Avon Valley Adventure & Wildlife Park — Attraction in Keynsham

I have decided to leave this review after our trip at Avon Valley 29/8/24. Despite emailing you multiple times with no response. Due to the nature of my complaint I find it very concerning that you have chosen to ignore my emails.

We visited your park as a family of 4 alongside another party of 2 adults and 2 children. Unfortunately we decided to visit your park for the first time on a day that was very busy and understaffed. The lack of staff and organisation was incredibly disappointing as it resulted in shows and rides not running on time, or closed with no sign to indicate when they would be running again.

We chose your park especially for the dinosaur experience, that 4 young children were excited about, but instead of a expected incredible experience we were met with disappointment and upset children. The explorers experience was not running on time, and when we finally got in, it was overcrowded resulting in the children not being able to see or get involved. The dinosaur meet and greet was a let down aswell, as staff informed us that there was only 1 dinosaur that day due to being short staffed and that they usually have more dinosaurs to meet. We attempted the dinosaur trail but as you needed to go down a gravelled slope, it was not very buggy friendly and my 4 year old son slipped and fell down resulting in tears, grazed hands and knees. The dinosaur trail was not clearly signed and was looking overgrown with some dinosaurs showing signs of wear and tear with broken or missing parts.

We took part in the animal petting activities but was disappointed in the lack of involvement of any staff. There was no 'animal talks' or introducing of the animals with any form of information. Instead they seemed more interested to be huddled in a corner chatting together or on their phones. This resulted in any children to be left to do as they pleased. We witnessed other children incorrectly and roughly petting a bunny and 3 ponies. The ponies were showing signs of distress and when I moved my child away when it was their turn to groom the horse, it ended up biting my finger. Whilst I would rather be bitten myself than a child, I was not impressed by the lack of care by staff and the fact they still allowed more children to carry on touching this horse who had clearly had enough. This is obviously a health and safety issue.

The candy canon was another waste of time. The lack of staff and their ability to control the crowd, ment there were more adults pushing past children fighting over packets of sweets and many children missing out whilst others had lots.

We stayed for the 'foam party' as this was something the children were looking forward to for a 1st time experience. Again the event was short staffed and was over crowded. When the foam machine started there was instant disappointment as it produced a sorry amount of foam, and only the children directly infront of the machine were able to get any, which again left most children missing out. For a crowd of that size there should of been atleast 2 machines and a crowd rotating system so everyone could get involved.

After getting recommendations from family and friends that have attended your park and have had an amazing day out, we expected the same from our visit. Unfortunately it did not meet any expectations and after a day of disappointment we are reluctant to return to your park again, under the current circumstances. A group of us spent £114.85 on tickets, which was totally unjust, to say the least. We would of been better off saving our money and going to our free local petting farm and adventure playground.

Your hasty response would be greatly...

Visited Avon Valley park for the Pumpkin Patch on the 15/10/23. I visited last year for the nights experience and was really pleasantly surprised as how pretty the place is with rides, food and the patch all offering a brilliant atmosphere.

This year we were sure we wanted to visit again but could only make the daytime at 4pm so thought we could get a couple of hours in on what was probably the last sunny evening of the year.

When we arrived we were told that everything was going to close at 5, so went straight onto the dodgems at the tune of £5 per car, which only realistically lasted 3 minutes. In a party of 10, a short drive around netted the event £50 which felt very unfair!

The decorations at the event were great, as they were last year, with thousands of pumpkins strewn along the walkway, a pyro show, lots of lights, a seating area and a food area.

The food area was as expected, but a little strange to add cold mac and cheese onto burning hot fries (especially since they cost £11 for a little tray!). Drinks were expensive but that's completely normal for an event with no neighbouring catering facilities.

Parking was easy and better located than last year, where I ended up getting a puncture and had to replace my tyre on the country road that got us there the year before. This year you turn down an industrial estate and go over a single lane bridge and then the parking is just to your right.

There are thousands of pumpkins on the actual patch and this made for fantastic photo opportunities. I brought my camera and did a photo shoot with my friends in a few different locations and thank goodness it was sunny on the evening we visited!

Lots of wheelbarrows available but it wasn't busy at all when we went, owing likely to the fact it was a Sunday and about to close.

I would recommend against visiting during the day and against visiting on a Sunday evening as it feels less like you're leaving the event and more like the event has ended with you still in it.

Feedback to work on would be: Lower the price of the dodgems for quieter times or extend the duration if there's nobody waiting in the queue. Have signs up if food isn't available Don't charge £3 for 4 small marshmallows on a stick? It would be nice to have speakers playing ambient sounds in the field for some more atmosphere More clearly mark the closing times on the website during booking Toilet signs

Thanks for the visit and see...

We had high hopes for Avon Valley but ended up being severely disappointed. The only positives really were the outdoor bouncy pillows & the dinosaurs that were used for the dinosaur event were pretty realistic. I can’t say anything else was up to standard & considering the park is closed for so long over the winter, I was was shocked it hadn’t been maintained or worked on over these months. The site is NOT accessible, it is very hard to manoeuvre electric wheelchairs or buggies around the park due to the bumps in the concrete, lack of modern ramps & extremely large rocked gravelled paths. The paths were a nightmare for my mum in her electric wheelchair & weren’t much better for the little ones pushchair either. It’s also disappointing that ramps for getting in & out of the shop aren’t smooth, have large gaps & lips between them & the doorway. Of all the places we’ve visited in the last year that are similar to Avon valley, it was the worst for accessibility. The soft play was tatty, tired & had rips in the soft play material which wasn’t good, especially considering a lot of the rips are at head hight & are missing their stuffing. In the toddler area the floor to the side of the slide was covered in balls & I assumed It was going to be soft but when I stepped down in to it, the floor was rock soild, which was worrying considering how children throw themselves around. The food was exactly as you’d expect, but was extortionatly priced for bad quality fast food & also took a ridiculously long time to arrive. Turns out they’d forgotten to make our order but no apology or refund was offered. Definitely recommend taking your own picnic food if you’re going as the food offering isn’t worth the money. The animals didn’t seem to be happy & the conditions of their pens could’ve been better, we didn’t say anything at the time but both my husband & I both commented on the animals environment during the drive home. We really wanted this place to be enjoyable & had been looking forward to coming, but the experience left us wishing we’d gone somewhere else. I wouldn’t recommend coming here as it is now. If work were done to improve the park then it could be good, but it’s not worth the money...