Woburn Safari Park — Attraction in Husborne Crawley

Meh at best - I have been many times as a child - it was wonderful at one time but I found it pretty 'tired' and lengthy walks on a cloudy April day. We somehow didn't get to see Elephants that were on a road other tourists seemed to have the benefit of seeing. The Giraffes were situated close to the fence but difficult to get a photo as hangers on hogged any sign of life. The Red Panda and Porcupine felt it was too cold to come out, the animal farm was equally disappointing with 2 sets of 2 goats, a few Rea birds and 3 miniature ponies who stayed as far away as possible. The pig layed in his den equally non plus. Penguins were being cleaned out, although we did get to see them.up in their burrows.We loved the otters ..and meet kats ..1 lonely mongoose ..and 5 possibly 6 monkeys ..pretty much like the depleted Maquats, much like baboons that jump.on your car..they do this as the bonnet is warm on a cold ..or cool day. But with 20 possibly more cars trying to vantage 6-8 monkeys it was a tiresome drive through. 2 tigers, in different cages, 2 lonesome wolves, there was a pride of lions laying in a shelter cuddled up. The bears did walk ...if not run across the road in front of us ..as well as 3 rhinos ..so they saved the day! At £124 advertised for a car of 5 but on the day it was £119.00 then extra for the brochure ..extra for electric safari jeeps £25 for 2 of them ..fun but 2 laps of walking round a fenced field ..bit daft! Steep slopes and many steps isn't great for disabled and prams and buggies can't go through walk throughs ..such as limas ..all 5 of them and 2 decided enough was enough and went inside. Observation panels were dirty, and 4 out of total 7 tanks of reptiles were insects! One snake and lizard. Hand rails were broken, and some of the animal enclosures had tired swings, ropes and metal feeding boxes that really need to go! The walking got me and the prices in the shop was out of this world. I have money but plushies ...standing from £6.50 to £24.50 for a medium sized animal ..some like camels are not featured at the park. The train times should be clearly printed on the map save time, energy walking to find it's 25 mins and again you have to park a pram or pushchair. Glad I went today, rather than a hot day and if it was any more busy it would have been dreadful as well as uncomfortable. May be animal parks have seen their day, and while the animals have plenty of room to roam. The trail through Eversholt village to get in is absolutely bonkers, been drove a complete circuit to get in. My grandchildren loved it, as the concept of animals being wild really felt amazing for them. However, there is work going on within the complex which spooked the meerkats ..and there was plastic debris in the 3 seal pool. For me, it's lost its golden glamour, it's overpriced, rundown and needs...

Having not visited Woburn in several years I thought it was time for another visit. We have been during the Easter half term.

Four of us, two adults, two children. The first point I will make is that I do not think Woburn offers very good value for money. It was a shade under £115 for all of us. It was a half decent day, but there just wasn't that many animals to see. Or if you could, they were very far away.

We visited on a mildly windy day, bit blustery now and again. This meant that the two bird shows were cancelled, seemed ridiculous to me but I'm no expert, seemed more a reason 'not to do something' as opposed to have a go for the paying clientele.

One redeeming feature was the feed and talk in the Lemur enclosure, they ran around you and the keeper was knowledgeable.

I should mention the safari, it is the main reason people go, it was ok, took two trips to see everything, my main issue was the idiotic other drivers who clearly suffered with FOMO. To the point of blocking the route for 10 minutes allowing no cars to pass so they can have a chance that a monkey will jump on their car, and then (you know who you are) the retards who actually put food on there bonnet, or wing mirror (In paper tissue!!!!) to attract the monkey's, my word. This isn't Woburns fault, but if the rangers see it, deal with it, and fine the culprits. But it wasn't a pleasant experience, because it was poorly managed. That is Woburns fault. The positives for the safari, the bears and wolves were majestic. But I only saw two Wolves, not sure how many there were there but it doesn't represent much of a pack.

It's a solid 3 stars, I wouldn't visit again, for the money I would sooner go to Colchester or Chester Zoo where there is so many animals to see, having said that I question the ethicacy of zoos generally, conservation appears to mean imprisonment for animals who would have a far richer life in the wild.

The area is also quite oddly laid out. Several of the 'areas' like the giraffe (we didn't see giraffes all day) one is the other side of the road by the car parks. Takes some walking too, that as well as the birds of prey display area. (Which didn't fly, as it was windy). It's hilly too, there are accessable routes, but bare that in mind if you are not mobile.

Also need to mention the shop, £18 for 3 drinks and some packaged cakes, absolutely disgusting. Overpriced and had it be me at the counter, you could have kept them.

Would I return, no, would I recommend..... No, sorry I wouldn't, there are better options out there that for the same cost, offer more value for money and in today's world, that is...

I took my partner to Woburn for her birthday as she loves animals and it seemed like a great day out for the both of us as I was quite excited myself. When we arrived initially at 11am we made our way round the safari but due to a lot of traffic in certain areas like the lions we missed some of the more popular animals around the area. Once we had driven round once we then went into the park itself and had a good walk around taking a look at all the animals after around 2 hours we decided to drive round again and see some of the animals more closely as there was less traffic by this point. Once we had got to the monkey area of the park we were driving round with no problems at all taking our time as my partner wanted to see a monkey on the car, we clearly saw a car infront of us feeding the monkeys what seemed to be some sort of bread out their window, we didn’t feed anything to the monkeys nor even cracked a window at all, once this happened the monkey had taken the bread from the car in front and proceeded to jump on top of my car and me and my partner were enjoying seeing them so up close and it was wonderful to see, unfortunately a worker had approached my car from behind and stood at the window I then cracked the window open slightly where the man stated “I’m going to assume it was you who gave that to them so your going to have to leave.” Just to clarify the word ASSUME in this statement to which the car in front of us could have been seen quite clearly by the keepers and anybody else who was looking around but before I could even say anything in return the man had walked off without giving me even a second to say anything. This upset my partner quite a lot as she wanted to go around again and we had planned to make a full days trip out of this together. It’s quite upsetting to see that just based off a assumption that because it was on my car that we had given the bread to the monkeys we were removed from the zoo. It’s a lovely place I won’t say it’s not but having the day cut short and being spoken towards in a manner that was very blunt just put a downer on the rest of the day. I normally wouldn’t bother with reviews but this pushed my buttons quite a lot as it was a birthday present that was cut short and as people are probably aware it’s not the cheapest day out. Overall it wasn’t a bad day but the actions of said member of staff definitely put a downer on the rest of her day and mine aswell nor did I appreciate the way I was approached...