The Natural World Centre — Attraction in North Kesteven

For the love of all that is holy do not try and go to the soft play between 10am and 11am it is absolutely jam packed and is just not fun if you are the parent a child that isn't a loud, brashy toddler. Do yourself a favour and go and have a coffee, give your kid a snack and come back after 11, then all the cliquey mummies and their hellspawn will have left and your child will be able to enjoy a relatively peaceful play time (we ended up spending a good couple hours here in the end). Other than this small bit of information I wish I had known the rest of my experience was delightful, the food was nice and well priced and in the summer the walks are lovely.

I still think however that the £2 parking fee is taking things too far as there are no alternatives to parking on site, so you are forced to pay. If they are worried that they will lose money because people use the walking and facilities but don't go in the centre to buy anything then I would suggest you offer a refund on the parking if you buy something from the shop or the cafe.. just a little incentive to get people...

Decided to visit this point of interest after not knowing what to get up to on a free Saturday. From the images I had seen it looked like quite a large place to visit but there isn’t much open ground for day a picnic but they do have ample picnic tables around the front entrance. Parking is £2 for all day (even though we only stayed for about an hour and a half) if your visiting for coffee you would need to add that cost into account. Great place to take children of 3+ and up to play on the indoor and outdoor areas. I found that some signage and play areas need a little TLC just to bring it up to scratch. They have a small shop based around the natural world and some gift ideas. A decent sized cafe/restaurant for larger meals which looked ok. Good place to visit if...

Nice place. Good price for parking at £3 for the day. Cafe not dog friendly in the actual cafe but they have priority seating for people with dogs in the visitor centre attached (not sure how it works if you are alone with a dog) Usual prices for the things we had (always a bit steep) but very tasty. They were able to do an oat milk hot chocolate (and dairy free cream) which was great. Lots of homemade craft items for sale in the visitor centre. So many fungi/mushrooms to be seen on the walks around if that's your thing, as well as bird/wildlife spotting.

Yellow trail allows dogs off lead. All other trails dogs on lead. All trails we did (all but the yellow) were well marked and hard standing of some description so shouldn't be too bad in winter for slipping in...