Chew Valley Animal Park Reviews Summary

Animal Enclosures and Interaction

Pros:

• "All animals have nice clean enclosures."
• "You can pet any animal that will come to the fences and buy feed for some of them, there are many opportunities to see and touch some of the animals out of their enclosure and have informative talks with their keepers."
• "Cuddle Corner is to get hand on with the baby animals, we were also around for the baby Goat feeding time so we where aloud into the pen with them for a cuddle and a play."
• "Really good - pigs, chickens and pygmy goats you can walk in the enclosure and give them some fuss and food."
• "All the animals looked healthy and well looked after."
• "The cages looked clean and spacious, the animals looked healthy."
• "Lots of animal pens you can go in and interact with them hands on."

Cons:

• "The biggest red flag with this place is that the public have free access to go into enclosures with pigs/piglets and the goats, but there are NO staff around!"
• "The bit I didn't like was the more exotic animals like arctic fox and racoons etc. Their cages were tiny and I just felt sorry for them."
• "As usual with these types of places, the exotic animals look depressed."
• "Some of the animals just look absolutely miserable, have no access to sunlight."
• "No one is watching to make sure the animals aren't mistreated."
• "Rats in petting zoo, should be closed down."
• "The rats don't look healthy or living in good conditions."

Staff and Service

Pros:

• "The staff here work extremely hard and know the animals so well."
• "The staff were friendly and knowledgeable."
• "Staff were friendly and dedicated and sorted out an issue with a child harassing the chickens quickly."
• "The staff really made us feel so welcome."
• "The male keeper was friendly, professional and knowledgeable."
• "The staff are great, really knowledgeable and always on hand to resolve queries."
• "All staff are very friendly and helpful."

Cons:

• "Had a coffee from the Café which was a disappointment due to it being from one of the instant coffee makers."
• "But the food is quite expensive."
• "The only negative is that it is not the biggest park, but we still managed to kill a couple of hours without the children getting bored."
• "Staff in the cafe may be under staffed but shockingly bad customer service when complaint made that after waiting for an hour they had forgotten one of the meals ordered and charged for. No apology until asked for then stroppy about it."
• "The only negative was the food in the cafe was quite expensive and there wasn't any butter/spread on the sandwiches and chip butty which is essential! Also the food was poor quality for the price."
• "Plus the waitress passed a hot drink over my two year old granddaughters head which was very dangerous and maybe an accident waiting to happen."
• "The staff who very publicly told off the group about the children's handling of the pets."

Facilities and Accessibility

Pros:

• "Lovely cafe and toilets with baby changing."
• "Cafe serves a good variety of food too."
• "Friendly staff and good little cafe which does amazing chunky chips at the weekend!"
• "Great food as well."
• "Very nice gifts shop and restaurant area."
• "The food in the cafe was good and not expensive."
• "There's also a picnic area and a couple of cafes and good modern toilets."

Cons:

• "This place is definitely not for ppl with mobility needs!!! Car park is very loose gravel, access to cafe is via a steep ramp."
• "Another drawback is that even if you arrive 30 minutes before closing time they still charge full price."
• "Disappointed with the lack of parking - with the promotion on for the reopening it was quite busy and we had driven an hour to get there to find no available parking at 10:15am and no nearby other parking either."
• "Just take a big wheeled pushchair as little wheels are hard to push on the big stones paths in some places."
• "Unfortunately we were unable to use the toilets with one of my pupils in a powered wheelchair."
• "This place is NOT autism/SEN friendly."
• "Little difficult to gain entry through the main entrance with a mobility scooter."

Value and Experience

Pros:

• "What a fantastic venue for the little ones with quite an extensive section of Farm animals."
• "Absolutely fantastic place!"
• "Brilliant place owner really friendly also staff."
• "Great value for money and a brilliant day out."
• "The variety of animals is fantastic, to see ducks flying around and happily landing in one of the ponds was a sight to see!"
• "All in all I could not fault the place."
• "An absolutely wonderful day out for children and adults alike."

Cons:

• "£28 (1 adult, 2 kids) and we struggled to fill an hour."
• "Wouldn't return."
• "I was a bit worried about the camels, foxes and tortoises though as their areas looked small."
• "At £25 for a family ticket I might have been a little disappointed to go on another weekend."
• "Bit disappointed - was expecting more animals, given the reviews seen."
• "The rest of the experience was very much adequate: the regular animals to feed and some cute baby animals to look at. However, the place was tired with a few untidy 'farm store' type affairs on visitor paths and generally not enough to see to justify the entry price."
• "Would NOT recommend coming here unless you want to support animal cruelty."