Seriously? £86 for family entry?

[biggirlknickers]

This is for a visit to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park for 2 adults and 2 children.

I mean, who can afford £86 on tickets? That’s before you’ve factored in petrol, extortionate icecreams / coffees and no doubt a huge gift shop that you are forced to exit through with kids.

We are professionals on decent enough wages - we’re not rolling in it but we are doing ok. But that is truly beyond our reach for a single day out!

I’m thinking too of all the lower income families that I work with every day as a primary school teacher, for whom this couldn’t even be a consideration. Yorkshire children who don’t have a hope in hell of ever going to Yorkshire Wildlife Park.

AIBU to think that it’s really too much?

They have a lovley picnic area with benches and grass for children to run round etc

The bluewaterzip line also has discount codes etc if you shop around. I got my husband a ticket for £20. The pay on the gate prices for anywhere are silly money, means you have to plan ahead but covid means we have to anyway

I don't think £21.50 per person for a whole day's entertainment is extortionate.

Take your own picnic/drinks, and say no in the gift shop. Tbf, in the days when I used to go to these places, I did buy from the cafes/food outlets, but I never understood why parents couldn't say "no" in the gift shop.

May work out cheaper to get yearly pass if you plan on going again

£20-£25 seems like standard price for a day ticket to most attractions these days.

It's £8 just for the gardens of a local stately home, over £15 of you want to look inside the house.

I have paid recently £26pp for Chester Zoo and £34pp for Alton Towers.

Edinburgh Zoo also ridiculous.

@fairgame84

It is expensive but it's a full day out. We live 5 minutes from it and used to have an annual pass when DS was little. We haven't been for years due to the cost. DH has never been but it would be £60 for the 3 of us to go. Oh and you are spot on about the huuuuge gift shop.

Ditto, I love just next to the old entrance and I love it there. I’ve been so many times over the years and it just gets better and better. OP they’ve just gone a huge extension, a whole new entrance and remodel with an extensive selection of new enclosures etc. It’s also so expensive to run the place, plus it is a big player in breeding programmes. Also doing a quick search it would be more expensive at the likes of Chester zoo and Twycross, both which I have visited in the last year and I would say YWP massively beats Twycross. Hope you do go and have a great time 😁

*live next!

I don’t think just over £20 per person is that expensive when you are getting a whole days entertainment , and these places cost a lot to run . Unless you live near a Vue cinema it would cost £30/40 to go to the cinema as a family and that is only a couple of hours .

Unfortunately it’s becoming the norm now with regards to prices.

We went to a theme park 2 weeks ago it was £110 for the 3 of us. We booked in advance if we had waited to the day it would have been £159!!!! Literally eye watering! Especially when you just stand in queues all day!

Sorry I don't think it's extortionate for a day out. And if you are both professionals I honestly don't see how you can't afford it, teachers are not on a bad wage ? It's not like it's something you are doing every week or even month. Take your own pack up and a flask of cofee.

It is a lot but you just budget accordingly eg save for a couple of extra weeks and go a couple of weeks later. People factor kennels and school fines into their holiday budget, same principle IMO.

25 years ago dh and I took ds and dd to Legoland at Windsor.
Entrance, light lunch and 2 small lego toys from the gift shop totalled £100.

No idea what it costs now.

Zoos have school visits too, which may be at a reduced rate

It sounds expensive to me; then again I can remember when a full-size Mars bar cost 4d (2p ish).

I think theme parks are extortionate, but anything that involves animal or land conservation costs a fortune, and if you want decent animal welfare then it's expensive, unfortunately. Chester zoo is about that amount and I was surprised at how cheap it was after spending a day there. If they do it properly you don't mind paying.

Theme parks with rides and so on though, there's no excuse for those to be so expensive apart from eye-gouging profit levels.

@Flowerlane

Unfortunately it’s becoming the norm now with regards to prices.

We went to a theme park 2 weeks ago it was £110 for the 3 of us. We booked in advance if we had waited to the day it would have been £159!!!! Literally eye watering! Especially when you just stand in queues all day!

Queue jump is worth it for that reason, just factor it in to the cost, it’s a much better day. Literally no point going to a theme park and spending most of the time you’re there queueing IMO.

“ Yorkshire children who don’t have a hope in hell of ever going to Yorkshire Wildlife Park.”

You could say the same about anywhere. My friend lives near Alton Towers and has never been as they find it too expensive.
Also, I’ve lived near YWP since it opened, even when it was Brockholes farm and almost everybody I know has been.

£20 -£30 per person for a full day out seems normal to me. There are some things that are priced way above that. When my kids were little we invested in a few season tickets for places near us so we could go again and again.

Two adults and two kids to London zoo recently. £98. No ice cream or overpriced gift include. Oh and that’s the price without the donation.

Fun is expensive.

Given that you cam book for 9am entry and stay til it closes at 6 it's great value for money. Take a picnic and drinks. It is well worth the money imo.

We are local and have annual passes, they were about £65/year but we go at least once a month so has paid for itself easily.

Frankly it is amazing, there are tons of animals to see, sections you cam walk through and see animals up close, it is spotless (even the loos), the play areas are great too. Food is pricey but as I say, take your own and since they have created the new entrance and exit area you no longer have to walk through the gift shop.

Considering a cinema trip to cineworld for 3 of us costs £40 without food or drink and you are there for 2 hours I think £80for 4 for all day is excellent value

I don’t think that’s too bad for a full day out. I took the kids pottery painting. It lasted about 45 mins was going on for £50 - won’t be doing that again!

Prices went up over the last several years, everything got more expensive.

We normally do lots of NT visits and then the odd expensive zoo or other visit every now and then.

We had Merlin passes as a Christmas family present one year and used it A LOT. English Heritage paid for itself with two visits to Dover Castle.

I found that using Clubcard vouchers for passes works, we just paid only £28 for a family pass for Cadw instead of over £85. That pays for the two weeks entries to venues in Wales this Summer.

We've been recently and I thought it was better value than other similarly priced zoos like Woburn or London, and much better value than an hour or so at the the cinema with popcorn! We had a lovely full day there, and the animals had much more room than other ones in the UK . We always take a picnic and just usually buy an ice cream and couple of coffees . I do sometimes gulp a bit at the prices of places as a family of four, but for us it's a treat and id rather spend it on a day out we all will enjoy than takeaways and soft play every week.