Explore the UK's first safari park at Longleat
Longleat, wiltshire.
Feed giraffes by hand and walk on the wildside with lemurs at this popular safari park, found in the picturesque grounds of historic Longleat House.
First opened in 1966, Longleat Safari Park was the first drive-through attraction of its kind outside Africa, and it's still running strong today. With countless species of animals and attractions like Penguin Island, Stingray Bay, Jungle Cruise and an adventure castle, it's a great day out for the entire family. Explore the animal habitats on a road tour through the park, before stepping onto the Main Square and venturing into koala habitats, outdoor playgrounds and hedge mazes.
Special events run throughout the year, including the ever-popular Festival of Lights over the Christmas period; this large display of illuminated Chinese lanterns adorns the entire parkland and adds a touch of festivity to everything. And, of course, visitors can also extend their stay in the area with a tour through Longleat House and its surrounding pleasure gardens.
Longleat Safari Park is due to re-open on Monday 15 June - make sure to check the website through the link below for availability and opening times.
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Longleat Safari Park
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Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.
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LONGLEAT SAFARI PARK: All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos)
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Longleat Safari Park
Top ways to experience nearby attractions
Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.
Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.
Also popular with travelers
Longleat Safari Park - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)
Longleat Safari Park
Top ways to experience nearby attractions
Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.
Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.
Also popular with travellers
LONGLEAT SAFARI PARK: All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos)
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Longleat Safari Park - advice and tips?
HeyDemonsItsYaGirl · 06/08/2021 18:57
My mum is in love with Animal Park so I've booked us in for her birthday later in the month. I'm expecting it to be busy, so any tips how to get the best out of the day? It's a 2.5 hour drive to get there so difficult to arrive too early; are we better off arriving well after the 10am opening, say 11, or will it be busy all day? Any areas we should definitely visit?
I would say busy all day. When you get there go to the drive through safari and stop, have a quick loo visit, then drive round. With you snack lunch to hand. After that go onto the house.it’s a busy full on day, can you stay over, as at the end of the day it gets quite and you can finish everything off. We love longleat
They don't do the scratch cards anymore! Single day ticket is just that day. I dont think you can do it all in one day so important to choose. We like the river cruise and feeding parakeets.
Oh I really did love it there!! Would love to go back at some point.
I’d say get there at opening and go straight to the river cruise as the queues get very long for that (though we went last summer and they may not be doing as much social distancing on the boats now so it might be better ?). When we went you also had to go and get a time slot for the maze and they were going quite quickly. We ended up doing the safari over lunch so were glad we’d bought a picnic and could have it as we went round as it took longer than we’d expected (not really a bad thing, just slow I with all the cars). Enjoy!
If you drive through the monkeys, expect to have your car damaged. We took the double decker bus through the second time we went and that gives a great view of cars being dismantled.
Don’t drive through the monkey enclosure. You will end up with half your car missing!
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If you are going to get there at 11, by pass the safari park bit and do ten area that you can walk around first and go back and do the drive through bit later
Do the safari last and do the walk around attractions first. The walk around park is quietest in the morning because everyone does the safari first then piles into the park by lunchtime. The train ride displays the train times but you can't pre book so get there 20mins before departure to guarantee a seat. The food isn't great and very expensive so pack a picnic. Coffee is good though! The orangery and the secret garden are quieter spots for food and for picnics.
I regretted not stopping at the giraffes on the safari, you can't go back if you don't. We went through the monkeys without issue. Loved being in our own car (with picnic and potty for the toddler!) They seemed to be interested in cars with roof racks/bike racks/bells and whistles, not much in our basic plain old Golf.
I put my handbag down to pet the giraffes and it got covered with bird poo! , Be careful!
In terms of what to visit and what not to visit it depends if you have kids with you. Without kids I would say definitely go around the house and formal gardens, go into the museum of curiosities bit, the boat and train are great and obviously all the animals. If you have kids then most of the above bar the house, but also the castle playground with splash pad is fantastic and also the rocking rhino. Take towels and spare clothes for the kids if you do the splash pad.
We quite like the bus option to go around the safari. I thought it would be rubbish but the driver commentated and told us lots about the animals and was absolutely fantastic! It goes from inside the park too so you dont have to leave and come back.
Definitely bring your own food.
We are going on the 16th but have been twice before, the lady in the phone told us expect to be in the drive through safari for about 4 hours on school holiday 🙈 the house is still closed and not opening anytime soon so you won't be able to do that unfortunately xx
We went last week. It was very busy. Somehow we missed the giraffes, not sure how - would have liked to see them. But as a PP said, you can't go back. The queues were long on the drive through bits and it was raining when we were there, we were very glad to have our picnic in the car with us. The boat ride was excellent as usual and no social distancing but the queue was still long. In fact there was no social distancing anywhere so if that's a concern of yours maybe leave it a bit? We didn't have time for the train ride. I love longleat but if I could choose to go in term time I definitely would.
How busy was it in the main (walking bit in the middle) areas? We havent been in summer before...
How long does it take to walk around the middle bits (not house/gardens - just animals.) We want to see koalas etc. Is it heaving?
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I would definitely postpone it a few weeks if you can go outside of school holidays.
