West Midlands Safari Park

This attraction has everything for a great day out. Beautiful setting, animals ( if you are lucky enough to see them all), fun rides within the adventure theme park area...Of course you must pay for all these fun quite a bit. Being there for the sixth times, I still believed it is a good value for money-until today.

For the first time I have experienced a huge fall in the quality of staff. I gave up on politeness after being in the park for about an hour, but by the end of the day I was absolutely furious. We have met rude, poorly prepared even arrogant staff too many times within about 5 hors. It is obvious: the training they have received did not exceed the minimum required level.

When prices are going up everywhere, we, the costumers could expect at least some qualities.

My conclusion at the end of the day was: Because of the nature of the attraction, we can ironicly state, that there are two group of staff in here: animals and humans. To me today the animals were the winners.

Thought it was poor value for what we paid .not enough animals .rides were expensive .wouldnt go again

We just came back today on 8 Aug 2015. Its busy as you expected on a sat. We got a leaflet suggest go through the drive through after 3pm. So we decided to follow the advise and walk around the park first. Its all ok in the park but the sea lion show at 1.30pm were so full that we couldnt find a seat. the next show is 3.30pm. as far as i could tell the show lasted 15-20mins.

We then proceed to do the drive through at 2pm. We sat in car for 1.5hr and we saw 2 rhinos, some deers, 1 white tiger and 1 female lion. Let me say it again we were in there for 1.5hr. We reckon we saw more gates than animals.

After one hr, one car waved down a park ranger and see if they could get out. Very quickly a convoy of cars to get out using the short cut was formed.

basically i am writing this as they haven't had the decency to contact me regarding the written complaint i put in at the end of the visit. i can only assume that the people who rate this place highly have never been to a safari park before. there are so many gates to get through which are totally unnecessary as the animals are kept in cages or behind electric fences (i'm presuming there were animals as the grass was so long we could only see the tips of their ears). when we finally got to the car park the toilets were awful and nothing showed us where the rest of the park was located. after asking someone we finally found our way in. my daughter is in a wheelchair and this park is most definitely NOT wheelchair friendly, she is an active user and good at pushing herself but the slope in and out of the main area is so steep it took her pushing herself and her dad pushing the back of the chair to finally get to the top. the paths are all broken or loose stones so really dangerous. the whole park is very tired looking and any staff we spoke to were short and unhelpful. the animals in the lemur forest where cowering in the corner and the goats were very depressed looking and didn't want to come near anyone or eat the food and i have never met a goat that doesn't want to eat. all in all a very upsetting experience and a total waste of money

The rides were so short and my mates down the west end would not like them as they like the big ones like at Thorpe park so if you want rides go down Thomas land.

My mum and I went for my birthday and had the best day. It was horrible weather but the staff were super friendly and helpful. Staff really went out of their way to make it a special day, thoroughly impressed! Also, must say the staff  in the entrance shops for being an absolute star!

The park itself for a kids 8th birthday get together is ok but the staff completely ruined her day with their lack of knowledge and compassion. Got to the park, misled by stewards trying to sell programes THEN misled AGAIN to go through the safari where all we saw was loads of grass, trees and a few (very few) tranquilised animals. I HAD MY WINDOW DOWN IN THE LIONS PART LOOKING FOR THE LIONS! The only lion we saw was the one that was chisled in the rockface lol. Came out of safari early (cut out a chunk of it) to try and head for the sea lions as my daughter was supposed to feed them. Was told 'the safari will take 30-45 mins' in fact it took 2 HOURS and this misinformation resulted in her missing the sealions slot COMPLETELY and they tried to compensate by showcasing a ROACH, MINI HEDGEHOG and a ALBINO SNAKE?! She fed nothing and got 2 shoddy unprofessional quick snaps. On seeing what she was supposed to do in the sealion show, she was very upset. I was absolutely fuming, kids were cheesed off saying it was rubbish and they wanted to leave and to top it off the rain resulted in no rides with the wristbands we had paid for. Food for kids was bad so glad i told the adults to bring their own. Complained via their procedures which were ignored completely, still trying to get some money back to give to the 15 kids and 8 adults that attended. Complete waste of time and money, NEVER AGAIN! DO NOT GO TO WEST MIDLANDS SAFARI PARK!!! And i think they have killed off some of the animals as a lot were not to be seen at all. Never ever again, never.

I attended the Santa Safari in December.

I live two hours away from West Midlands Safari Park but I thought why not, it would be a nice day out!

We did our drive-through tour around the animals which was lovely but it's such a shame that some of the animals were inside, like the giraffes and the wolves etc.

We then went to spend the rest of our day at the discovery trail and the African Village! I thoroughly enjoyed everything there from the bats to the goats, but there isn't much there at all. I saw the sea lion show which lasted 15 mins, the lemur talk which was 10 minutes and fed the penguins which was about 10 minutes. None of the attractions were open and you couldn't go see the hippos. I wasn't interested in seeing Santa (as I have no children) but my friend did and spend approx 1.5 hours queueing just to see him!

So after doing everything (except Santa) we were ready to go home by 2pm (3hours after we arrived)It's a shame really! It would be really nice if they could have more things to do and see to fill time. Nevertheless, it's a lovely place and I'd visit if I lived closer but not again now.

As we live locally we in the past have visited the safari park many times. In the past we may have been a few times in one year and so as you can see we are regular visitors. However I have to be honest and say that the park is getting very old a tatty and really needs some money spent on it to bring it more up to date. Most of the rides were there 20 years ago when I was young! No locks on toilet doors and doors coming off paint peeling etc Overall just generally a bit tatty. Food is pretty terrible and overpriced; I would always recommend you take a pack lunch! The free return ticket is a Joke, in the past we have used ours after school on nice evenings perhaps for a drive round the safari or a quick go on the rides before they close however they have stopped you doing this as you cannot use it after 3pm. I would have thought that if you are open surely you want to get people in the door; I understand that you might not want people going in for free on special event nights but generally they do not start until 5.30! The main bonus of the park is that generally most times I have been it has been that quiet that the queue for the rides are not very long (probably due to it being expensive and generally tatty) generally the staff operating them are rude or miserable. I would imagine if it continues in this downward spiral it will be shut in a few years.

Overall View

Positives - Overall animal range good. Queue for rides short.

Negatives - Expensive when buying entrance and wrist bands for what you get, generally very tatty, Food is bad, Staff rude, Free return ticket useless. No queue management around reserves can be stuck for hours

Would recommend rides for ages 4 - 11

Would recommend Alton towers, Drayton manor, LongLeat, Lego land, pepper pig world Thorpe park, Black country museum before WMSP.

I took my son to West Mids Safari park for his birthday yesterday. What an utter disappointment!!

Firstly although it doesn't say on their website but if you have a convertable you cannot drive through the carnivorous animals areas, so basically we got to see a lot of deer!

Extortionally priced with entry price plus rides plus lots of fair ground games all around for £3 a go!

Catering facilities were abysmal, food was dreadful £2.99 for a bowl of cold chips!

Really do save your money do not go to this place go to Twin Lakes in Melton Mowbray instead, more for your money, better facilities, cheaper and the birds of prey display is brilliant.