Wookey Hole Caves — Attraction in St Cuthbert Out

This is a great place to visit with young children. There's loads to do and it's just enough to fit for a whole day. Some of the attractions do feel a bit out dated, in need of a bit of TLC, but, to be honest, it kind of adds to the whole atmosphere of family friendly fun! If I'm to be critical, the que for the 4d ice age cinema experience could be done much better. There isn't a logical way to que, so people make the line themselves. The issue with this is you're not sure if you'll get in on that current wait. Not a problem, in my opinion, if you knew this, by, say, a wait from here sign? However, it's a bit deflating to que for 20 mins (roughly the time between the que moving to allow the next group in) only to find you didn't make the cut by a couple of people and face another 20 mins wait. All this isn't a massive issue, it just could be done better. Also (and I do hope Wookey management read this) they really miss a trick by not having a coffee stand near the que. They open over Halloween and Xmas so a hot drink would be readily appreciated by patrons queing and would also no doubt make the park a good revenue. All that said, the ride itself is great. I won't give any spoilers away, but it's well though through, done in 2 sections adding a wookey spin to the ice age movie. A 4d experience that will make you both laugh and jump. The sign says no under threes and.id say that's about right, 4-99 yr olds will love it. The rest of the park is good fun too. The dinosaurs are good and realistic enough (for young children) to promote chat and discussion (some facts are posted by the dinos) King Kong is fabulous, a great photo opp. It's a shame it's not interactive in any way but I'm not surprised at this, given the size of it. Inside, you get to see paper being made. An interesting demonstration but kind of a large area that falls a little short. There's an indoor play area with tables and seats dotted around. This is hectic. But hey kids LOVE it so..... I wish there were more tables as it's gets really crowded, especially since the same area gets used for buggy storage for the circus show. Nearby there's the witches kitchen for snacks and hot drinks. Ideal.... If you can get a table. The circus show is in the nearby theatre. A free short circus show, lasting around 30 mins utilising kids (trained) and a few adults. I guess they must run a circus school for locals, but I'm not sure on that. I found the show interesting and entertaining enough, my 6 yr old loved it! Show runs at 1, 2 and 3 pm. The theatre seats loads with snacks available to munch on during the show. Other places might well charge extra for this so I thought it excellent. The mirror maze is great fun, if a tad small. It still managed to get me to walk into a mirror tho lol. The penny arcade was really good I thought. Some machines take 20p pieces, others actually take the old 1d coin. You get to change money into 1d coins and use the old penny arcade machines that were found on Victorian seaside piers. Obviously they are nothing like the machines in today's arcades but you have to marvel in the ingenuity some.of these machines achieve without any electronics! Either way it's a great historical collection in its own right. There's a large canteen style cafe, called Captain Jack's. A good selection of food, at reasonable prices too, but it is canteen food so expect the heat lamp chips to be a bit dry and the veg to be tinned etc. But it's a good size portion and a fair price. You also get a round of mini golf included in your ticket price, always good fun but remember that this is a place for kids so expect family groups (with you younger children) so it.can be a bit slow going sometimes. Also a bit busy. I don't think this bothered anyone, everyone seemed to except it in the spirit of the visit. The caves are outstanding. The guides are well informed and clear. It's an actively growing exhibit, and more chambers have been added with a project to add more in the future. Cameras are allowed, but no flash. There's 3 types of bat resident...

Please note I write unbiased reviews written on experience with a young family of 3 all under 11. Nutshell: Negatives: not that much to do as shown on the website, overcrowded, long queues, small soft play, crowded and SUPER long queues in the Cave and Crazy Golfs, wasp attacks near the golf course. Not as many attractions for kids.

Positives: 4D cinema, Circus, Interesting Vintage Arcade

Wookee Hole: We visited during the summer holiday and it was way too busy so my kids didn’t enjoy it!

COVID: with COVID and on a summer holiday, there will be no social distancing and it will be jam packed!

