I’m sorry, Paulton’s park is HOW much???

[soootiredddd]

I seem to have woken up in a parallel universe whereby it costs me and my DH £116 to take our 3 year old to Paulton’s park for the day. Surely this cannot be right?! This includes £26 saving for booking in advance, if I wanted to go today it would cost £143. This is insane, have I missed something or does everyone use 2for1 vouchers or some other trick to make it vaguely affordable?!

I’ve literally never ever heard of this place, just had to Google it.

Prices have shot up recently. Went in December and I think it was £33.50 per ticket in advance. Went last week and it was £39 or £40 each! Quite a hike in 4 months. Thankfully my 3 year old is short so she was free, so £80 didn’t seem tooooo bad. Though we did then spend £40 on photos…

for us it’s cheap compared to Lego land, Alton towers etc as they charge based on age not height so we’d have to pay for her elsewhere.

i found it much better than other theme parks, the longest we queued was 20 mins or so and this was during the school holidays. By 4pm Peppa pig was empty and you could just walk on the rides, we did 3 or 4 in a row without queuing at all.

I took ds a few years ago, the dds were away on a school trip and dh was working. I don’t remember what it cost so I can’t have been too outraged about it. Or else it just felt much cheaper since I’m usually paying for entry to things for 4 or 5!
We had a nice enough day, but it wasn’t something we talked about for ages after and it wasn’t very memorable. Ds hasn’t ever asked to go back. We didn’t do PPW as he was too old for it.
Nice to see the comments remarking on how clean and well maintained it is though, Legoland is filthy and so worn or it was the last few times we went.
As a kid I recall that we did one theme park a year and it was a ‘big treat’ - these days some people are going on a weekly basis because of the passes, it’s astonishing!

I would recommend Four Kingdoms - just in case you are looking for alternative options.

We went to Four Kingdoms. It was cheap but crap 😂
After an hour ds asked if we could leave! Managed to drag it out for another hour by going and having something to eat but after that even I threw the towel in!

Alternative option; go to Lymington market, have an ice cream in the sunshine by the Quay and go on a mini pirate cruise?

www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g190774-d8453887-Reviews-Puffin_Cruises_Lymington-Lymington_New_Forest_National_Park_Hampshire_Hampshire_E.html

Or go to the Isle of Wight for the day for that?

Agreed. My daughter loved 4 kingdoms last summer when we went but I’d put it more in the ‘farm park’ camp rather than ‘theme park’ one, and it’s basically made of fibreglass and gravel 😂

someone else has mentioned something which gets on my nerves - adult prices. I don’t mind paying adult prices at Paultons as there are adult rides. I do object at the local farm park. There’s nothing for me there, I’m supervising my child. Why is ir £17 for me to get in?? And don’t get me STARTED on charging adults for soft play!!

I wish they did Peppa only tickets! We spent a fortune and all the kids wanted to do was PPW. We didn’t even get to do all the PP rides as it was so packed and the virtual queues were closed. Admittedly, it was a lot of fun and the kids were enchanted by it. Avoid the bloody gift shop which is full of tat that you can buy for a fraction of the price in Wilko.

Has anyone noticed there are way fewer options for Clubcard days out now? I was hoping to do Whipsnade or Woburn over Easter but they no longer seem to be available. A few smaller theme park type places are gone too.

Indeed Paultons season tickets used to be very good value, but the price of them has reached ridiculous levels now. It started during Covid restrictions with Paultons seemingly trying to price season ticket holders out of the market, because selling day tickets was more lucrative for them.

“I’m not being racist BUT”
(Awaits massive racist rant)

”I’ll probably be called racist BUT”

UK isn’t a racist Country according to most people BUT.

Too much “ Buttery””

This has been a blast from the past, we had season tickets for about ten or eleven years as it's just up the road from us. Sometimes we'd go after school for an hour or two. One thing we always said was that you can see where they spend the money, the place is immaculate, there are lots of food places, seating and toilets and there are new rides every year. Ours were just about too old for Peppa Pig world which helped as we only bothered with it for the first year after it opened really. It gets really busy though.

That said, when we looked at how much it was to visit without season tickets, it was always a huge amount of money. Quite how they think families will afford it now I don't know.

It’s always been pricey but we went a couple of years ago before lockdown and paid around £120 for four of us! I can’t believe it’s now £190! We love super close and have been going for years (since I was a kid) and love it but that is so expensive for one day that I’m not sure we’ll go again!

