Longleat - waste of money in my opinion!!

sarah_elton

We went to the Isle of Wight for a holiday last week, and some attractions there are doing free unlimited return visits within 7 days after you've paid once. I thought this was a lovely idea. We had a great day at Robin Hill Country Park, and if we'd had littluns I think they'd have been more than happy spending a few days of our trip there.

On the zoo front, Colchester Zoo is still my favourite, and especially using Tesco vouchers it's good value!

Hermia

I love Longleat. It took me two days to see everything last time I went so I consider it very good value for money. I always go on the bus through the safari bit as the talk is very interesting. I seemed to remember it took quite a long while to get round, but then our driver didn't stop talking! The house is beautiful and even my cousin was fascinated by the history and wanted us to explain what everything was. It took us two whole days to see everything. All the kids' attractions were very busy so I can see why they don't want people to keep going in again and again.

wessexandproudofit

Longleat's passport is probably not great value especially for toddlers. I just go and pay for the things I am going to see. To be honest, a better value zoo nearby is Bristol Zoo Gardens. Pay once and stay as long as you like. The gardens are lovely and if you intend to go frequently, the annual membership which costs £50 lets you go as often as you like. Soon pays for itself. ALso includes half price tickets for other family members.
I take my two year old there a lot and she adores it. Just google it - I'm not allowed to post a link here.

System

thanks op we were considering visiting there but it would involve an over night stay ,i don't think we will go to the expense now !

SaLoGo

flang wrote: »

I live about 15 mins drive from longleat and have only been a couple of times due to the costs, however i visit the longleat forest and a lake called shearwater every couple of months as its a really nice place to cycle/walk and its free!

I used to live in Warminster, about 5 mins from Longleat and Shearwater and miss it soooo much! Used to take the dog all the time. We'd often park up at Heaven's Gate (wow, what a view!) and walk down the hill into the Longleat grounds and take a picnic.

Don't think I ever paid to get in the grounds! If we did drive in, we'd go through the back gate and never got charged!!

Tangible

Since people are mentioning attractions, I'll mention Warwick Castle which I visited recently.

It was an unusually sunny mid-week day during the summer holidays and was surprisingly busy. The effect of that was that though we arrived at around 11.00 am we were obliged to park quite a trek from the entrance. My near 90 year old mother isn't registered disabled, but the walk must have been near half a mile, Of course parking is an extra £5 charge.

Then we faced the queue to get in, which took over an hour. Apart from the basic individual entrance there are extra costs to see other attractions such as the Dungeon, the Merlin Tower and Princess Tower which will bump the cost to something like £30.

Though you are issued with a timed ticket for these other attractions, bafflingly you still end up waiting easily for an hour in these queues to get in. So it's easy to find that most of what you get for £35 (including parking) is a lot of queuing.

I forgot to mention that the start of each 'extra' consists of a ploy to sell photos of yourself which is another extra. I think I heard that the minimum cost of these is £8. The Merlin Tower, apart from a lot of queuing, consists of the photo hard sell, a solo speech by a character and a sit down to watch a three minute video and getting dry ice smoke blown over you, and quite what Merlin has to do with Warwick castle, I don't know.

Though I paid for the Princess Tower, I gave it a miss. Anoher one hour queue, even with a timed ticket would have been pointless, especially as there was likely to be little there. The Dungeon Visit was more 'value for money' though its theme was the plague ? - and my mother wasn't up to the badly lit passages over uneve floors. Some children had to leave as well and it was mentioned by the sraff that they pick on suitably nervous clients to drive up the 'scare factor'.

Personally I found the Dungeon Trip worth it, but spoiled by the queuing. It's not for young children or the elderly, and why it focuses on the plague when it's themed on being a Dungeon Trip is pointless.

If you plan a trip - book online and get there early or face the walk, more daunting even than the Dungeon. Merlin's Tower will only interest children from 5-8 years old and isn't worth spending time in a queue for.

Overall, the main focus appears to be parting customers from their cash, with less concentration on providing value for money.

Lemoncurd

CHRISSYG wrote: »

thanks op we were considering visiting there but it would involve an over night stay ,i don't think we will go to the expense now !

We did this two weeks ago. It may have changed in the 5 years since the OP but we got there for opening and didn't have time to do everything! There seemed to be quite a lot to do and everyone had a great day.
I booked through the website in advance which was slightly cheaper but not a huge discount.

SaLoGo

Lemoncurd wrote: »

It may have changed in the 5 years since the OP

Haha, I didn't even notice the OP was from 5 years ago!!

System

Lemoncurd wrote: »

We did this two weeks ago. It may have changed in the 5 years since the OP but we got there for opening and didn't have time to do everything! There seemed to be quite a lot to do and everyone had a great day.
I booked through the website in advance which was slightly cheaper but not a huge discount.

i didn't even see this thread was that old !

coolcait

Lemoncurd wrote: »

... It may have changed in the 5 years since the OP ...

That would explain why the food prices seemed fairly reasonable to me!! :rotfl:(For that kind of visitor attraction, I mean. We always take a picnic, but I like to check just how much we are saving on the meals and snacks :eek:)

I think that the other thing I took from the OP was the importance of making sure that you choose a place which will suits your own children's and family's needs - and their attention spans. My OH, for example, is usually at least three galleries ahead of us in museums etc. As he's an adult, it's not a problem, as we just let him go on ahead, and then meet up later.

If he were a child (I refuse to make a cheap joke at his expense :rotfl:), that solution wouldn't work
.

I haven't been to Legoland in a million years - but we had some amazing family days out there when the kids were little, and loved lego.