Have been several times now with friends to enjoy the animal experiences. Most recently was with a disabled friend in a wheelchair to feed the White Lions. Staff were very helpful and accommodating. A great atmosphere and wonderful day out and a disabled person still buzzing with the close up encounters with the cheeky Zuri and Moto, the male who graced her with his presence and deigned to take some tidbits from her hand. Don't worry, the whole process is carried out from the other side of a stout fence under excellent supervision of an experienced keeper, but you are literally a matter of inches away and they are so gentle that the worst you will get is a rough lick from their tongue as they take the snack.
Obviously the rest of the day isn't quite as exciting as being close up to a big cat but the Lemurs, Meercats, Monkeys, Otters, Penguins and the Red Panda etc. are all great fun
We had a nice meal in the main cafe which was quickly served but was fresh, with reasonable options inc. vegetarian and plenty of it for a very reasonable price especially compared to other wildlife parks and Zoos.
The park itself is compact but well laid out with good accessibility so all in a great day out that will suit all ages and mobilities.

Being a big fan of a couples day out I went here with my husband on my birthday. I think if we were going with kids (which we don't have yet) it would have been a great day but unfortunately apart from seeing the animals there wasn't much to do for us. The animals there were great to see and it was nicely laid out with great walkways above the big cat areas which were quite special but for the price we paid there really wasn't much to see for a day out. Half the park is massive adventure playground areas, an entertainment area and food hall - great for kids I'm sure and would probably go with nieces and nephews in the future. Think we were here about 2 hours in total and compared to other places like Colchester Zoo which we love I just felt odd being in a "family" place

Used to go here as a kid many moons ago and decided to have a family day out there seeing as it's expanded lots and improved over the years.

Great day out and fairly priced. Has a good range of animals and even some that you're unlikely to see at bigger mainstream zoos.

Plenty to do for the kids including a soft play zone, outdoor park and train ride then the animals and a few shows/talks about them which is good.

This was the first time we've been to Paradise Park since our children were young. It's changed quite a lot although the overall park is how I remember it. It is quite expensive for a family I would think. Particularly if they start charging for parking which was signposted outside although hasn't started yet. Obviously there are loads of animals to see. Mostly asleep when we were there. Typical zoo experience I find. There are outlets selling food which wasn't too bad. There are also picnic areas so you can take your own food to save a bit of money. The site is well set out so you can make your way round and find all the different animals without too much bother. All in all a good day out.

The price may be a lot more than I was used to as a young lad. (Quite a few years ago) but still worth it. It is definitely a better park for the price. Plenty of activities for the young and old. And plenty of parking with an overflow the other side of the road. Great fun day out for the kids and even more so for us adults. I still enjoy going with my other half.

My husband & I had bought an experience to feed the Red Pandas. Even though we both love animals we'd somehow never visited this park before. What a shame! We've been missing out. Our daughter is grown up now but the facilities for small kids looked awesome. Slides, firetrucks, amusements.

More importantly the animals & their welfare appeared to be top notch. They've really put thought into viewing platforms & accessibility whilst keeping happy animals. That is always of utmost importance to us. Watching Misha the wolf being groomed by her keeper & loving every second of it spoke volumes.

The staff were extremely welcoming & knowledgeable. When it came time to feed the red pandas they weren't interested in coming down out the trees. Now we were imagining we'd be told, 'Tough, that's the way the dice rolls.' Obviously we'd never expect the animals to be forced into anything. However we were told to come back in an hour. If the red pandas didn't come down then we'd try again & if that failed we could meet the meerkats instead. We were so impressed with their determination to give us a good experience. As it happens one of the red pandas came down for feeding on our second visit. It was a wonderful experience I'll never forget and I managed to get some awesome close up photos. We also learnt a huge amount about red pandas.

For the record we visited on a school day. I imagine this place gets swarmed with children during the holidays so plan accordingly. You can't blame the park for being popular & busy.

We visited on a quiet, rainy Monday but the day was great!! There's were some great animals to see and because it was raining we were the only people who turned up to the bird show so a lovely keeper called Claire gave us our own personal bird show!! It was fantastic and really made my other half's day!!

We have just been to Paradise Wildlife Park.
It was our first ever visit and we will definitely be coming back.
Everything was so much fun.
My children are 3 and 7 and they loved the adventure playgrounds and slides.
We also thought the animals were great especially the monkeys who were so funny.
I'm sure they were showing off to us!
We took our own food so can't comment on the restaurant but from what I saw it looked nice.
The gift shop was lovely too and we can't wait to go back!

