari Park

Our Tesco Clubcard summer continues! This weekend we used our vouchers to visit Woburn Safari Park. We've visited a couple of times before, but this was our first visit with both children. We picked a dry day, and arrived just as the park was opening.

We started with the Road Safari, which you drive through in your car. It took us about 1 1/2 hours in total, and it was pretty busy but we were able to keep moving through. There is lots to see, and you can get very close to the animals. Our favourite area was the monkeys, with lots of monkeys climbing about all over the cars which the children loved watching.

Harry was too young to remember his previous visit, so it was like a new experience for both children and they absolutely loved it. We only did the Road Safari once, but you can go around as many times as you like.

Then we headed to The Mammoth Play Park which was very good. It's an indoor soft play area, dominated by three large slides. Mia was only tall enough to ride the colourful bumpy slide, but she loved it and by the end was coming down by herself over and over again. Harry was a bit too timid for the slides, but he enjoyed climbing around the edges and there was also a separate area for smaller children.

On the left of the picture below you can see the enormous drop slide, which I was brave enough to have a go on, it was brilliant fun! It's worth noting that to go on the two larger slides you need to have your arms and legs covered, so if it's a hot day make sure that you've got extra clothes for the children.

We normally take our own picnic on days out, but today we ran out of bread and only had enough to make sandwiches for the children. Unfortunately this meant that we had to buy some food at the park, so we decided to try the 2x2 Restaurant in the Mammoth Play Park, and it was very disappointing. We paid £10.48 for two wraps, one portion of chips and one milkshake.  After a long wait for the wraps the chips were cold, so they had to be replaced. Then when Ram opened his veggie wrap it was just a wrap with lettuce, peppers and onions inside! He had to take it back and wait again for a replacement which contained the missing ingredients - cheese, salsa and mushrooms - and to be honest it wasn't that nice and certainly not good value for money. We've learned from this, next time we go on an outing we'll make sure we take all our own food!

In the afternoon we explored the areas of the park that you visit on foot. We walked with wallabies in the Australian Walkabout area, and saw spider monkeys and lemurs up close. There is an outdoor play area, and a section with bouncy castles for little ones. 

We enjoyed the train ride which takes you through the deer enclosure, and the children also liked Penguin World where you can watch the penguins swimming past you underwater. We also spent quite a bit of time in the Sheep and Goats area where you can see them up close and even stroke them. 

There really is a lot to see, and because the whole area is quite compact young children can walk around it easily. We really enjoyed our day out at Woburn Safari Park and I'm sure that we'll be back.

We spent the night at Premier Inn Luton South M1 Jct 9, and it's worth a mention because we were very impressed with it. It's not the closest hotel to the park, but we chose it as we were combining our visit to Woburn with seeing family.

We paid just £29 for a family room, booked a few months ago, and although there wasn't much room once all the beds were out, it was a modern, clean room and perfectly fine. I loved that when we checked in they told us that there were two rubber ducks hidden inside the room for the children to find, and when they brought them down to reception they could choose a prize from a little box of toys - what a lovely idea! Our room was in a quiet part of the hotel, marked out by lots of signs reminding us to keep the noise down, and we had a lovely peaceful night's sleep with the children sleeping better than they do at home!