Folly Farm Family Adventure Park

Folly Farm Family Adventure Park

Attraction (General)
in/near Tenby, Pembrokeshire,
Wales Mid



Review added: 08/07/2006 16:31
By: mirrired (£0.00 earned from reviews) Earn £££'s

"Folly Farm describes itself as being a Family Adventure Park. I see as being animal based theme park with a lot of extra activities thrown in. There is a Pet Centre, the Jolly Farm, an Old Time Funfair, a zoo, numerous play areas, a Landtrain, Go-Karts and a toddler sit-on ride track.

There are numerous several food outlets, a shop and excellent toilet facilities.

Ploughman's Restaurant. 10am-2.30pm.

This is situated adjacent to the Old Time Funfair to the right of the main complex. The adult main courses all seemed to be priced at £5.95 and included the choice of Chips, Baked Potatoes or Rice. The special of the day was priced at £7.50. I think the kiddy meals were about £3.50, but I forgot to take note as my son does not eat.

I was a bit disappointed with my Lasagne and chips as the chips were cold and the lasagne totally devoid of flavour, especially as it was advertised as being home-made. (I am a chef, so maybe I'm just used to a lot more flavour).

Henry's Coffee Shop. 10am-5.30pm.

This is situated next to the shop and the toilets. I had an egg mayonnaise sandwich (£2.00) and a bottle of water (£1.00). This was excellent, the bread fresh and soft and it was actually egg mayonnaise and not egg and salad cream (yeuk).

Burger Bar. 10am-5.30pm

I didn't sample this, but lots of the classmates did and there were no complaints.

There was also a bar next to the restaurant and an ice-cream outlet at the entrance to the zoo.

There are also plentiful picnic benches spread around the site. Beware of the gulls though. There are signs everywhere telling you not to feed them.

Activities

In the Jolly farm there are pens with kids, lambs and piglets. On the day we went children had the chance to feed goat kids at 12 noon and 4.00pm. They could also milk a cow at 12.15 and 4.15pm and a goat at 3pm.
There was also a Chunkie's Circus Workshop at 10.30am-11.30am.

In the Pet Centre there was a chance to handle a pet between 11.00am-11.45am and 3.15pm-4.00pm.

There is also The Green Show in the Follies Theatre at 2pm and a Lemur feed and talk at 2pm.

The Old Time Funfair is open from 10am until 5.00pm. The tokens for this are 50p.

The Landtrain starts at 11.30am and continues at half hour intervals until 4.30pm (no charge).

Go-Karts run form 11.00 am until 5.00pm (Cost is £2.00 for one child and one adult).

Our Experience

We arrived at about 10.45am on a school trip with my son's nursery. My son is aged 3 ½ and has sensory difficulties. So our experience is slightly different to the average 3 year old.

We headed straight to the Jolly Farm, but my son found it too loud and enclosed. I then took him to the Pet Centre, but again he quickly got distressed. I then scooted through the Funfair and went to have my food.
I decide the best thing to do was to stick to the outside activities.

We started with the zoo. This was quite extensive and included, wallabies, zebras, ostriches, oryx, goats, lemurs and mere-cats. My son found the lemurs particularly entertaining.

We then headed for the play areas. There are several of them and they all seem to targeted at a specific age group which is very helpful. The area's nearest to the main complex were heaving with lots of happy kids, but my son couldn't handle this, so we wandered around until we found one that was fairly quiet which was ideally suited to him. He spent over an hour on this area with only a tiny bit of mummy intervention when he got stuck on the wobbly bridge.

All of the play areas have a generous layer of clean, fresh wood chippings below them and seem very well thought out and safe.

In summary, Folly Farm is a splendid place to spend the day with an average toddler or child. There is a wide range of indoor and outdoor activities (just as well with our climate) and even a child who struggles with noise, crowds and enclosed places was kept busy and entertained for a half day. I might not take my son again as it's a long way to travel for an adventure playground, but having seen how much his friends enjoyed themselves I highly recommend it.

Folly Farm Family Adventure Park
Belgelly,
Kilgetty
Pembrokeshire

Tel: 01834 812731

How to get there.

Take the M4 all the way to Carmarthen then take the A40 for approximately 10 miles. Then take the A477 signposted to Tenby. Go about 12 miles and thne take the A478 road near Kilgetty. Go about a mile along this road and Folly Farm is on the left hand side.

Opening Times.
March - September 2006 10.00 am until 5.30pm.
October 2006 10.00 am until 5.00pm

Entrance Fee
Adults £6.25
Children 3-15 years £5.25
2 Years and under free.
Senior Citizens £5.25
Disabled and carers £4.00"

Comments

This sounds like a lovely place to take the kids, thanks!

Chris