Peppa Pig World @ Paulton’s Park Geeky Tips & Theme Park Comparison

The Geeky Mummy family had a very exciting Saturday. Thanks to winning a competition on Mummy From The Heart‘s blog, we had special Golden Ticket’s to Peppa Pig World at Paulton’s Park. Not only were we getting in for FREE but we also got to go a week before it officially opened.

Despite living only an hour away, this was our first ever trip to Paulton’s Park and the very quick answer to what we thought of it was quite simply BRILLIANT. At least Pepper Pig World is brilliant, can’t tell you much about the rest of Paulton’s Park as we didn’t get to anything other than Pepper Pig World because we only had a few hours thanks to Geeky Son keeping us up most of the night before thus preventing our planned early start.

The kids loved the playground the best. It is beautiful and well thought out, with play frames for all ages, including for Geeky Son who is only 14 months, which is a rarity.

The rides are all very tame and Geeky Daughter (Age 6)  loved that she was able to go on them by herself, but Geeky Son wasn’t big enough to go on all of them. I liked that we were able to go on some rides like Daddy Pig’s Car Ride and Grandpa Pig’s Train rides as a family.

Miss Rabbit’s Helicopter Ride was a big mistake though as it is essentially a mini Ferris Wheel and this means a lot of time is wasted waiting for people to get on and off the ride before it can even begin, so the queue moves very slowly.

You may be pleased to know that the The Muddy Puddles does not contain mud. It is a water play area – similar to the one at Legoland. So if you want your kids to join in, I suggest you pack swim wear/change of clothes and a towel.

So how does it compare with Legoland, Thorpe Park and Chessington?

Firstly Cost. Paulton’s Park (which includes entrance to Peppa Pig World) is significantly cheaper than the other three. However, you can use your Tesco clubcard to buy entrance tickets at  less than half price for Legoland, Thorpe Park and Chessington making Paulton’s Park slightly more expensive if you are a Tesco shopper with vouchers to spend (remember you have to convert your clubcard vouchers into entrance tickets in advance).

Thorpe Park is definitely the place to go if you want super fast thrill seeking rides. Whilst there is a paddling pool and a very young children’s part to the park, the lack of family rides that we could all go on places Thorpe Park as my least favourite of the four theme parks.

Chessington on the other hand has a lovely mix of rides. It has the added bonus of a well designed aquarium with walk through tunnel and a little zoo area with tigers, gorillas and few other animals. We have frequently visited Chessington at weekends as we have found the family and kids rides aren’t too busy. Geeky Hubby would buy a Fastrack (i.e. jump the queue) ticket so that he could nip off every now and then to get his adrenaline kick.

Legoland is only round the corner from us and used to be our favourite theme park with lots of family friendly rides. However, it is a lot busier than it used to be and, in what has caused outrage in many regulars, they now charge for parking. This means you have to spend some of your day out paying for your parking ticket and worse still completely slows down leaving the park with the feeding in of parking tickets and waiting for barriers to lift.

This means that Paulton’s Park could well be our new favourite and we are definitely planning to go back.

Other than winning tickets to Paulton’s Park I have received no incentives to write this blog post.