A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to go to Marwell Zoo to see Father Christmas. We’d been to the zoo itself before so I knew we would have a brilliant day.
Marwell is large and spacious, we found it easy to walk around with our three children, but you can also use the land train which is free, or the rail train for £2.
Unfortunately the day we went it rained very heavily all day. The first thing we did once in the zoo was buy ponchos and big umbrellas from the well stocked shop. The kids were brilliant, but we couldn’t really do much more than see Santa and a few animals before having to head home as we were wet and very cold.
Despite the inclement weather, we still had a fantastic afternoon. Z, S and H loved the penguins and spent a long time making them follow their hands on the glass.
H was a bit in awe of the giraffes, especially the ‘baby’ one. We found that if you book ahead you can actually feed them, which would be amazing. I really want to go back and do that one day.
The Christmas Experience was wonderful, by far the best we have done so far. It was held in the beautiful Marwell Hall. Firstly we were welcomed by some elves who handed out mince pies, mulled wine and squash. They were even kind enough to let Grandma join us for that bit.
Then our group of about 7 families were taken into the living room area for storytelling sat on cushions with Mrs Christmas under the Christmas tree. It was all very sweet and extremely well organised.
After the story we headed into the dining room where the children sat down at a fully decorated Christmas table, complete with aprons and hats to decorate Gingerbread Christmas Trees. Z and S loved it!
Finally families were called one by one to see Father Christmas, who was brilliant, just as Father Christmas should be. The presents were good quality with S and H getting a Ben and Holly puzzle and Z a truck.
The highlight for H was the giant penguin at the end who she has been telling everyone about.
Marwell Hall was exceptionally well decorated even down the very fine details and made us feel very Christmassy even though it was only the end of November.
We stopped off for a hot chocolate and a snack from one of the cafes, it was quite expensive, but very clean and the food lovely.
All in all, I would recommend Marwell either just for a trip to the zoo ( when its not raining ) and definitely for Christmas. If you picked a fine day and managed to have a whole day out, the prices would be very reasonable too.
I’m hoping to go with Z on his school trip soon, so I should be able to update this with some more details then!
We visited Marwell as part of the Money Supermarket competition to find Britain’s best days out.
Thanks for Marwell and Money Supermarket for a fantastic day out despite the rain.
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