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?

@Jumpingintosummer

We took the DC to Edinburgh Zoo a fortnight ago. 4 adults and 1DC as DC1&2 over 15. Entry £100.60 Drinks x 2 £19.60 Ice cream x 4 £24 Gift shop £19.80 = £163.40. We drove 180 mile round trip and took a picnic.

You willingly paid £20 for TWO DRINKS? Was it a gallon of unicorn tears.??

Or are you saying 2 drinks for each person was £19.60?

@Henneypenny7

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

Benches! Grass to run on! I am beginning to see why it's so expensive 🙄

A lot of zoos aren't there just for entertaining the public, but in many cases their primary aim is conservation. When you consider how much the upkeep of the animals costs, the keepers' wages and other costs involved in running these places you might understand why it costs so much. If you want to pay less go to a farm.

If that shocks you, wait till you go to a theme park. Family of 4 upwards of £100 gate price! The peppa pig one is even more expensive :s

Have you considered a national trust membership? Not sure if there is anything local to where you are but worth a look.

We are going to Dublin zoo this week, 2 adults and 2children and it is 50 euro. I thought that was reasonable before, now I see it's a steal!

You literally get lions and tigers and bears, oh my! for that so reasonable enough for the whole day.

But HOW Is that a rip-off?

Do they open later than advertised or close hours earlier? Have half their advertised facilities shut? Have hidden costs?

I don't think it's fair to say there's cheating involved. It might be expensive but so what?

I took mine to go ape which was £100 for an hour!!! I nearly cried! It actually made me quite cross especially thinking about how many people could never afford that sort of money.

I have booked a trip for me and dc each week for the summer but most of them are considerably cheaper than that, except the escape room which has also cost over £100 We have a reasonable budget each month for ‘fun stuff’ but with 3 dc it doesn’t go far.

YWP is amazing and well worth the money for the day.

Wonderful to see animals in wildlife parks than zoos. The play area is great, the info boards are interesting and the rehab, rescuing and conservation work they do is brilliant.

@Comedycook

Days out are generally really expensive I find. Standard cinema trip for a family is about £50. Theme parks are over a hundred...I cannot see how average families can afford this.

Cinema: go a couple of times a year to see something good. Or go to kids club and see "older" films, rental on Netflix instead etc. Use vouchers (eg Lloyds do them as a reward/clubcard), go 'off peak' etc

Theme Parks:use the cereal box/crisps vouchers 2 for 1, book online (pretty much half price), and save up for it, much like people save up for Christmas or Holidays.

That's only £20odd each. I don't think that's expensive?????

@CanICelebrate

I took mine to go ape which was £100 for an hour!!! I nearly cried! It actually made me quite cross especially thinking about how many people could never afford that sort of money.

I have booked a trip for me and dc each week for the summer but most of them are considerably cheaper than that, except the escape room which has also cost over £100 We have a reasonable budget each month for ‘fun stuff’ but with 3 dc it doesn’t go far.

Yes, But 1) Go Ape isn't exactly an essential e compulsory activity. And 2) there's far cheaper council run/privately owned high ropes ones about.

Go Ape is the "premium/brand" of high ropes. 🤷‍♀️

Oh, we were surprised at the price the last time we went. There weren’t any discounts or deals available at all. They need to spend the money helping that poor bear that just paces in a circle or, perhaps groom the camels at the very least as they looked to be in a state.
We were also disappointed to see that they had removed the entire wooden outdoor play area!
It is still a nice day out though to be fair but there’s a lot of walking about (often in the cold!)

@lastcall

YANBU at all.

Why we've never been there or lego land or alton towers or the like. Rip off Britain.

🙄

Big fan of YWP. Love the polar bears and their antics.
They do offer trips for schools & brownies etc.

It is expensive but it is a great day out. It used to be you could upgrade your ticket for not much more to day pass at the gate.
The Deep in Yorkshire still do this so is cheap if you visit more than once. They also do sleepovers for scouts etc.
www.thedeep.co.uk/plan-your-visit/ticket-prices

We have a family of 4 kids. Ranging from 13-7 we have only really done 2 of this kind of “day out” both of which paid for my grandparents because we just can’t justify it on one day.

We've just discovered the massive perks of a blue peter badge!

80 quid IS expensive for most families of 4 and is the upper limit of what we'd pay for a day out. Planning a trip to YWP this summer, we usually go yearly but haven't been for a couple of years now.

I appreciate the cost of looking animals so I get why it's expensive but it does price out a lot of people which is a shame.

It is worth every penny the YWP ..the halloween specials are magical. We go, take a picnic and juice for the kids and a flask and that offsets costly and well frankly crap take a way food, we set the kids a limit in the gift shop for a souvenier. It would cost us the same to go for a Nandos or pizza hut which is hardly memorable so we don;t do that kind of stuff.

OP got o Lightwater Valley, much cheaper and more to do

I think this is fairly standard. We are on a low income but we manage to go on trips like that. Once a year we go on a big trip out to celebrate all the dc's birthdays. PIL give us a yearly membership to national trust or an attraction with a similar price for our christmas present every year.

Pre covid we would go once a month to soft play to their special sessions where the dc over 12 get in free. In school holidays they do 1 under £5 activity each a week, 1 free activity (eg park or beach) every week and one trip out to our annual membership place every week. We never go away on holiday because we live in the south west so we already live where people come on holiday.

@00100001
I am not an expert on tree top climbing and have been to ‘go ape’ on school trips so it was an easy one to google and book. I never considered shopping around - I will definitely look up some cheaper ones locally as we all enjoyed it but I’m not sure I can justify spending that again for an hour!!

but there’s a lot of walking about

Which is good because it means that the animals have a lot of room.

I agree that it isn't a cheap day out, but I disagree that it isn't good value whe you consider that wildlife parks and zoos had their income severely restricted during the lockdowns.

@Higgeldypiggeldy35

I've just looked at the Birmingham sea life centre for my son's 3rd bday and he would cost the same as an adult at 3 years old (£23) so for all 3 of us it is £69 without the extras and from all the reviews it's quite small and only takes a couple of hours. Absolute rip off.

You'd be mad to pay full price for a Sea Life Centre. There are SO many offers and vouchers (and of course you can spend your tesco Clubcard vouchers and go for free)

Again, a quick google and if you buy a £1 bottle of Carex, you can all go to the Sea Life Centre for half price

www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/alton-towers-vouchers/
(ignoer that the hyperlink says Alton towers - it's for multiple attractions)