Butterfly Valley butterfly farm — Attraction in Hibiscus Coast Local Municipality

Butterfly Valley

This is home to butterfly species bred in South Africa. Seeing the butterflies and learning about their process is exciting and great. The reception was nice enough to extend our tickets for the remainder of our stay.

The tour process starts with a video about the Monarch butterflies , when finished watching the presentation you start your tour.

First of all we were told that the tour guide was a volunteer which is all fair and well but she had no clue what she was doing or saying , the tour guide also did not know how to pronounce most terms. When the tour guide was asked a question about anything her reply was "i don't know but i think so". On our tour we had a family with children who upon entering the domes already killed 3 of the butterflies understandably that was the parents fault for having no control but the tour guide also didn't do anything about it.

After we finished our tour we signed our names in the registry and went to the tea garden for something cold to drink. We rang the bell 6 times and no one came to assist.

Butterfly Valley is beautiful but the staff is slow and not much of any help this is why i gave them a low rating they really need to improve on this.

They also have a gift shop on site , but there is way to much junk and toys just for the kids that had absolutely nothing to do with the butterflies except for a view butterfly fridge magnets. I bought a few of the magnets as gifts as well as to remember the places we've seen 7 out of the 10 magnets broke as it was taken out of the package not very good quality.

Butterfly Valley needs to start making improvements on their staff as well as the merchandise sold in...

Let's start with the pro's:

Milandi is very knowledgeable and definitely has a passion as "volunteer" and tour guide. She taught us a lot about butterflies and completely changed my outlook on them. She's also fantastic with kids, which is definitely a plus for anyone with young ones. We saw a few beautiful butterflies, as well as their earlier life stages.

The cons: Let's start with the elephant in the room: the moment you walk in, you are told by the young person at reception not to give any cash to "the volunteer", as apparently "she loses the money". Whereafter you are informed that "the volunteer" is not paid by the butterfly farm, but that you are to leave a tip for her in "the volunteer's tipbox". The reason for the song and dance being fairly obvious to anyone with eyes and more than 2 braincells. However, when leaving, MUCH emphasis is again placed on "the volunteer's tipbox".

I read the other reviews and it is obvious that most people would not have had a good experience or visit the place at all if it was not for Milandi. The farm should definitely make her wellbeing one of their top priorities, as I myself would have given this review 2 stars had it not been for her. Rather increase the entry fee and give her a fixed monthly salary, rather than politely forcing a tip from clients for what can probably only be described as your farm's most valuable person.

The structures and the farm in general needs a lot of attention and I think it can improve significantly if more...

What an absolutely wonderful experience.

First definitely try and go on a sunny warm day, however if that isn't possible, the butterflies still try their best.

As we went off season, we had the entire butterfly valley to ourselves and the staff gave us a 5 star treatment with a personal tour.

Filled with all different types of butterflies in the one section, spiders in another, turtles, bunnies, birds, some fish, a chicken and some guinea pigs.

We chose to do the walk around first and then forgot to go watch the video ad the weather wasn't the best for butterfly viewing, but luckily mother nature decided to give us 5 minutes of some sun in which the valley came alive for us.

The tickets are valid for 7 days once you buy them, so if the weather is bad on the day you go and the butterflies are sleeping, you can go back until you are happy.

The staff are wonderful and kind, gentle and really caring for the animals they take care of. Our tour guide was a volunteer for the center and she was an absolute delight to walk around with.

The centre is definitely a bit older, but they maintain the structure well.

It's so sweet how some of the butterflies are friendly and came to sit on your shoulder (if you wear bright colours, highly recommend bright orange or yellow so they think you are a fruit) and you can take some photos with them. The staff also have a stick insect you can hold.

Wish we had enough time to go back again with the weather...