Wye Valley Butterfly Zoo — Attraction in Whitchurch

Soooo. Mixed review. Butterfly world has so many beautiful and varied types of butterfly 🦋 for you to sit down and admire, walk around and feel them flutter past you, and if you're very lucky you may get chosen as a safe spot to land and rest a while.

As with any attraction, make sure it's right for you. It's very warm in there, as it needs to be. It's full of flying creatures, make sure you respect that they may occasionally get close , however they don't like to being touched. You can go in and out on your entry ticket , so keep going back and you will be surprised at the different colourful butterfly you missed the first time.

There is a gift shop with items ranging from pocket money to bank of dad, and there is an independent cafe across tge carpark. All good so far. Parking. This is where it's very much buyer beware. ParkingEye have posted notices around the carpark saying they are watching you. They want your money and now that your vehicle is there , they will be expecting your money. Your parking time starts from the moment you come through the gate, NOT from when you visit tge Parking machine. Your parking time does not end until you drive out of the gate. Very important you know this else you will get a PCN if you are over the alloted paid up time. Secondly, when you use the parking machine, make sure you enter you whole registration correctly and that you get a receipt with confirmation that you have successfully paid and it has your registration number there too. And now, this is the really really really important part. KEEP YOUR RECIEPT FOR AT LEAST A MONTH. Many people have been caught out by incorrectly issued PCN, and also by a slightly dodgy way ParkingEye run their machines. For example, we arrived, parked, visited parking machine, entered vehicle reg, put card in card slot on machine, received a 'receipt ' and went about enjoying our activities, only to receive a PCN showing that we hadn't paid. On checking, the receipt the machine spat out was in fact a void transaction receipt. Yes I should have noticed, and yes I therefore did not pay as I thought I had. However what they didn't do was in anyway on the digital screen where I entered information, and was interactive with their system, was tell me that the payment was not in fact a success,. So I assumed that receipt that stated Not a Parking ticket was just that , and not the primary source of information, telling me that I needed to try again.

Short version. Check before you leave the machine that it has agreed to take your £3. Check the exact time you arrived, and make sure you get back on the main road well before the...

EDIT: I am reducing my rating to two stars and adding the following: DO NOT USE THE PARKING LOT. Don't even go in there to look. Got home to Australia ages later and received a hefty fine. As it wen't to the hire car company first who paid it, thus we couldn't appeal, or at least it was too complicated and time consuming to appeal. There was really no way of figuring out how to prove we didn't go over our time, especially being from another country.

Since then have read other people's reviews and just about everyone is complaining about the fines. Some admit fault by small amounts, one only ducked in there to look at prices for future reference and left, didn't even park, and got a fine!

This is legal robbery, opportunistic fleecing of unwary tourists. NOT HAPPY.

Cute, small butterfly house that is lovely to spend a little bit of time in just watching and enjoying the butterflies. Delightful for children, (but I'm 57 and enjoyed it a great deal too).

Suggest between 20 and 45 mins. Hot and damp inside, dress appropriately, it's small so you won't want to lug coats around if you can help it. It can be crowded, so may be too busy on some days. We went on a warm Saturday in school holidays though, and it wasn't too bad. Nice little shop on exit. Maze nearby - tickets for both are slightly cheaper than individual tickets. Reasonably priced.

Tip for photography amateurs like me: you will find it hard to get a photo of any moving butterflies. The big blue ones look brown when they stop flying and are well camouflaged. Try taking a short video instead and see if you can get a still from it if you want the blue. Or sometimes they'll land in a dish up the back and open their wings occasionally while feeding. You'll need to be patient. They rarely do this when they land on the plants themselves. They may sit on your shoulder or even on your face and settle there for a second or even fifteen minutes! Make sure you have none on you when you leave (there are mirrors so you can check).

It's worth looking for caterpillars too: close up some resemble little dragons! Perhaps inspiration for those...

We stayed locally for the weekend and our party of 2 adults, 3 kids spent a lot of money at this place. We done the butterfly zoo, the maze, crazy golf and used their cafe a couple of times. We easily spent over £200 here this weekend alone. None of the attractions are great value for money, it’s all very average and over priced. That aside, on the day we left to go home, we popped into the cafe to see if we could get a sugary drink for my diabetic daughter, as her blood glucose levels were low. We also enquired if they did a cooked breakfast, as we would have stayed and had one. They don’t supply cooked meals so we purchased a drink and left - we were there just over 10 mins in total. When we got home I received a parking fine of £100, just for this short visit. I appealed it and explained the circumstances with my daughter but Parking Eye who run the car park (in partnership with the business owners) refused the appeal, they are ruthless! I then contacted the business owners of the cafe and the butterfly centre (they also own the crazy golf and maze too). Despite the circumstances they were unwilling to help, they were rude and patronising with their responses. They obviously don’t have clear enough signage for parking and must get this a lot, as their response emails were clearly cut and paste jobs drafted by a solicitor, or legal representative. They said they had no way of helping us and Parking Eye decision is final, which is total rubbish. The truth is they’re in partnership with Parking Eye who just lease the car park from the business owner. The business owners do have the power to contact them and ask them to waive parking fines, especially under the circumstances I explained! They couldn’t be bothered to help us and we’ll never spend another penny of our money in ANY of those businesses again. It’s a disgusting way to treat any customers, let alone someone who’s spent hundreds with you… I even offered to supply proof of the money we’d spent with them on entry tickets etc but this was just...