Longleat - any tips?

[imsorryiasked]

We are staying in the area over half term so well be visiting for one day.
Are we going to miss out on much if we don't do the drive thru? From the reports I've read it can take between 1.5 & 3 hrs and the animals are usually a long way away lying in the grass. Just seems like there is plenty of other stuff to do?
Any other tips would be good too please

Oh you must do the drive through! It takes about an hour and is lovely, and the monkeys are brilliant fun!

The safari is the best bit and there isn't enough to do that you will run out of time.

If you get there at opening and drive straight they there is no way it'll take anything near three hours.

Also, if anything the animals in the safari get too close (monkeys and deer in particular!).

You can feed the deer through the car window which is great!!
Def need to drive through!!
Lions licked dh door handle!!
Monkeys were amazing!!

Love longleat, we are season ticket holders. Either get there when it opens and go straight for the safari or leave the safari till the end of the day. The only bit that gets extremely busy is the lions which you will see but you cant bypass there enclosure unlike the monkeys, we had an ostrich try and get a little arsey with our car and it had to be moved on by staff. We leave it till the end of the day and go straight to where the house is for the other attractions. The boat ride and train get busy very quickly so at least you can do that bit straight away before the crowds. In the gift shop at the back there is an entrance into an area where you can hold some animals, the castle play area for older children is fantastic and on the way to the boat there are the penguins and some rays that you can stroke if they come close, which they do. It is a lovely day, we always take a partial picnic and purchase chips.

Safari is the best bit. It's definitely the one thing to do if you're only there one day. Avoid the monkeys if you love your car

Looks like we'd better do it then
Any other "don't miss" bits?

It's all nice, just try to do as much as you can X

The bat cave is amazing!

I held a tarantula at longleat, I am/was Terrified of spiders and so this is one of the most incredible, proudest moments of my life

Walk through the meerkats! It's a lovely experience!

How about the boat & train? Either / both?

Feeding the birds!

You walk through their enclosure and they sit on your hand : arm and eat the special sugar water out of the pot! You have to pay 50p/£1 a pot but it's amazing!

We always do main park first then park at the end as shorter queues for boat and train. Boat is definitely worth it, train depends on how excited your DC are about sitting down!

*safari park at end

Love the drive through, do either first thing or last when it is least busy. Ditto the safari boat (but in reverse IYSWIM). If you go on the boat safari they often run out of fish for the seals so jump up quick and remember wet wipes. The train okay but the queue can be too long, The pizzas were always our fave for lunch if not having a picnic.

The boat is a must do, the sea lions are fab.

We go every year and do the drive through last, it's open quite late I think. Depending on the weather you can actually get quite close to the animals, when it's hot they tend to hide in the shade and the cats are not very active, last year we went on a cloudy, cool day and had lions walking close to our car.

We always do the boat and train first as they get quite busy, we have only done the maze once and it wasn't that good so we now skip it.

Thanks so much everyone, really appreciate it.

ditto what Phillipa said. We had Season tickets for a few years. Get there when it opens and do the non-safari bit first. Start with train and/or boat as these have the longest queues.

If you value your car don't stop in the monkey bit. Just keep driving (slowly) and they will leave you alone.

If you plan to eat in one of the cafes do it early as they fill up really quickly and it can be difficult to find a seat.

The monkey bit? Don't even go there unless you know how to put the bits back on that the monkeys pull off.
To say drive slowly and they will leave you alone is nonsense! Lots of cars were just doing that with some driving faster to get out, and they still jumped on and started pulling bits off cars. Just like the monkeys do at every other safari park.

Getting away from the monkeys, a large cool-bag full of your fav food. The queues for food are lengthy, and just like any amusement park, over-priced.

we went 4 years ago & having read up about the monkeys decided to skip that bit of the safari, & went into the deer enclosure instead. Oh how foolish - they surrounded dh's new car & one hoofed a huge scratch down the side of it as it tried to get us to open the windows to feed it!

the boat ride was fab so would definitely recommend that - highlight of my sons day was feeding the sealions.