ARK Wildlife & Dinosaur Park — Attraction in East Lindsey

Today we visited the Ark Wildlife and dinosaur park and was a little underwhelmed.

We payed £35 for a family of 4, which isn’t to bad for a day out itself, however there was a couple of things that made our trip a little disappointing.

Firstly when following the map in some sort of order, the first 3/4 pens / animal areas have high barriers for young children, For example.. we went to listen to a talk about the meerkats but our son couldn’t see nothing because the fences were too high and there was no viewing window. I feel more viewing windows could be added, or even a standing box area. In turn he just got bored and walked off. We understand that some need to be high so they don’t escape but surely the whole point is so children can see them!

We then headed to the cafe area. This is quite expensive. Over £5 for a children’s jam sandwich meal! We ordered our food inside and said we wanted to order a pizza. (The pizza van is located outside by the play area). The staff said that it can be ordered inside with them and it wasn’t a problem. So off we go and sit down at a table inside. Then a few minutes later a member of staff came over with a piece of paper and number telling me I had to take it to the pizza van. I was a little confused, but went to the van with the number to be told ours will be cooked after the orders that had been taken already from people outside. I was told to come back in 15 minutes. So back inside I go. During this time my wife’s sandwich has come and I’ve started to eat my £2.25 little sausage roll. 15 mins later, we’re finished and my daughter are just sat there waiting for their food. So I go back to the pizza van to be told just another 5 minutes! So back I go to the table. We’re all finished and now waiting for a pizza for my children’s lunch. Totally unorganised.. see picture below of our £8 pizza after 4 trips to the van and 21 minutes wait! I think abit of advice to the park would be don’t take pizza orders at the cafe. There’s no point!

Unfortunately we didn’t see some of the animals. A lot was in there houses/dens. I won’t blame the park for that. Guessing we were just unlucky!

To the positives, the dinosaur part was a really nice walk and good picture opportunity. The collect the stamps walking around was also fun and the play park is really good.

So after spending over £70 here today and with our experience from earlier on in the day just made us disappointed, so much so that we won’t be coming back or sadly recommending...

We visited the Ark as I had been given a fox encounter as a gift from my partner as i love Foxes and was looking forward to seeing and hopefully intereacting with some up close, and seeing the other animals the Ark is home to. The day we visited was extremely and unseasonally hot, and understandably quite a few of the animals were hiding from the heat, or sleeping, however there were as still a lot around, particularly the species who aren't so phased by the heat, like the meerkats, and it was great seeing many of the others with the frozen treats/ice/water given to them for enrichment and to keep cool, particularly the raccoons, tanukis, and the foxes. After walking around the park we stopped at the cafe to get out of the sun for a bit, and get something to drink, nice little cafe with a decent selection to eat and drink. The keeper (my apologies to them as i didn't catch their name) then came and met us at the reception desk for the fox encounter, we went and assembled enrichment for the foxes with a couple of paper sacks, straw and some frozen melon and chicken, and headed to the fox enclosures, Saying hi to a pretty silver fox named Shadow who had spotted us and came over to investigate as we walked past her enclosure. We then went into the ajacent enclosure where we met two lovely foxes, Dexter and Lana, Dexter was very friendly, came up to us and even let us scratch him under his chin, Lana was a little more aprehensive but did come really close to us, and stayed near while investigating the enrichment we took them, (she really loved the frozen melon!) and we got some great photographs.

The keeper talked to us about these two foxes and how they came to be at the ark, about foxes in general, and people keeping them and other exotic animals as pets, and the subsequent welfare issues with people doing so (legally or not) all in all very interesting, and a great experiance and very much worth the trip.

After the encounter we had another quick wander round the park, and spotted that the arctic foxes had all come out from the shade now that the temprature was coming down, and were all sat watching (possibly for feeding time? ) I do regret not asking about the arctic fox scatter feed but the staff looked busy when we arrived, and after the encounter it was getting close to closing time, maybe next time we visit though! Overall really enjoyed visiting, and hope to be back again in the...

Fantastic and tremendous wildlife and dinosaur located in the heart of the Lincolnshire countryside between Skegness and Boston. The great thing about this place is that it is has a wonderful charming welcoming feel and appeal to it but also it is also very unique in the sense that all the animals they have have been rescued from former owners and other zoo collections, which is very heartwarming and brilliant as some of the animals have had previously difficult lives and been found in some horrendous circumstances. This is great as it gives the animals a chance to have a second chance at life and have a great quality life that was denied previously. The animals themselves are kept in wonderful spacious enclosures and excellent clean and tidy conditions showing that their welfare is very well maintained and they very well looked after and cared for. There is decent extensive range of animals to see including Bobcats, Caracals, Serval, Raccoons, Raccoon Dogs, Arctic Foxes, Skunk, African Crested Porcupine, Meerkats, Wallabies, Jungle Cats, Morolets Crocodile, Spectacled Caiman, Snakes and Eurasian Lynx. All of the animals have a lovely wonderful friendly temperament about them and you catch a great glimpse of them in their enclosures. Another area of the Park that definitely deserves a mention is the Jurassic Ark which is located around Lemur Island and you can see a brilliant range of Dinosaurs on show including Tyranosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops and a Brontosaurus amongst others which are brilliantly displayed and Tyranosaurus Rex is an excellent anamatronic Dinosaur as it is so lifelike when it moves around. All of the Dinosaurs have information boards next to them which have some very interesting facts about them. There is a cafe which has a nice range of food and drink at reasonable prices and there is a gift shop with a small range of great souvenirs at reasonable prices. Overall this is an excellent, marvellous, charming and brilliant place to visit and makes for a fantastic and wonderful day out to see amazing animals and Dinosaurs. Definitely well worth a visit whilst in the Skegness and...