It was OK, we saw most of the things we wanted to see. It was raining heavily so the undercover areas were busier but we managed to spend quite a bit of time with the koalas and parakeets. I think the advice of going round the zoo first and then the drive through later is good.
We went the other day and it was so busy. We did the walk round bit first which was OK, long-ish queues for the train and boat but the train is very long and there were 2 boats running so actually the wait time wasn't atrocious. Then the drive through safari at 2pm. It was basically a traffic jam the whole way through! Very very slow. Took us basically 2 hours to get to the end and we skipped a couple of enclosures as the dc were getting fractious. Won't go in the holidays again if I can help it (tricky though with kids!).
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Generally, we ask you to plan for the Safari Drive-through taking around 2 hours to complete, so we recommend leaving plenty of time in your day to enjoy it. Note that at peak times that the Safari may take longer. Last entry for the Safari will vary depending on the date of visit. Last entry times can be reviewed at the below link.
First opened in 1966, Longleat Safari Park was the first drive-through attraction of its kind outside Africa, and it's still running strong today. With countless species of animals and attractions like Penguin Island, Stingray Bay, Jungle Cruise and an adventure castle, it's a great day out for the entire family. Explore the animal habitats on ...
Generally, we ask you to plan for the Safari Drive-through taking around 2 hours to complete, so we recommend leaving plenty of time in your day to enjoy it. Note that at peak times that the Safari may take longer. Last entry for the Safari will vary depending on the date of visit. Last entry times can be reviewed at the below link.
Longleat safari, is a whole day experience and well worth getting to really early and planning to spend the whole day at, this was my second visit and we took the safari bus this time. Well this was a game changer, the driver knows where all the animals will be, loads of animal fact, the animals pet names and life histories, lots of things ...
Absolutely Amazing. Make sure you arrive early. We went on a quiet day and managed to do most things, however the queue for the safari was massive. I took my 10 year old daughter
The Cheep Safari Tour takes to up and close to the animals - an experience to cannot compare to the self drive through we have done in other Safari Parks and in fact also done at Longleat after the organized tour. Mike, our guide was charming, witty and knowledgeable, its clear that he loves the animals and his job.
History. The park is in the grounds of Longleat House, a stately home which is open to the public and is the home of the 8th Marquess of Bath. Longleat Safari Park and the concept of safari parks were the brainchild of Jimmy Chipperfield (1912-1990), former co-director of Chipperfield's Circus.. In 2022, Longleat welcomed the birth of a southern koala joey.
Yes, I would say the maximum amount of time it's going to take is 2 hours. It depends how much you stop and look at the animals? The first section of the safari is where you can see the giraffes, you park up and get out your car and there is a cafe and a shop there. There is also some rope bridges you can walk across and walk through lemur ...
Here are a few things we enjoyed/did: 1) The £8 p/person for the Safari bus tour is well worth it. First of all, parts of your car will not end up at the so called 'Longleat scrap yard'. We saw monkeys taking off numbers and letters off numberplates, as well as alloys and windscreen wipers.
Pushchairs are not able to be taken on the tour, but can be left under cover at the Bus Stop for the duration of the Safari Bus trip. Guests are free to bring drinks on the service, but food cannot be consumed on the bus. Buses run daily at 10.30am and 2pm, with tickets available for purchase up to 15 minutes before advertised start time.
Longleat
24 June 2022. Longleat Safari Park. The two-toed sloth is believed to be the slowest mammal in the world. The world's slowest mammal has made its long-overdue debut at Longleat Safari Park in ...
The Cheep Safari Tour takes to up and close to the animals - an experience to cannot compare to the self drive through we have done in other Safari Parks and in fact also done at Longleat after the organized tour. Mike, our guide was charming, witty and knowledgeable, its clear that he loves the animals and his job.
Opening dates and times: Longleat is open from 10am until 5pm, with the last safari entry at 4pm. During peak times, including summer and Bank Holidays, Longleat is open from 10am until 6pm, although last entry to the safari is 4pm. When we visited, it was open from 10am until 6pm (early and late summer times).
The walk around park is quietest in the morning because everyone does the safari first then piles into the park by lunchtime. The train ride displays the train times but you can't pre book so get there 20mins before departure to guarantee a seat. The food isn't great and very expensive so pack a picnic.
A two-toed sloth, believed to be the slowest mammal in the world, has made its first public appearance at Longleat - and she is adorable. Truffles is a 22-month-old female Linnaeus's two-toed sloth, and is making herself at home in her purpose-built display at the Wiltshire safari park's Jungle Kingdom. The park has said that since sloths ...
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Vehicles such as convertibles, soft top cars and motorbikes are not allowed in the Safari Park for the safety of both our guests and the animals in our collection.. We are able to accommodate pickup trucks (as long as the bed is empty or sealed), as well as larger vehicles such mini-buses, transit vans and motorhomes (as long as there is nothing attached to the outside).
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Generally, we ask you to plan for the Safari Drive-through taking around 2 hours to complete, so we recommend leaving plenty of time in your day to enjoy it. Note that at peak times that the Safari may take longer. Last entry for the Safari will vary depending on the date of visit. Last entry times can be reviewed at the below link.
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