West Midlands Safari Park

It’s Macy’s 2^nd birthday on Monday and as she will be at Nursery and us at work we thought we would take her out for her birthday treat today while the weather was nice.  It turned out to be the hottest July day on record, when we got back into the car at 4pm it was still reading a whopping 32 degrees C!  Anyway she loves animals, so what better way to spend a day than to go to West Midlands Safari Park.  Under 3s are free but adults are £19.99 each however it does include a free return so really it’s £10 a visit – we are only 40mins away so it’s local enough to return again.

I was grateful to be in an air conditioned car round the safari otherwise it would have been too hot!  We bought a box of food for the animals for £3 and started off on our safari feeding some sort of deer.  It would be nice to have the different animals listed in order by the map as not all of them are.  Macy thought it was funny having a deer put its head through the window!

Then onto some cheetahs who we caught a glimpse of as they were hiding in the shade.  Some buffalos were cooling down in the water and some rhinos were in the same enclosure.  We couldn’t find the lions, they must have been hiding somewhere but we saw the white lions and the white tigers.  We didn’t see the wild dogs either, again they must have been hiding in the shade somewhere. 

We drove through the Zebras which you could feed and they were lovely, put their heads right through the car window and Macy thought that was funny!

On to the Elephants and we were in for a treat as there was a baby elephant playing ball in a pool, it’s mum came up to it to make sure it was okay, so sweet.

Finally onto the giraffes and we had saved some food for them.  They didn’t seem overly comfortable eating from the window with their big long necks so I decided to open the sunroof for them!  Macy thought this was hilarious and it was brilliant!  Such a fantastic experience, we loved that and Macy will talk about it for ages.

We even had two giraffes through at one point, you can only just see the nose of the other one behind the one.  The one giraffe loved it and kept following us to poke his head in lol.

We finished the safari just in time for the sea lion show which was great but we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t get splashed as the screens are too high, would have been nice on a hot day but I guess we don’t have many hot days.  There also wasn’t anyway shaded to sit so Macy did get a bit hot and grumpy so I can't say she enjoyed it that much - quite a few people with children left as they must have had the same problem.

Finally we had a wander round the rides and there was a little area with rides for the younger ones, there were probably about 10 rides for 0.8m and above.  When they get to a metre there is a lot more choice as to be honest quite a lot of the toddler rides are the same sort of thing - just different variations of things to sit in going round in circles.  I don't know whether she will make a metre before we go back but it would be good if she does as it means she can go on a lot more such as the log flume and rapids.  I hate rides that go round in circles as it just makes me feel dizzy!  You also had to pay extra for the rides so it could work out an expensive day, we bought 4 rides for £6 and you can buy wristbands which probably works out cheaper when she is older.

I was a little disappointed in the food choices, there was a restaurant that did sit down meals but it wasn't air conditioned and although there were fans in there it was very hot so we ended up eating burgers outside.  It would be nice if they had somewhere doing paninis or something like that - something a bit healthier than greasy food.

Here's a little video of the giraffe!