It's located just outside London so it's a perfect day out if you want to enjoy some quality time. Me and my girlfriend was there during sunny August and it was lovely.
There is a decent collection of animals there, especially the big cats. The white lion pride is a must watch as they are so rare and so beautiful. And you can see snow leopards, tigers and other big cats there as well. Apart from the animals there are few good restaurant out there to have a decent meal while you enjoy the nature.
It cost us around £30 for tickets for both of us and it was totally worth it.
Ideal day out for a couple, family outing, kids day out, photographers, or anyone looking for a getaway from busy life.

Johanna and I attended a Breakfast with the Big Cats experience. I was better than we expected, in particular the breakfast buffet which was excellent with wide choice of cold meats, cheese and cereals. The talk from the keeper was informative and he clearly loved the big cats, although at times he did start to loose the interest as he went on a bit too long. The big cats all look well carted for and the importance of the breading programs was explained well. The remainder of the Park only has a limited range of animals but it was clearly popular.

What an amazing day!! We did the white lion feeding experience and wow, what an experience it was!! The lions were brill, the instructor was excellent, so thorough on all information whilst being friendly. We even got a little bit of extra time with him and the lions where the park was so quiet. We saw him again at the wolves, and the tigers and he was still superb. You've such an array of animals that aren't you're typical zoo animal, it was fascinating, loved every minute. All staff were friendly and chatty, lovely atmosphere. Would come here again easily, worth the 2.5 hour drive 👍

Best zoo ever

I went here not really knowing what to expect, I'm not keen on the idea of zoos but it was just up the road and we wanted to take a friend to cheer her up after some difficult times.

Firstly, we are a couple in our late 30's, no kids and really into wildlife and the great outdoors. Our friend, in her early 60's is passionate about animal welfare and big cats and has an interest in zoology.

I want to write a balanced view here, but it's going to be hard because parts of this place were great, but parts of it were so awful that I came away feeling quite upset, despite the fact we had a nice day with our friend. It will probably be easier to deal with each thing as I remember it, rather than try to divide into good/bad. To give this review perspective we visited on a Saturday in mid May.

On arrival you drive down a road into what looks like a theme park. This place is clearly geared towards kids and the sort of families that need to be "entertained". I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as we got out of the car as it all looked very tacky and commercial with huge plastic meerkats and bright signage as the main focus. I could hear loud tacky fairground style music pumped out from beyond the car park and I took a deep breath. It certainly didn't give the impression of "Paradise" or "wildlife".

Anyway, we paid our money and used a 20%off voucher that we found online just by googling, this was a smooth transaction and we entered the park and were given maps. We went in the cafe by the entrance for a quick cup of tea, which was alright, nothing special but large cups and reasonably priced. There's a huge ball-pit style attraction in here, which made me wonder what sort of people would bring their kids to a wildlife park with lions, tigers etc as the main attraction then spend their time sat in a cafe with the kids in the ball pool. We are about to find out...

Upon leaving the cafe and entering the park, we noticed that everyone had several unruly kids and was about 22 stone. We seemed to be the only people not wearing polyester branded sportswear.

We realised on looking at the map that the park is divided into two with the wildlife bit at the back and the entertainment/theme park the first bit you have to go to to get to the animals. I am not exaggerating here when I say that this first part is like entering the seventh circle of hell. Loudspeakers playing that godawful theme from "Frozen" and various slides, rides, amusements and later a stage with various workers dressed as animals leaping about like they were on on acid. We sat waiting for our friend to use the loo observing the scene around us. Lots of people shouting at their kids with fags hanging from their lips while on their mobile phones shouting at whoever is on the other end. The theme from Frozen has gone now, replaced by Blame it on the Boogie and then bizarrely some gangster rap and I don't know what else because we didn't stick around long enough to find out. Our thoughts at this point being let's just see the animals and then we can get the hell out.

At this point you cross a road into the animal bit. There's still garish signage everywhere and again it's all aimed at kids and very commercial. There's a sign pointing at something you think is an animal enclosure off to the left but in fact is a set of slot machines. There's a little kiosk selling animal feed for £1 a bag so we get two and are dismayed to discover each bag contains half a finely chopped carrot. We are about to lose all hope when we go round a corner and are met by the sight of a majestic white tiger looking straight at us! It's still not that busy as everyone else seems to be at the amusements so we are able to spend a good amount of time observing at a close distance before he wanders off.

