Twycross Zoo — Attraction in Hinckley and Bosworth

Went to the zoo after years, and overall it was a decent day out, but a few things let it down.

I was a bit gutted there are no elephants at this zoo. I remember a long time ago there was elephants. I wish they could bring back the elephants.

Unfortunately the tigers and leopards were hiding – I was looking forward to seeing them, maybe on my next visit. There was no lions, which was once again a shame.

Feeding the lorikeets was fun, but £5 for two tiny pots of watery/liquid in a small McDonald's paper ketchup pot, I felt like a mug buying it, a complete rip-off. I felt this was one money-making ploy.

Toilets were in a bad state and clearly not cleaned often enough. There was urine on the toilet seats and smelt unpleasant. For the price of the tickets paid, I expect decent/clean toilets. I suggest regular toilet checks.

I'd definitely recommend bringing a packed lunch – the café is quite pricey for what you get, they really pull your pants down in places like this when you buy food on site, especially the café near the Gruffalo bit. Also, at the entrance near the soft play, the Costa Latte I brought was quite expensive, really think the price is quite high, nearly £5 for latte, and £1.25 for a small cookie (this on a deal for the coffee apparently apparently, god forbid to know what the cookie costed by itself if it wasn't apart of the cookie deal). My point again, bring your own food, drinks etc.

The giraffes, rhinos, zebras and all the primates were great. Luckily we got to see them.

The goat area was cute too, especially the baby goats that are a couple of weeks old with their mothers. There was a small opportunities to pet the goats if they come up to you. The staff member working the goats was kind and was able to provide any information we asked about the goats.

The butterfly house was lovely, and the giant tortoises were amazing to see up close. There was a lot of other animals to see.

There was a lot of lego models of animals around Twycross Zoo, which was nice, really nice for photo opportunities. But, I think this is to distract the fact the lacking of animals I feel in some areas. The one thing that annoyed me is that there is a massive Lego models of animals elephant, but no elephants at the zoo. Lol, even the panda/lion lego models annoyed me, as there are definitely no pandas/lions at the zoo. I'd rather see them personally, not in lego form.

Parking was easy/plentiful, and only £3. I can't complain about the parking.

Nice bonus that your ticket includes an annual pass, so you can return for free within a year. Luckily, I was able to get 35% off, as I am a Blue Light Card member. I advised to buy your tickets online as it's cheaper online. I'm glad I was able to get a discount.

Good for a visit, but a few things need improving facilities to make it really worth the price. It got us out the house for the day rather than the kids staying in doors playing on technology. It got my kids out being active, walking around exploring the zoo. When it rained, it was nice that there was shelter and indoor bits to keep us dry. It was quite busy, some places got fairly crowded, but it's expected...

Absolutely brilliant day out! We had bought tickets online beforehand so we were able to go straight through to the ticket booths. Jumping the short queue at the ticket office. I can imagine that the queue for the ticket office could be quite long during the summer holidays. Just after the ticket booths is the information centre, where I could see a line up of scooters for hire. At £20 hire fee for the day, because of the nature of my disability I wasn't sure how long I would be able to go around in my wheelchair, I can honestly say that the extra comfort provided by a very sturdy, well padded seating helped lengthen my very first (won't be the last time this year either) time at Twycross Zoo. I was able to nip around with ease and apart from the Lama pen I was able to see every animal, and that alone was worth the £20 fee, which when I broke it down into the 4 hour trip was an hourly rate of £5, which is what you would expect to pay at most shop mobility schemes nowadays. The zoo is airy and well laid out, I think we managed to see about 70% of the zoo. Can't wait to go back to see the other 30% especially the owls. The animals are amazing to see, they are very well kept, have good amounts of space yet most are clearly visible to the public. There are always the stand out species, the biggest for me was the gorillas, we had stopped for lunch at the Catch of the day fish n chip's restaurant, which we had decided on the day before as my companions had visited Twycross often as children so knew that it was about halfway around the Zoo, as I prefer to have my main meal at lunch having a hot meal halfway through the visit is genius. As it was a beautiful sunny spring morning we took advantage of the weather so sat outside close to the gorilla exhibit. As we arrived the youngest gorilla was out and playing with some hay, then spotting a pair of cheeky magpies started chasing them around his area. Just as we finished lunch, someone said that the gorillas are being fed, I was there another 15-20 minutes watching the fascinating animals gathering food, seeing the interactions between the huge younger silverback, the juveniles and the much older silver back. The golden tamarins are extremely beautiful and so tiny, especially compared to the giraffes, rhinos and zebras. The chimps and bonobos are extremely playful and such a joy to watch. I had no problems getting around both inside and outside enclosures, everything has been well thought through so even when faced with prams there was more than enough space to move side by side with another wide vehicle. When you buy a ticket you can go back free for the next year, we activated the annual ticket thing in the information centre as we live within an 30ish minute drive and will most definitely be going back before the schools break up for summer holidays and a number of times in the autumn and over Christmas too. I can't wait to see how Christmas is done...

Visited a few times over many years, and have to say 2025 is the most rundown I’ve ever seen it, and considering how mega busy it was, it’s sad to see it, the poor tiger was pacing back and forth over the same 25ft area, the monkeys looked sad and bored, and most of the animals were cold and hiding, the buildings looked to be falling to pieces one even visibly collapsing, yes cordoned off but still unsightly. The cafes and restaurants where ridiculously busy, no where to sit, people fighting for tables etc, staff in the ‘oh crumbs’ restaurant seemed to have a good number but you had 3 people stood waiting to prepare drinks that weren’t being ordered, cos everyone was purchasing cold drinks, so you had one person serving and 3 stood around chatting looking disgusted when asked to make a drink, they weren’t even asking people in the queue if they needed hot drinks, which would of helped the queue go down faster they weren’t even asking basically doing one customer at a time. And yes I’ve worked in a coffee shop/ restaurant, with the same drinks preparation as they were using no excuse to be stood chatting when you have a queue a mile long and a 20 minute wait just to be served! And when one person shouted can you make me a latte before another person in front of them had been served and she said can you make me a tea and a coffee seems we are in a queue the blonde haired girl could of killed her with the look she gave her! But perhaps if she had been serving instead of talking to her colleague the customer wouldn’t of needed to say she needed serving before the person behind her! Train your staff in these places! If you’ve got a queue serve don’t talk! It looked like they didn’t even know what they were supposed to be doing! Oh crumbs need staff training asap! The catch restaurant, fantastic got the food out fast, needs more tables though as trying to get seated is ridiculous you’ve got a massive gap in the middle where people order and wait and this could have a couple of extra tables! There was no where to sit and when you did manage to get seated people were glaring at you cos they wanted you to move to so they could also sit down, people had a full table to them selves for 4 when you could fit 8 on them but they wouldn’t share! Get more tables and seats please. Also for people who struggle with walking yet aren’t classed as disabled it would be really helpful if you could pop some benches on the route upto the zoo from the very bottom carpark or maybe a shuttle haha, it was a long walk and breaks can be needed. Especially after walking round the zoo and then you have half a mile walk back to the car. And also the prices in the gift shop are astronomical if they bought the prices down they may sell more! Overall an ok day. But I’d recommend taking a picnic as prices were stupidly expensive and the queues not worth it! Really needs a big cash...