West Midland Safari and Leisure Park Reviews 159

Wish i could give 0 stars.

Day started out sat in three lanes out of five queing to be let in. Three cars come by in lane four and realise only three lanes in use and cut in behind us, nobody monitors the lanes or people jumping the que.

Secondly its literally like the m25 all the way round, took 2.5 hrs to get around and barely saw anything.

The grounds and surrounding is all poorly maintained, the roads have deep potholes and hills that kill clutches. Too many broken down cars blocking the route and not being moved.

Two lanes jammed cause people in both lanes want to stop for animals, common sense and logic says they should use one lane to stop and one lane to keep things moving. But nope!

Even when we DID manage to get to some animals, because of the ques behind us we were beeped at and told to keep moving and not feed the animals, which absolutely ruined everything we waited patiently for.

When i approached customer services at the end, the lady very swiftly handed me a card with an email address on before i even got to have my say about what u was complaining about, outright refused me to speak to anyone, no explanation to my questions, no empathy, just literally a quick way to palm me off.

Legally what they are doing here is criminal. If you're overcrowding a venue, HSE would love to know about it, and this isnt a threat, they will hear about this.

Absolutely avoid this place like the plague. Not worth the £80 odd we spent to sit stuffy in a car for 2.5hrs with no food or water.

Really do not like the way WMSP is going, used to be so very enjoyable. Used our passes regularly, completely priced us out of purchasing a pass this year, and so many exclusions! Forced us to try somewhere new.

Do not waste your time, literally sat in traffic for 3 hours in the middle of a field. No animals in sight they have these electric gates that make the traffic worse as you queue forever waiting for them to open, it is poorly managed over priced we paid £96 for 3 people and the experience was just a traffic jam and a couple of rhinos. Will never ever return and will be advising everyone I know not to waste their money.

Don't waste your money. It's basically a 3 hours traffic jam. Hardly any animals out. The ones that were out weren't interested in being fed, I paid £8 for 2 boxes and we didn't even get to see many animals. Let alone feed them. Total rip off! Cost us over £150 for 4!! Never again and I will tell everyone I know to avoid!!

We are frequent visitors of this local attraction and are big supporters of it and we're very happy to visit on the 50th anniversary as many many others were my wife is disabled and my son has autism so we are aware of the refreshment areas and attractions... but we were greeted with many closed areas so much so we passed a refreshment area and went a few yards to find a seat in an area where refreshments were closed and by the time I went back it was closed..if you are inviting people to celebrate your 50th the least to expect would to be properly open. Many areas under construction,went through lemur wood...no lemurs.... through bats...no bats...please do better..

Absolutely loved it , would highly recommend, staff very friendly and helpful, we went Easter Sunday done the fair and smaller animals first , no waiting on rides as was advised by one of the staff to do it that way round as the safari was really busy and worked brilliant , definitely will be returning going to look at the lodges as one day not long enough to do/see everything

Absolute chaos in every way - it was like sitting on The M25 for 3 hours, you would probably see more on the M25. The only animals we seen was rhino and giraffes. Total waste of money and a terrible experience all round.

A 50 year old disappointment. It's the desolate look of the place, plus a 2 hour clutch burn to see not much.
Brought an oversees visitor who said there is more to see back in her own country.
Why is this place open?

Visited the park on 08th April 23, what absolute chaos. It’s like sitting on a parked motorway in gridlock.
No order with people getting into the park with cars crossing each other and literally at a standstill in most parts. Poorly managed with too many cars allowed in at one time.
Lots of rhinos and deer but not much else.
If anyone ask me to visit again, it’s a big fat no! God help driving around in the heat of the summer and with small kids! Nightmare! Absolute chaos!

Booked to see bluey for meet and greet to start at 2pm we was there at 1.45pm only to be told that there was no need and greet and that they let them in early. Sh**e planning, not organised at all. Manager was useless as well as the staff. Will not be going again, I will warn others too

I am absolutely disgusted by the service. I’m absolutely horrified with the service. I booked three tickets for myself my husband and my three year old daughter for the 28th March. Unfortunately a family member passed away. I have emailed over 12 times and I’ve phoned over 40 times know one ever answers there phones or responds to anything. I finally got a response when I phoned. I had one lovely lady answer the phone and spoke to her manager they politely said they will give me a refund due to the circumstances. I waited 2 days and no emails to confirm the refund and no refund money. I have tired all day over 60 calls. And not one single person has answered me. I am going through enough stress dealing with a loss. I paid £120 for this visit. I’m just utterly disappointed and exhausted of chasing my money. And chasing for someone to answer their own phone.