We then go into a building and watch a talk given by a young lady with a voice like nails down a blackboard. During the talk lots of small animals are brought out including rats, a skunk, an owl and some ferrets. It's mildly interesting but all very dumbed down and patronising and delivered in that childrens TV presenter on speed style everybody hates, especially children. The kids in the building are all getting restless at this point because they just want to go back on the rides and not listen to the screechy lady with the distressing voice. The good thing is the owl is flown around and lands on perches very close to the audience, it's possible to get right up close to the animals if you sit down the front and the animals all seem to be well looked after and healthy. Obviously none of the kids are watching and the parents are all telling them off. It's at this point that they decide to play a video at full volume about Hero Rats and it has a very annoying song, again in children's entertainer style high pitched shrill about the poor little suicide rats that are used to detect land mines. I'm rather horrified by this piece of propaganda and we are then asked to give money to the rat which has been trained to put it in the money box. Hmmmm I hope not all the "talks" are like this.

So on to the next talk, which couldn't have been more different. We're at the cheetah enclosure and the speaker is an elderly gentleman who is very interesting and engaging and we see the cheetah being fed by hand by Ian the keeper and another keeper who are inside the enclosure. Fascinating stuff and in complete contrast to what we've just endured. Only thing is all the overstimulated brats and their parents are all shouting at each other, which ruins it a little.

We then wander around the rest of the zoo part, which is rather nice. I'm surprised by how well kept everything is and by how close you can actually get to the animals and they all seem quite happy. We watch more talks including the otters and the red pandas, again fascinating and engaging stuff marred by the whiny brats and their shouty parents. Everyone here seems to have the attention span of a goldfish. And they are everywhere.

Anyway, there's a lot of really good stuff here. The enclosures seem well kept and roomy compared to other zoos I've been to, and views are enhanced by raised walkways and viewing platforms. There's a white leopard that we see in a small enclosure pacing about, we're concerned about him and ask a keeper. Apparently he is in there while the females are fed so he doesn't steal their food. He will be let back out very soon. Perhaps a sign stating this would be a good idea? We weren't the only ones who found this alarming, but most people wouldn't have asked about it and left with the wrong impression.

Throughout the afternoon we are pleasantly surprised by the rest of the animal park, the rainforest house is really nice with the little Tamarins and we see a good selection of animals who all seem very happy and well looked after. By now we have learned to try to filter out the thousands of people who take their kids out in public to shout at and humiliate them.

We then go and look for the bird section, but can't find it. Twice we are given directions then discover a very narrow path with no signage at the back of the gift shop. This leads to the birds. Upon arrival we are invited into the Lorikeets house where we are given a little pot of nectar and an elf'n safety brief before we are lead through and they all land on us to drink the nectar. This is a highlight of our day, it's £1 extra but well worth it. We come away having taken lots of nice photographs of the beautiful birds on each other's heads and it didn't feel rushed or scary. Very pleasant. The rest of the bird part we have mixed feelings about - some fabulous birds but all the enclosures look a little small and in need of updating, is also has a feeling of being tucked away from the main attraction. Mind you with all the shouting that's probably a good thing, for the birds at least. There's also an arena in the middle where they do bird displays but there was nothing on at the hour we visited.

Following this we make our way back for the lion feeding, we notice a lot of people have left and we get a good view from the platform as the lions are given their dinner. Again the elderly gentleman is giving the talk, which is really interesting but unfortunately a lot of the kids are moaning they are bored and they want to go home. Then the parents are moaning that the kids are moaning. There's three lions eating a horse about 18 feet in front of us and a man who has known them since they were cubs and has worked with lions for many years is telling us about the time he slept next to one and all these miserable excuses for humanity are starting to wander off. At this point I wonder what is wrong with these people. Why do they come here? Then I remember the funfair style attractions and I believe therein lies the problem.

I don't know if I would come back here. The lions, tigers, leopards etc are amazing. We really enjoyed some of the talks and chatting to the keepers afterwards. This part is really nice, but you have to dodge all the overstimulated brats and their horrible parents shouting into their phones. Perhaps it would be better on a school day?

It's such a shame that it can't just be a peaceful wildlife park/zoo and they need to have the nasty entertainment to draw the crowds, I wonder if they took it away, got rid of the plastic and dumbing down kiddy focused nonsense and made it more about the animal experience, made that more engaging, would they attract a different sort of crowd that wouldn't make it so unpleasant for serious visitors who just want to come to "Paradise" wildlife park to enjoy the magnificent animals? I do worry about the effect all the noise and stress has on the creatures, whose hearing and sensory perception is far greater than ours. Maybe they could bulldoze the theme park style attractions and make the animals the main gig? We'd certainly come back then, and frequently.