Overall: it is not bad and it is not great. For the distance travelled, Avon Valley Adventure park was much more fun for kids. Overall, I was disappointed and the reason being is that when you look at the website, they make it sound much better than it really is. On the attraction page it boosts over 20 fantastic attractions, but they are duplicated and some of the things listed aren’t really attractions such as Food and Drinks, the Gift shop, Picnic areas, handmade paper mill (which looked closed), Wild Wookey is a paid £60 extra for adults, virtual tour (I have no idea what that is after looking at the website again) and the Cave- Aged Cheese, it was just a 10 second viewpoint! The animatrix dinosaur and dinosaur park pictures are duplicates as well as the mirror attractions/

The Caves: it was really busy in the morning and there was a long queue to walk through the tunnel.

Pirate Adventure Golf: as it was a busy day, the queue was so crazy long that we didn’t go on it. But that is expected as people have to move along the course.

The Penny Arcade was interesting, but it is an additional cost if you want to play.

The Live Circus was good: just note it is full of people!

The Magical Mirror Maze: it wasn’t a maze, just a walkthrough path with mirrors and it wasn’t that big.

Wizards Play Castle is good, but it is quite small considering people who go there are families with small kids, so there are so many kids running about and parents are all jammed packed together! If you are frightened of COVID, you don't want to be there.

The 4D show is good.

On a sunny day, expect there to be a long queue because of the number of families!

Because we have been to the soft plays around the West side of England, there were better places for kids. I think if they concentrated on expanding on the soft play areas for kids, rather than the one, it would have been more fun. The kids were not really interested in the museums. Overall, there weren't enough activities for them! It is worth visiting, but only when it is not so busy. The price is okay, you are looking at a price of £72 for a family 4.

Travelling: the roads are very narrow and twisty so kids might get sick! The village is small, but a really beautiful one.

Other notes: because of privacy, I took photos just before the place was officially closed.

If you like my reviews, please leave a thumbs up so I know if you like the content. I write reviews purely to help people and enjoyment. I am not sponsored or affiliated to any businesses...

We had been staying in nearby Cheddar - had never heard of this place before and saw that they had a xmas themed period going on... thought the little man might find it fun and proceeded to pop along...

Plenty of parking when we turned up - sort of expected it to be rammed, either way it was a good start. Tickets were £15 adult (xmas ticket - includes Father Christmas visit) and £2.50 for the little man. Went straight to the Caves first thing - be aware you will need a small buggy that you can carry or you will need to leave it in pram park. Caves were really good and much more accessible than it makes it sound - yes there are a few large steps and yes there is a few bits where you have to duck down but actually it wasnt all that difficult. We got lucky, tour guide (Sacha) noticed that the group mostly had young children and he adapted it a bit to ensure they werent hanging about getting bored.

We went straight to see Father Christmas after the caves having booked a fairly early slot - bit of a pain as we hadn't realised that from cave you pretty much walk past everything to get to the grotto, no matters gave us an opportunity to get our bearings. Santa visit was good and tried talking to little man, not that he got much talking back (he found his biscuit was more interesting!). His present was nice and age appropriate. There was a photo taken but there was no pressure to purchase which again was nice.

At this point it was lunch time so we went to the self serve restaurant. I had xmas dinner (very nice) and wife had lasagne, which she tells me was nice and cheesy. Little man had a bit of both of ours - they gave us an extra plate. This with two drinks came to about £20.

After lunch we managed to go to the circus - performers are from local area who go to circus school on site. Dont let this put you off, we very much enjoyed it! Seemed to be plenty of seating accessible from ground and upper floor. Performances were at 1pm and 3pm.

We then wondered back to the dinosaur valley and the wife went into the witches laboratory - she said it was good but a bit disjointed, mainly as they had switched the 4d to a sleigh ride for festive period - didnt quite flow from the bat chatting at the beggining! Whilst she was in doing this (as it was 3+) me and the little man did some soft play and went through the mirror maze. We had to laugh as some older children went full pelt into a mirror! Once wifey was back we strolled through some of the museum areas, through penny arcade, shot each other with some ball air cannons (fun!) We finished with a quick look in the gift shop (which was also reasonably priced).

It is fair to say we could have been there longer but little man was knackered. We had got there at 10.30 and left at 15.30! We noticed that we could have had a game of crazy golf included in admission - with little man soooo tired it wasn't likely to go down well...!

All in all a good day and we certainly felt we had...