Drusillas Park — Attraction in Wealden

Now full disclosure, I'm not exactly a well travelled zoo enthusiast. Ive not been to many or even a decent amount of well known zoos BUT this review still stands not as a comparison to any previous establishments but on its own.

Drusillas Park is pretty brilliant for its size. You won't need large acres to walk around or roaring lions being enticed to lean against the fence whilst being fed because Drusillas is more then a zoo, it's a family friendly activity park.

You get to see the animals they do have (a fair amount of primates, an armadillo, a few camels, a farm yard which isn't quite on par with old McDonald's imaginary farm to which we've all had our own vision of how it looks from when we were young, 2 beautiful big cats and many more). You also have a MASS selection of automated electronics to admire which have sensors so it will know when to activate (theres so many in their maze!). A quaint water play area, fair ground/zoo themed rides, some of the coolest park playground equipment and a sensory room! Add all of this with a train that can take you around the middle of the park and a maze, you can't go wrong!

However, a few tweaks would make this place so much better because our experience wasn't all that it could be. For starters, the food... it was awful! We dined in the explorer's cafe as a lot of the decent food stalls were closed due to being a weekday (very unfair!) Our options were limited and we just wanted a tasty cooked meal. £50 later and we received 1 very over done, stale jacket potato with cheese and salad which we saw just being thrown from a bowl onto the plate. 1 katsu chicken which sounded good but you might as well have given me the frozen chicken steak instead of flash cooking it to the point of where if I had of had the frozen steak my meal would have been less moist. The rice being bland and the sauce tasting like a 17p tin of curry sauce from the cheapest supermarket. The kids Chicken nuggets and chips were on par with other child fun areas. What made this worse was for some reason the cafe workers decided to start putting barriers over our section. They reassured us not to rush but being hemmed in didn't exactly make us relax, this was between 3.30 and 4.30 PM. Food at Drusillas Park 0/10

And another change I would make would be on the website. It wouldn't allow me to book spark tickets online so as I result, I thought it was closed. We finally get around to that part of the park an hour before closing and spoke to a lovely man who said it is open daily and kindly allowed us to look inside before starting to close this room. The disappointment that we missed out on this for our daughters birthday treat was huge and I'm still upset now that we couldn't make our visit everything that we wanted.

Finally a member of staffs attitude. Now I have seen on your website you say your closing time is 6pm. Maybe a certain young blonde staff member who was escorting the Shetland ponies out through the car park this. My daughter saw her and got extremely excited so we asked if she could stroke them, it would have taken a minute at most. The ponies weren't moving in their enclosure and I wouldn't blame them, ironically the staff member who told us no because "the ponies have finished their work for the day" clearly wasn't bothered about them laying in their own filth all day in a puny 20x10 ft (at a generous guess) enclosure. But as soon as she has a chance to make a child's day that little bit better and show those beautiful creatures a bit of love before they are left alone all night, she decides against it. I understand the animals are out all day and we arrived with hours upon hours at the park and we never got a chance. Her response was covered in a snooty tone making her customer service a big fat ZERO. Service received in general was 8/10. One bad experience can take away more...

Update [visit 02.03.2022]:

Visited during term-time, so understandably there was limited attractions, reduced staff, certain cafe's or shops closed etc. The penguin enclosure was completely shut off, I believe the lemur walk-through enclosure and some others were closed, the hello-kitty section has been completely gutted and will be replaced with something else in May 2022; so paying full price for a limited 'service' is a bit unfair. Again the prices of the food was border-line criminal (£7 for a salad, £2.25 for a slice of cake).

If the management of Drusillas actually read this; during term-time and whilst sections are closed, your new area 'Spark' should be free, not an additional fee especially as its still full price for admission and whilst your at it maybe a reduced admission fee because a good portion of your 'attraction park' was closed or undergoing refurbishment.

My wife and mother-in-law partook in an encounter with a sloth, which both being avid admirers of sloths I do believe they thoroughly enjoyed themselves but for the price of the encounter merely standing there and passing the animals food, again is very steep.

If anyone reads this, definitely utilise any online saving as I believe there are offers/discounts by ordering online (do not assume the offer applies when buying at the gate)

I am sure we will return at some point in the Summer following the refurbishment to see what the improvements are and in the hope to experience alot of the stuff we regrettably missed out on this visit.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far 😬🤣

[Previous Visit] Great variety of animals, humungous play park inclusion of water park, some attractions to pay for (rock climbing, large inflatable slide etc). My main peeve is the cost of beverages and food (£2.50 for a 330ml can of coke, £7.95 for a mediocre burger and chips) totalled up with the cost of entry makes for a very expensive day out. My advice to anyone visiting is bring your own food and drink; certain seated areas only allow food purchased from certain restaurants to be consumed there but there is adequate seating/areas for a homemade picnic or food purchased outside of the park. Toilets are cleaned regularly and the park itself is very tidy, there is suitable signage to navigate the park and to notify visitors of feeding times or the attractions that are on at specific times. My conclusion - the venue itself is fantastic and the best in the local vicinity but the cost of food and beverages needs to be reviewed and amended for those unsuspecting visitors unaware they will need to remortgage their property...

So we visited Drusillas as part of a package we got last year. My son had a birthday party which included a family entryas ordinarily it would work out quite expensive for us. However it was bloody brilliant, of course we went on one of the hottest days but the splash pad kept the kids entertained for sometime. The initial entrance is really loud and lots of people are all coming through the door but once filtered through there's plenty of space for everyone. There literally is something for everyone here, we went with ages 6,7,9 and 11 and all of them had the best time. From the play park, to the splash pad and even the little rides at the end. The rides at the end are included in the entry price which was fantastic but there are a few that are additional charges. There was another which we didn't entertain which is chargeable and I believe you may be allocated times slots but we didn't feel we had to do this. I believe there is soft play there too but again we found lots of there things to do without do this. The cafe shop I found reasonably priced and the nuggets tasted yummy. The little rides include a train which goes round,. sometimes these can be quite busy . We have SEND children, if you make the people know upon entry they offer an access card which allows you to stand in a separate queue and will be allowed on prior to the others this makes things a lot easier especially if you have difficulties waiting in queues but overall the queues go fairly quickly.

It's been about 10 years since I last visited purely down to financial reasons, but I would definitely save up to come again. The play park was a big hit for us along with the splash pad the only down side is there's not really any where close by to change. The toilets are the other side of the park which isn't far but it means you have to walk bear feet across (obviously not a problem to kids) but was extremely hot when we went. Free refillable water fountains on site which was really handy for hot days.

Overall fantastic day out...