Fantastic!
We went to the Big Cats Breakfast yesterday and just had a brilliant morning. ALL the staff at the Park are helpful, professional, hard-working and fun. Particular thanks to Ian (Tour Guide), the 2 ladies that looked after us at the Meet & Greet and the 2 ladies at the breakfast. Tour was excellent, love the animals and the breakfast at the end of the tour. Food was really inviting, fresh and tasty. And great location to get to from where we live. We'll definitely go again on another day. And a couple of our friends with children have also visited and loved it.

Went for a special speedway luncheon in a lovely marguee and enjoyed the food, a top class buffet by any standard. The Speedway Museum is very good too. But the animals and the play areas are the main attraction. On a lovely sunny day lots of people enjoying themselves, and the owners invest - a newish car parking area was evidence on arrival. Recommend this as a day out, the speedway element is a small but welcome bonus.

A nice day out.
Loads of animals.
The missus wanted to see predators - theyve got lions, tigers, leopards and more!
I wanted to feed the sheep and goats at the farm!
We ended the day with a round of mini golf - loadsa fun!
Although she beat me...😒
We would definitely recommend it especially for families with young children.

Wow....... I brought this experience for my wife and went along as the second person, boy am I glad I did.
We were greeted with a warm smile at the Discovery centre and were given a hot drink and biscuits as a starter.
We were led by a keeper called Joe to the meerkats enclosure, this was a private affair withn only the two of us and Joe.
We were led into the enclosure and sat down on a rock and a tree trunk, almose immediately the Meerkats were upon us, what a joy!
The Meerkats were so friendly and so agile, I think this is one of the best experiences I have ever had with any animails.
Dont hesitate, if you like Meerkats, spend your money here as you will not be dissapointed with your time in with the Meerkats, they are lovely!
The Meerkats are inquisitive so expect them to go through your pockets, down your top if they think they can see something and to scratch away at your pockets if they cant get in them, yes all of this happened to us in the 30 minutes we were with them!
Once your experience is finished, you are then free to explore the rest of the zoo

We stayed over at the zoo and fed the tigers on the morning, the keeper took us for a tour around all the big cats and was very informative. The tiger feed was a special experience - felt priviliged to be so close to such a big animal. The champagne breakfast was brill, there was just us two in the cafe with plenty of choice. The park its self was great plenty to do, would highly recommend the experience and the park to anyone!

The park was clean and the staff were very helpful. We had a mix of ages and one disabled person, the zoo was perfect for everyone. Great value for money. Will be going back this year.

Plenty to see and do, very clean and well laid out. Glass panels on mostly all of the animals so small children can see too. Fantastic zoo! Food in Sam's was delicious and served very quickly. Plenty of places to sit for a picnic too. Kids throughly enjoyed themselves as did the adults. Will be recommending and visiting again very soon.

A gift from our eldest Son and his partner, we went to meet and feed the wolves. The experience begins before the park officially opens so it is an early start. On arrival we went to the Discovery centre, where we were given coffee and biscuits. We met Pia our guide for the experience, who gave us information on the wolves and what we would be doing. She obviously loves her wolves and is very knowledgeable. We visited two enclosures housing two and one respectively. This is one awesome experience being so close to a top predator and feeding them by hand. It was quite astonishing to find the food was taken in a very gentle manner. Some they ate straight away and some they took to cache for later. The wolves are very comfortable with Pia, which in turn meant that they were very comfortable with us. This was a morning that we will never forget. After feeding we returned to the Discovery centre, more coffee and biscuits and a good long conversation about the wolves and the care they receive, and while we prefer to see our wildlife wild, it is good to know that those in captivity have people like Pia looking after them. We spent the rest of the day looking around the rest of the park which was very busy with plenty of children having a great time looking at the animals and enjoying the different facilities on offer to them. Even if you cannot take an experience, the park is still a great day out for all age groups.

Such a wonderful wildlife park!
The animals are amazing.... and clearly loved and cared for.
The viewing areas have been built to maximise viewing for lots of people.
All the staff are friendly and helpful.
Lots for kids to do and you can easily spend a whole day there.

We went on a Friday around midday. Spent about 4 enjoyable hours there. Even caught the sun on our faces. It was a fabulous time.

Perfect place for kids lots of play areas and extra activities (soft play, sand pit, splash area) zoo part isn't very big but very nice. Definitely worth of visit.

we spend lovely dey during term time so it was really quiet. My 2 year old loved all play areas and soft play. We brought a picnic with us where there were many outside places to have our lunch but I could see there were plenty of cafes we could have bought food at if we wished .The viewing areas allowed clear photo opportunities for all the animals, and there were lovely walking areas to get away from the busier areas. Definately worth a visit

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