I was concerned that this would leave our older daughter cold, as it was clear it was mainly for younger children. But it didn't. We were all charmed by the way in which the animals were kept, information displayed and some of the fun things to do. For the little ones there is a small theme park which was popular, and a splash zone on the hot day we visited. It's only let down by disappointing food (even by theme park standards) though the outdoor dining areas are lovely.

lovely place, and not to crowded

Fantastic day out, so much you keeps kids busy and food sold and free parking. Great family day out

The kids and we are enjoyed there.

Brilliant. Grandkids loved it.

Great place

This was a visit for my sons birthday as I bought him a Red Panda encounter.
The keeper that looked after us was friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. It was a fantastic experience and my son loved it. He made the panda ‘cake’ and hand fed the 2 beautiful Red Pandas. The experience lasted about 45 minutes.
The rest of the zoo is lovely with lots to see and do. We would definitely go back.

We gave my daughter the Zookeeper for a day experience for her 9th birthday. She loved it. Rolled up her sleeves and got her hands dirty. She really felt like she was doing something worthwhile and she learnt lots of interesting facts.

Really great day put. So much to do and the kids loved it.

Fantastic place in every respect. Brilliant and engaging layout, huge variety of animals in clever enclosures with lots of interaction, activity stations for children (small and large...) to test their skills against the animals, lots of coveted areas in case it rains, topped off with a team of attentive and friendly staff. We were a group of 20 children with learning and physical challenges and 30 adults - could not have had more fun so thank you! We will be back!

We had a great day at Drusillas. The park was busy so the first few areas were very congested but as we went on the crowds spread out.
There are lots of animals to see. The children loved the spotters book and animal Olympics that they had to complete. The site includes lots of information points about the animals.
The kids play area and water part were brilliant and we could have easily spent half the day there.
We all enjoyed the rides in the hello kitty garden and the queues moved quickly.
My only criticism is that there were very few picnic areas.

Great family day out

The zoo is really nice, although it is missing few big and deadly animals. The collection is still quite good. The amusement park is fun too. Some need to take out 5-6 hour to fully enjoy it.

Best day out for adults and children

Had an amazing day out with my daughter at Drusilla last week. The Zoo is exceptional as well as a fantastic range of rides and park areas. The staff at drusillas are amazing, very knowledgeable and when walking through the zoo enclosures tgere was always someone to talk about the animals to us. One member of staff 'Sam' was especially exceptional, She was so helpful, fun and polite. My daughter wanted to only go on the rides Sam operated all day! It was such an amazing experience that we have bought annual passes and have been back 4 times since, every day has been exceptional and my daughter loves drusillas. We will be coming back many more times. 100% the best place we've been this summer.

Had preordered tickets, but still had to queue with everyone else, which was a shame and delayed my entry by some 20 minutes. On entry to the park it was very busy, with the zoo path being very cramped. I escaped that area to do the park 'backwards' which appeared less busy. The zoo animals are good, but I was disappointed with the size of some of the homes for them (The Camels - who usually travel for miles - had hardly any room). The food available was good and fairly priced. Rides good, and didn't have to queue for too long. Wet park area was overcrowded and lacked shade. I had a serious problem keeping track of my kids due to this, and it didn't help that the play area from the water park then linked to an even larger play area. Parents weren't supervising their kids, which led to them keeping water cannons to themselves and not sharing, or just generally pushing in obvious queues. We didn't remain in that area for long due to this.

I have certainly been to better zoos/parks that are less crowded and provided a better environment for kids and adults to enjoy!

Despite the above, the kids loved it - the adults maybe not so much.

Visited with grandchildren aged 5 and 10 and spent about 5 hours there. Great variety of animals and all of them had large enclosures and were all very active. Went into the lemur area but they were too busy sunbathing to take notice of us humans! What struck me most was the cleanliness everywhere you went, and how happy the staff all seemed to be. We took a picnic but there are plenty of places to eat and get drinks. The kids loved the splash park, so take swim gear and towels. Went on the train which was fun as were the free rides in the very large play area. The animals take centre stage though, and loved watching the beavers, giant ant eater and all the different monkeys and their cute babies. The fresh cooked doughnuts are very good, which we has as we walked back to the car. Highly recommend Drusillas and will definitely return.

A very good day out

Had an amazing time with family,enjoyed every second,staff doing a great job,fantastic care about visitors especially the little ones,can't wait to go back.

Great dayout lots to do. Nice parks water bit , animals and rides

Perfect for little ones , lots rides and animals also, very ideal for a 2 year old

Such an amazing zoo always a great day here.

Large park with animals, playgrounds and a small waterpark. Friendly staff.

It’s the hottest august bank holiday every and as expected everywhere is packed, so you have to expect there to be people around or else the place would not make any money and shut down. However, we originally came on the Sunday before the bank holiday and again on the Monday as we had such a good time on the Sunday, we upgraded out tickets for the annual pass (2 adults and a child cost less than 1 merlin annual pass). It’s great for young kids (pre-teens) but I would imagine older kids would not enjoy it as its clearly aimed at the younger ones.

Its half a zoo with plenty of smaller animals (no big cats, elephants or Giraffes etc but that’s ok for our little one anyway, and the other half is made up of some rides (tea cups, hippo ride, hello kitty rides etc), a kids play area with a play ground and a mini water park when its hot. There is also food etc at very reasonable prices for a captive audience (around £6-£9 for a meal) and the food is also surprisingly good.

As for the queues, considering it’s the busiest time of the year, we didn’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes to go on any rides, and there where plenty of tables around and the queues for food in the larger (canteen style) of the two main areas was very short at 2pm when we went, however the first one you come to (Oasis) was busy as it was more of a fast food burger place.

All in all a very nice day out for the kids and parents (happy kids = happy parents) and daddy’s wallet liked it too. We could have gone to one of the big theme parks like Chessington and spend an hour just queueing to get into the car park then another one to get tickets and get in, then hours waiting for each ride before finally giving up and queueing to leave. But luckily you don’t have any of these problems at Drusillas. I have probably put my foot in it now and encouraged people to visit and it will be packed the next time we go!

We’ve visited Drusillas many tines before, last visit about 10 years ago, and with fond memories and glowing reviews on here we were excited to be returning whilst on a family holiday to the area. So we were surprised and saddened to leave disappointed - and over £100 lighter on entry fees alone.

Appreciating it was a sunny bank holiday weekend, queuing for half an hour with young children having purchased tickets online wasn’t a great start. However, this reflected that very quickly the park was was too packed, too soon, with limited space to move around in the zoo area and beyond. Popular areas, like Get Wet, were far too busy to get into or enjoy. It all felt very cramped - which isn’t something we’d remembered or have really experienced at other zoos and attractions.

Shade was very hard to come by, food outlets provided limited healthy choices (perhaps they’d run out) and drinking water involved more queuing. For an attraction targeted at young families this feels like basics.

Am sure this would be a different experience with babies and toddlers on a week day, as seeing the animals was lovely; however with slightly older children the lack of space made it far less enjoyable.

It was so busy we gave up and left after 3 hours - which was an expensive half day. Having returned home and read comments and responses on the entry fees we’re just as disappointed - Drusillas ticket prices are very similar to London Zoo, Chester Zoo, Port Lympne and others, all far larger and brilliant for young families. Sadly I’m not sure we’ll be back.