West Midlands Safari Park, Kidderminster, UK

Having written a fair few reviews myself and read many, many others, I'm fully aware that the funniest reviews are often those which take the item in question and then rip it into tiny shreds for how bad it is, before mocking what's left. Much as I'd like to join such esteemed company such as Jeremy Clarkson or Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation, I'm not going to do it to West Midland Safari Park, so if this disappionts you, maybe you should go somewhere else, how about visiting the park so you can find out why I liked it so much.

Pricing for the park doesn't start too well, as on arriving at the gate the staff remove £10 from your wallet straight away in return for granting you entry. Ordinarily £10 for 3 cloned rollercoasters would be fine, however if you want to ride those you must purchase additional tickets (about £4 per coaster) or a £9.50 wristband! For a rollercoaster enthusiast such as myself, that's equivilent to a £10 parking charge, something which can politely be called 'a bit steep' and impolitely be referred to as daylight robbery. I understand that they need to charge for the park entry but they could have at least allowed you to park your car and just enter the ride area without charging you.

As you might understand, I was not feeling especially happy at this point, especially as I had forgot my camera, and in general parks that don't make me feel happy don't tend to get good reviews. This is especially worrying for the park as normally I'm quite easy to please. Being as I'd paid for it, I elected to drive round the safari areas, and while they weren't bad in places, I was struggling to see the point of having areas where the animals could roam freely, then fencing some of those animals off. Having completed the safari I still wasn't especially happy.

Luckily the park started to redeemed itself with some well done theming upon entering the rest of the park. Once you leave your car, the park becomes very pretty, with very attractive african theming everywhere. I should also praise the staff who were polite, happy and helpful, in fact I don't think I've encounted better staff in all my many trips.

The parks attractions suit the intended visiting families very well, with most of the rides being suitable for children of 6 to 12. while not a thrillseekers paradise, the parks rides selection was better than the norm for a family park. Food is another area where the park was above average. While I'm not going to pass off the food as the finest in haute cusine, the panini I had was tastier than average themepark fare, and the chocolate ice cream was delicious.

It is worth noting that the park rotates staff around rides on quiet days, with each ride being open for 40 mins in the hour. This can mean having to do some planning to avoid getting caught out by a ride being shut for 20 minutes.

Summing up, while the park is a poor place for rollercoaster hunting, thrill ride enthuthiasts, it is a very nice place to take families, with a good ride selection, plenty to do, and lots of animals. The fact that parents can choose not to ride and not have to pay is an additional advantage. If you live nearby I can recommend that you visit.

Glance at the park

The park can be broadly split into three areas, the safari area, the zoo area and the amusement park itself. All three have African theming, this is better in the zoo and amusement park than in the safari area.

The safari area is lacking in themeing, as you might have guessed from above I wasn't overly impressed with the whole area, oddly for a safari park, I felt that the safari park was the weakest bit of the whole experience. The animals on the whole were fairly lethagic, and some of the areas had fencing between you and the animals which rather defeats the point I felt.

The zoo area was a great improvement however with improved theming and attractive displays of animals. You can find a lot of the food emporiums in this area, as well as the sealion show. Other attractions include the Bat Cave, the Creepy Crawlies insect display, Leopard Valley and Mark O'Shea's Reptile World. It is worth noting that the Explorer's Cafe is one of only two places in the park that sell Carte D'Or ice cream.

The amusement area is similarly well themed, as well as striking a nice ride balance. The park has a ride for everyone, although not always very many, and there is a small children's ride area up past the bridge. Thrillseekers will enjoy the Twister Coaster, Venom Drop Tower and Black Fly frisbee, are rare Fabbri built model. Families will enjoy the Wild River Rafting rapids, Zambezi Water Splash log flume, and Rhino Coaster, as well as many of the other flat rides such as the African Queen pirate ship. Children get the African Big Apple Coaster and many small rides, including the Dune Dashers, a bouncing buggy ride by the Italian company Zamperla, I'm fairly sure used to be found at American Adventure. One comment I will make is that while a lot of money goes on the theming which is generally very good, I suspect ride maintainance gets a smaller budget, the Jungle Cat Dodgems seemed very lacklustre and both the Rhino Coaster and Twister Coaster were quite rough. While I understand the spinning roller coaster isn't meant to be tame, I don't think a family roller coaster should vibrate quite as much as the Rhino Coaster does, nor should the brakes before the station be so vicious. This is another niggle, when the ride only operates one train, does it need to come to a full stop before the station? Slow down, yes, but stop? As a final point about ride maintainance, Wild River Rafting broke down just before I was due to ride, and Black Fly was down for maintainance, but no one was working on it, neither example helping my quench my impression!

Leonardofury, Last Modified 26/03/2008