Drusillas Park is a zoo near to Alfriston in East Sussex. Well, I say zoo, with the park's recent additions and new attractions for 2017 it's becoming equal parts zoo and family theme park! Honestly, I'd never heard of the park before but then a picture of their Hippopotabus appeared on my Facebook feed and I knew instantly this was a place I needed to visit!
Conor and I waited for a day where the weather was actually acting like it was still summer and set off. It's about 90 minutes from London which is really easy going and extremely easy to locate from the motorway. On paper I know this park is aimed at families with younger children, but I love zoos and y'all know I have no shame when it comes to riding kiddie attractions so Conor and I didn't really mind.
What's fab is that the whole place is really geared towards catering for a younger family audience. It reminded me a lot of Paultons Park in that way - loads of fun activities to engage in to compliment the animal exhibitions and little touches like children sized toilet seat adapters make families feel really looked after and wanted at
Drusillas, it was so cute.
One thing I absolutely adore about visiting new zoos is the chance to encounter species I've never seen before. I'm a little bit of an animal geek myself, and you do find that in general zoos tend to have similar animals. You enter Drusillas through an enclosed animal exhibition (which we were super grateful for as the wind was really unforgiving!) and loads of marmosets and other small fluffies like sloths and tamarins and something called a cusimanses which was a new-for-me creature similar to a mongoose. Super cute!
We continued to make our way through the labyrinthine style zoo layout, enjoying the playful additions like singing animal animatronics along the way. I absolutely love quirky little things like this and you usually only find them in European parks so I fell in love with this a little bit.
This park had BEAVERS! I got really excited because I don't actually think I've ever seen a beaver before, so we spent ages just watching them waddle about and have a swim. We also made sure to stop by the new Anteater enclosure. I'm absolutely fascinated by these creatures and always picture myself Salvador Dali style walking one on a lead through London. They're so fab and unusual looking, I love them.
The zoo section then makes way for the theme park area. As I've said, this park is aimed at younger families, so don't expect any high octane thrills here. But what I was very pleasantly surprised with was the quality and effort of theming on the attractions. Sadly you often find that zoos with a theme park section aren't always that great, but not here at Drusillas!
Firstly, the shiny new for 2017
Go Safari! land where you'll find three African themed attractions. The aforementioned fabulous Hippopotabus, the Flying Cheetahs which is a Dumo-ride style family flat ride and our favourite attraction The Safari Express. This was a small train ride around the park including highly themed sections, tunnels and animal animatronics. Love!
We were intrigued by the Eden's Eye Maze next whose ruined temple themed entrance complete with animatronic monkeys caught our eye. This. Was. Fab. The maze is themed to four different styles: Roman, Pirate, Jungle and Mine. You spin the wheel upon entering to figure out which direction to begin with and follow the clues and tasks throughout the maze to find your way to the centre. There's tons of effects and fabulous theming and fun games to play along the way. I can't praise the quality of this attraction enough, we had such a laugh getting stuck in and it was so fab seeing all the families taking it so seriously as they made their way through. A fantastic way to bring new life to a classic maze attraction.
So I'm not going to lie, when I discovered Drusillas Park had a
Hello Kitty Secret Garden I died of joy a little inside. Anybody who's a regular here on the blog knows how obsessed I am with Hello Kitty so I was super stoked to find out there was a Hello Kitty theme park right here in the UK! And oh god, this did not disappoint. It's absolutely stunning, so beautiful and cute. White picket fences, pink tiled roofs and topiaries in every nook and cranny. And rides, of course! A bounce tower, a teacups ride and an adorable car ride. Instagram heaven for me, just so so pretty. The park also operate Hello Kitty meet and greets throughout the day so you can meet the woman herself.
And with that, we grabbed an ice cream and said our goodbyes. We had such a wonderful day at
Drusillas Park, an excellent mix of unusual animals and stunning themed lands. If you're heading away to Sussex any time soon be sure to stop by the park and check it out, it really is adorable.
Talk later xoxo,
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