A lovely, wild day out
4.5
4.5
Date of visit: July 2020
I have experience of challenges around: moving around and understanding.
Overall Rating
Excellent
It’s a small but lovely wildlife centre, with plenty of activities and animals to keep the whole family happy. Staff are helpful and nice, and it is very accessible. After a little bit of trouble with the new online booking system, I managed to get next day tickets for 1 adult, 2 kids and a carer. Carers go free! We also booked an animal feeding pack, and could have booked pre-packed lunches or cream teas to pick up on arrival rather than queueing indoors for the cafe. We used the cafe outside the centre itself, just by the car park, and they had provided seating areas split by planters, making social distancing both possible and pleasant - and there’s another big accessible toilet as well.
Disabled Access In and Around
Excellent
We know it well, so we zoomed around all our favourites (otters, lorys, lemurs, tortoises) while stopping to feed all the critters we could. I use a powerchair, and find the paths wide and smooth enough to access easily. A couple of spots in the woodland gravel path may be slightly more challenging by manual wheelchair, but the vast majority is perfect.
Parking & Transport
Excellent
Parking for blue badge holders is next to the entrance. This is the first time it’s been busy, and I suspect the lack of parking attendants means non badge holders had helped themselves. But we did get a space, and if you had to park in the main car park, it’s all level access.
Accessible Toilets
Good
There are plenty of disabled loos, though the one close to the cafe down a tight corridor is worth avoiding when open (tight corridor, parents using it as a baby change). The rest are spacious and clean. I don’t think any are Changing Places, however. Please check online.
Staff
Excellent
Additional Information
The Butterfly House is the first place we’ve been out to since lockdown that has got numbers very right. You have a 3 hour slot in which to wander the centre, which will get you around the whole place with time to go back to favourites. There is plenty of room and few enough people to ensure social distancing is easy. All staff wear masks, indoors and out. My rule-following, crowd-hating autistic kiddo was happy and comfortable.
