Longleat Review - Read About Longleat From a Kid's Point of View

Kids Give Longleat Restaurant a C-Minus, Other Attractions "Quite Good"

If you arrive at Longleat around midday during school vacations, be prepared for a long wait to enter. But don't be put off by that. Once inside, there are plenty of distractions to help you and the kids pass the time until you're allowed to drive into the Safari Park itself.

We arrived at Longleat late in the morning - at about 11:30 a.m. and found ourselves in a long queue of cars, snaking our way across the Longleat Estate, behind the house, across fields to an overflow parking lot. Despite this, the time passed relatively quickly and we were soon inside. Parking, given the number of cars, is relatively close to the house and various attractions.

Tickets for the park are sold at a few different locations on the main square, so we only had to wait about 15 minutes. While we were in line, park staff handed out bags of jelly snakes to ease the wait.

Most of Longleat's catering is clustered around a large, airy pavilion with simple, child proof furnishings, where hot meals, sandwiches, burgers and pizza are offered. Visiting Longleat is an all day affair and once you are inside, unless you have packed a cooler and use the picnic areas, eating in one of Longleat's restaurants or snackbars is not a matter of choice.

Inside, arrangements are somewhat confusing and, with all the to-ing and fro-ing of parents and children, leisurely contemplation of what is on offer is out of the question. We ended up at the hot food counter, where adult and child sized versions of all the dishes were available. There was apparently a daily special but only one of our party of four noticed it.

No one was really happy with their meal. Lizzie and I both gave up trying to catch the hard, brown,wrinkled peas that came with our food and were impossible to fork up. She thought her sausage and mash was "nice". Nick, was similarly lukewarm about his chicken with mash and veg and left most of it on his plate. Although portions were generous, we all thought the presentation could have been more child-friendly and generally appealing.

After adventures in the Longleat Hedge Maze, while we waited for our clear shot at the Safari Park, we took in some of the other attractions. Nick, my 11-year-old friend, thought most of the other family attractions at Longleat existed to take pressure off the Safari Park. The rest of the park was "quite good," he said, but, "it's kind of all about the Safari Park, isn't it."

Here are Nick and Lizzie's verdict on some of the other attractions:

• Pet's Corner Both children were probably a bit too old for Longleat's animal zoo. They found it small and crowded with not enough to see. "There weren't enough rabbits," Lizzie said.

  A popular exception was the snake that children were allowed to hold. Lizzie didn't manage to penetrate the crowd to touch the large heavy snake being handled by one of Longleat's keepers. Later she complained, "There were lots of people crowding around the one snake. They should have another one."

  Nick, smaller and more determined,worked his way right to the center next to the keeper. Soon he was lifting the heavy snake (in the hubbub we never found out what kind of snake it was) over his head in shy triumph.

• The Bird Show met with a mixed reception. Lizzie thought it "went on a bit", Nick termed it "really good". We dawdled getting to the open air seating and had to stand through the show which may have had an effect on the kids' enjoyment.

We didn't have time for the house, the train, the boat, the gorillas, the butterfly house - but planned to return on our season passport tickets.

We visited Longleat on a cold, overcast day, during the last big vacation week of the English summer. We waited in queues, jostled with crowds in a few areas and were disappointed with our lunch. Nevertheless, Longleat's Safari Park, Monkey Jungle and Hedge Maze are such good fun, and the Longleat staff so good natured and helpful that we all agreed it was a day very well spent.

Plan a Visit to Longleat
Check out the Animal Babies of Longleat
See the Monkey Hooligans of Longleat