If you want bad service and all around not a good time whilst you’re going through a passing. I wouldn’t attempt to book here.

I wish knowone has to go through what myself and my family have gone through.
Westmidland safari park you should be ashamed of yourselves. You won’t be anything without your customers. Your customers pay for your park to continue running and all the staffs wage. Continue treating customers the way I’ve been treated your park will lose many customers.

Safari tour, we were disappointed not to see cheetahs on our visit, if they were there they were not to be seen, our experience was not too bad but for over £100 it could have been much better... Our most important issue was although there are two roads around tour presumably an overtaking road for when your not interested in queuing to see something, good idea BUT it was not kept clear,, as we were about to leave enclosed gated area, we were queuing 30/45 mins not moving at all at intervals, we had got into overtaking lane as one of the nine year girls needed toilet desperately (we did take them to toilet before we went in) a younger child had to use empty bottle in car, the problem seemed to arise because now both lanes were being used for watching giraffes instead of staff monitoring situation and moving cars on in overtaking lane, the situation for our granddaughter became very distressing and most certainly need not have occurred and spoiled the experience. We do plan on taking the free return visit with children, hoping for a better experience. However I don't think we will pay £111 again for the experience.

WMSP is an absolute disgrace. They advertised this amazing Bluey experience which was basically a woman stood on stage tossing balloons at kids. We queued for over an hour to get into the site itself - horrendous organisation - then queued for over an hour to see bluey. Couldn’t get in to a meet and greet so a total waste of time. Everything is extortionately priced and we even had to queue at every stage around the safari despite leaving it until last.

I contacted customer services to express my disappointment at the bluey event and organisation of the day to be told that when you buy tickets the terms and conditions state that whatever happens on your day is what it is. They don’t offer any customer service beyond that, no refunds or anything.

So BE WARNED if you go here and have a terrible day - due to their mismanagement - you’ve already agreed in the T&Cs that they will not take responsibility for the quality of your day once they have your money!

Absolutely disgraceful. Such a shame as I had such fond memories of visiting as a child.

Where do I start?! I guess the same place we did, with 25 mins of queuing on the main road before we even entered the gates. And once we did finally turn off the road there was another 35 mins of queuing before we got to the kiosks, then another drive to park the car and a lengthy walk to get back down and in to the park. Once inside we then had another 15 minute queue to get our wristbands. Quite why you bother selling them online and then making people queue up with everyone else to collect them I’ll never know.

The queues for the rides themselves were actually not too bad, but the rides were all very dated. We visited in October last year and put the tiredness and dirtiness down to it being the end of the season, but given we visited in the first week you were open again thats clearly just how things are.

Several rides closed, more of the rides where you have to pay than anything else (all cash only with no card machines and no working change machine). The staff all seemed disinterested and like they’d rather be somewhere else.

More massive queues at anywhere selling food, and no free tables on which to eat it even if you did.

The main reason for our visit was the ‘Meet & Greet with Bluey’ but alas, more disappointment as the queues for that were over 45 mins long each time.

We kept an eye on the cars going through the safari park the whole time and it was ridiculous, barely moving and two lanes of traffic the entire time we were there, so in the end we left without even bothering.

For over £100 it was a VERY expensive day out which consisted mainly of queuing and sitting in the car. Even a free return trip won’t get us to bother going here again.

Before you book. Make sure you are not a minute late. Due to traffic lights we were set back by 3 nins and refused entry to the safari park. You do however get a return ticket so I was like ok we are not completely out of pocket (£140 booking) I asked if we could split our ticket as we are unable to come again together and on both occasions the company was unhelpful. They reply on here like they are willing to help but via email couldn't care less. Its a beautiful safari but they is no room for help should a incident occur.

After asking twice for help it's safe to say I'll not be spending any more money on this attraction

After visiting west midlands Safari with the kids, we noticed that many of the enclosures had no animals in (or at least none were visible). There were long ques and there isn't much interaction from any of the animals. The park / ride area was great for the kids however and was well maintained. You do get to return for free within 12 months which we will be using again, but a little more needs to be done on the Safari tour side of the park.

