Kolmården Wildlife Park
-
Michelle
- Member
- Posts: 1232
- Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:32 pm
- Location: North West
After many years of wishing and planning a couple of us finally made it out to Kolmården Wildlife Park to ride the much talked about Wildfire!
I was absolutely thrilled with the park as a whole, I love visiting zoo's ( as long as the animals are treated well) and I found that the animals seemed very happy and well cared for, the keepers gave the impression that they are exceptionally invested in the well being of the animals.
My only gripe was with the dolphin show, I've never seen these amazing animals before, so the opportunity was wonderful, but I do query whether we should be surfing on the back of dolphins for the sake of entertainment.
There were elements of the park that were a little familiar... Chessington definitely seems to have taken some inspiration for their Tiger enclosure , and the ending of the bird show was rather reminiscent of Warwick...
The park was well maintained and clean, including the toilet facilities - one thing that we quickly adjusted to was the fact most toilet blocks are not male/female, everyone uses the same. Despite visiting on a quiet day, the food outlets were all open, and there was a good choice of options. I only had the fries with remoulade sauce, but they were fresh and tasty.
Now Wildfire - we had the good fortune to visit on a day when the park was rather quiet, on arrival we headed right over to the far side of the park to jump on the ride as quickly as we could! (Pro tip, go up the escalator, not the big hill like we did, you'll be much less out of breath :lol )
I did four back to back rides IIRC, experiencing back, front, second row and second from back. IMO it is definitely a front row ride for that view.
My initial thoughts were - oh, it's smaller than I thought :lol . The ride experience itself is very good, so smooth and lots of fun, that first drop and the views you (briefly) get is really something!
I feel my opinion has been badly clouded by the hype surrounding the ride, and how much I had built it up in my mind before visiting, it's a lovely ride, but it just didn't pack the punch I was expecting, I'd be really interested to hear others views on this!
As wildfire is the only big attraction in the park, I did initially wonder if we'd be able to stretch the visit until closing time, however with the shows , animal talks/feeds and the safari cable car (1/2 hour well spent, the views and experience is unparalleled) we easily lasted until 6.
Looking forward to seeing what others have thought about the park if they have visited
I was absolutely thrilled with the park as a whole, I love visiting zoo's ( as long as the animals are treated well) and I found that the animals seemed very happy and well cared for, the keepers gave the impression that they are exceptionally invested in the well being of the animals.
My only gripe was with the dolphin show, I've never seen these amazing animals before, so the opportunity was wonderful, but I do query whether we should be surfing on the back of dolphins for the sake of entertainment.
There were elements of the park that were a little familiar... Chessington definitely seems to have taken some inspiration for their Tiger enclosure , and the ending of the bird show was rather reminiscent of Warwick...
The park was well maintained and clean, including the toilet facilities - one thing that we quickly adjusted to was the fact most toilet blocks are not male/female, everyone uses the same. Despite visiting on a quiet day, the food outlets were all open, and there was a good choice of options. I only had the fries with remoulade sauce, but they were fresh and tasty.
Now Wildfire - we had the good fortune to visit on a day when the park was rather quiet, on arrival we headed right over to the far side of the park to jump on the ride as quickly as we could! (Pro tip, go up the escalator, not the big hill like we did, you'll be much less out of breath :lol )
I did four back to back rides IIRC, experiencing back, front, second row and second from back. IMO it is definitely a front row ride for that view.
My initial thoughts were - oh, it's smaller than I thought :lol . The ride experience itself is very good, so smooth and lots of fun, that first drop and the views you (briefly) get is really something!
I feel my opinion has been badly clouded by the hype surrounding the ride, and how much I had built it up in my mind before visiting, it's a lovely ride, but it just didn't pack the punch I was expecting, I'd be really interested to hear others views on this!
As wildfire is the only big attraction in the park, I did initially wonder if we'd be able to stretch the visit until closing time, however with the shows , animal talks/feeds and the safari cable car (1/2 hour well spent, the views and experience is unparalleled) we easily lasted until 6.
Looking forward to seeing what others have thought about the park if they have visited