One thing we always felt they should do is have a discounted grandparent/helper price. So many people have someone with them helping with the littlies, but who don't go on any rides yet have to pay full entrance price to go in. But I guess that's probably true of most theme parks.

You should try adventureisland.co.uk/ in Southend! It's free to get in, you just buy a wrist band for those who want to ride. £25 for a wrist band but if you are accompanying someone under 120cm it's free: so you'd buy one band for your 3 year old and one of you would ride with them. Loads of rides for little ones, no Qs and you can get fish and chips! Perfect

Unfortunately it had free publicity courtesy of the Prime Minister, which probably increased demand.

We went last year to PP, DD’s were 5 and 2. The queues for Peppa pig rides was insane so we didn’t manage very many. But we did manage most of the other rides in the park. It’s a lovely park and they do keep it immaculate.

We also went to Legoland 2 days after which felt dirty by comparison. We paid about the same for entry to both but also purchased fast passes for Legoland because the queues for all rides was stupidly long. We managed all rides in a day and as we don’t plan to go back I didn’t mind the extra money. Eldest DD had been looking forward to doing the driving experience the queue was 2hrs long within 20 mins of the park opening. There’s no way she’d have waited that long and we wouldn’t have made it on most rides.

We took a picnic with us which helped with the cost and because DD’s are fussy with takeout food and often won’t eat it.

Seems extortionate. We went last Nov for DS’s birthday. Adult tickets were £23.75 each and DS was free (he was still 2).

We had a good day but I wouldn’t pay much more than that for adult tickets tbh, obviously when DS is older we’d have to pay for him too.

I thought the same, We've been a few times before but pre-lockdown. We've booked to go to the New Forest for 2 nights in the summer, and I was going to book PP but it was £150 as we're a family of 5. I haven't booked it - there's a lovely farm nearby where the kids can pet and feed the animals and they have great play areas, and we're going to go to the Beaulieu car museum the other day and both of those together still cost less than £150!
I think days out and UK holidays are getting way too expensive and that people are going to have to stop doing them at this rate...

We’ve been 3 times in the last 3 years, the prices have gone up quite a lot in that time. This recent time we went I did gawk at the cost of day tickets and both DDs are over the height now that need tickets. The short break with hotel worked out much cheaper than 2 day tickets for us all, the prices for that vary a lot depending on dates but some dates do have quite a discount on what the price would be separately.

Whilst more than I’ve paid for entry to anywhere else with kids (used clubcard to get in free for legoland etc) we have never felt ripped off once there, it really is a great park and way way above the merlin places

But no it is not a £40-£60 family daily out, the places that are that price simply don’t compare at all so if you were expecting that then yes it would be a shock - but your comparing things that don’t compare. The investment the park have made here is obvious everywhere, they have literally spent millions and millions and recently - it’s also not just peppa pig world, the other parts of the park are brilliant (better than peppa) and from around 4 years old can go on nearly all rides including the big rollercoasters and so many really good rides. The owners have done an impressively good job at developing the park (better than Disney and Merlin has with rides) they have really thought and been selective on what they have put in, that costs money and they are charging comparable prices to other similar attractions

They employ staff, who need to pay the same bills you do, and they use a lot of energy. Everyone should be able to do the math really easy.

I don’t think £40 each is actually that bad for what you get. It’s the best value I’ve been to mainly because the queues for manageable and the kids actually managed to go in a lot of rides. Queues were at least an hour at legoland and we went on 4 rides all day. That is really poor value imo and you pay for the car park

I do think Paultons Park is one of the best parks though.

Anyone near Surrey, Bocketts Farm is a good day out

when are you moving then?

My daughter was almost 5 before we had to pay for her.

Oh, I find that very galling. My children hit 1m before they were 3. We looked into Paultons when we were in holiday on the south coast but realised that we’d have to pay full adult price for her at 2y8m.

I understand they need a system but it really counts against us a tall family. I have learnt to avoid the MN threads about how everyone lies through their teeth about their children’s ages to get them cheap admission. I have to carry photos of my children’s birth certificates to prove their ages.

I was hoping we’d be able to have a day out for maybe £40-60 plus food (picnic) and petrol.

Im sorry Op but that’s just so naive. How do you possibly expect a massive park, which many many rides, (with all that entails:maintenance, health and safety, are engineers etc) with hundreds of staff to pay for, to operate by charging people £15 for the day?!