We stayed in the giraffe lodge early December. Checked in around 2.30. The lodge itself was lovely and seemed fairly clean.

By around 5pm the lodge was cold and we turned on the heating which wasn’t working. We rang through to ask someone to look at the heating and eventually having to chase 3/4 times someone eventually came and confirmed it wasn’t working as it should. At this point it was freezing and you could see your own breath. They went away to see what they could do and eventually at 9pm moved us to the panda lodge which did have fit for purpose heating. It turns out that the giraffe and Rhino lodges do not have heating that can cope with cold winter weather (consider this if booking in the winter months/ although cheaper).

Our whole evening was ruined having to chase the staff for updates and food provided/ booked wasted and not eaten. They knew we had a 1 year old with us and we were not seen as a priority what so ever, we did not pack for any of us to be inside at night/ sleeping in single figure conditions. We also got no photos of us the following day in our lodge we paid for as we were obviously moved to more suitable accommodation eventually. We had a very tiered/ cold baby and travelling with her to the next lodge at 9.30 at night was not ideal.

The following day it turned out we were not the only ones who had a terrible/ waste of money experience because of the fact the lodges were not fit for anyone being able to withstand the freezing conditions as the lodges mentioned above do not have adequate heating systems. At least 3 other families had been moved/ complained.

I emailed a complaint as advised by the checkout staff to Belle to request a full refund as we basically spent 2 hours in our £500 plus pound stay or a request for another stay in the giraffe lodge. One other family got a full refund we were only offered a 50% refund for the same complaint???

This is were my actual negative review starts… the aftercare: guest relations team is the MOST appalling I’ve ever witnessed.

They REFUSED to call me back on multiple occasions/ still never got one after almost 2 weeks of asking as was dissatisfied with outcome ( Katie you said you you would once we had resolved, 2 weeks later, but I declined and to be honest it absolutely wouldn’t have happened anyway)

Katie advised after 2/3 email responses that 50% refund would be her final offer and would no longer correspond with me. This is after notifying her I was aware she gave another family a full refund ( think they lost a lot of money over this period) my issue was I never got to speak to them on the phone whereas the other family did.

Belle did reply back to me after saying I wasn’t happy with the 50% refund after a week and a half of chasing them and said she had reviewed their offer and now would offer me a stay in the giraffe lodge on another date. After being ignored, told I wouldn’t be spoken to again, being treated differently to other families in the same situation I was absolutely furious. This is what I asked for in the first place a replacement stay??. Had they just agreed from the off I would have come again. The lodge and park itself is ok but by this point I was so upset with how this had been dealt with I advised Katie because of the above I’d rather have a 50% refund as I certainly wouldn’t be taking the risk of this experience again.

Such a shame as we certainly would have been back and recommended others and my friend who recommended me is mortified.

IF YOU HAVE A COMPLAINT OR ARE LOOKING FOR ANY FORM OF COMPENSATION DO NOT LEAVE THE PARK UNTIL RESOLVED. A VERY EXPENSIVE LESSON LEARNT!

A fantastic safari lodge , excellent food delivered to your door. All the animals can be seen at close range & are in super fit condition & look happy & healthy. The staff & keepers were all very helpful & pleasant & so knowledgeable & nothing was too much trouble.Highest praise goes particularly to Rachel for an inspired tour of the park, her confident & pleasing manner & her vast knowledge of every species in the park. She answered all our questions & more. Overall a brilliant place to visit & enjoy this amazing experience.

Animals should come first in zoos; at WMSP, they come last: Being trapped in the midst of a booming fairground, wandering aimlessly on meagre patches of dust flecked with withered grass, breathing in the heavy fumes from an endless stream of stopping and starting cars is the miserable lot of those poor creatures. If you love the thrill of cheap funfairs, hanker after copious American style junk food outlets, revel in joining traffic jams and couldn't care one iota about animals then this is a destination for you. Otherwise, find an animal-centred park and appreciate the animals.

I would describe our visit as average. We saw plenty of animals whilst on the drive round but there was an incident where a rhino ran into a vehicle causing significant damage. I will use the free ticket as the weather took a turn for the worst meaning the kids couldn't see the meerkats etc but I won't be doing the drive round due to the incident I mentioned. Very expensive so may be worth bringing a packed lunch.