In March we took advantage of the winter admission prices at Yorkshire Wildlife Park! If you missed out, it’s worth bearing in mind for future that lots of attractions in the UK do this. It’s an attempt to get more people visiting in the colder months and in my case – it works! Check out my visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park in January for another place that offers this.

YWP offer heavily discounted admission during the winter period from January until March – Well worth making the most of. Keep a lookout in case they bring this offer back for next year too.

Despite living in Yorkshire for most of my life I’ve never visited Yorkshire Wildlife Park! My old employer used to offer free admission to the park and yet I still never went. So it was about time I went to see what all the fuss was about!

This place is huge. I was surprised at just how big of an area it spanned across and at times I couldn’t believe we were walking around Yorkshire and not the middle of somewhere more exotic..

We started with no real plan other than to wander towards the talks & feedings that were on that day. We started by taking a left and heading towards the weirdest animals I’ve seen in a while – Maned wolves! These were quirky big creatures exactly like a combination of a wolf and a fox only not related to either.

We continued to head towards the noise which we found to be some extremely noisy sea lions! There was a big collection of sea lions with a good view all around so it was great for us to be able to watch them swimming along.

The park was made up of long walks around large open spaces. I personally loved it but as it’s mostly outdoors I can see this being a bit of a nightmare should it be raining! Luckily we got to enjoy a break from the rain and it remained mostly dry throughout the day. We walked for miles but there was always animals to spot and I love that the animals have so much space to roam.

There was even a massive outdoor playground which i’m sure our daughter would have absolutely loved! But, with the large amount of animals to see we didn’t have time to enjoy this. Always a good thing to be spoilt for choice when it comes to the kids.

My favourite part of the day was seeing the giraffes wandering. We ran out of time to visit their enclosure and didn’t want to walk up to the viewing platform with a pram either. Luckily the giraffes can wander out of their enclosure and there is an amazing view from the cafe seating. I would describe this as one of the best cafe views I’ve ever seen! Who wouldn’t want to sip their coffee whilst admiring these graceful creatures.

Towards the end of the day we headed for the polar bear feeding. I’ve never seen so many polar bears in one place. I’ve been lucky enough to see several throughout my life across various countries but never so many in one enclosure! The space for them was amongst the largest I’ve ever seen too which is fantastic. This was a really spectacular sight and we all enjoyed it. There was a great viewing area so even though 100s turned up to watch the feeding, everybody could see!

Another thing I loved about Yorkshire Wildlife Park was the wallaby trail. The only time I’ve ever seen wallabies free-roaming in an area was during my time down under! And that’s to be expected in Australia surely? Walking around this part really took me back to my Oz trip visiting animal sanctuaries and I didn’t realise you could have a similar experience here in Yorkshire of all places!

We wandered around before visiting the other enclosure with capivaras and other animals. This was the same format again – An enclosure you can walk around with animals free-roaming. Such a great idea and the animals are protected by the safe exit and entrance system meaning they can’t make a quick escape and end up in the lion enclosure!

Of course being a wildlife park there are tons of animals all over. I can’t fit them all in this blog post but some of our favourites included lions, giraffes and meerkats!

Finally last but not least there is a massive dinosaur area. It is so big that we didn’t even have time to explore it on our way out of the park. We wanted to but we were so tired from such a busy day of animal spotting!

This is a really great enclosure in itself.. For dinosaur lovers it’s such a treat! It looked really interesting with fun facts about dinosaurs and large animatronics representing the dinosaurs. This felt like its own separate attraction and we could have easily come just to visit this part if we were big dino fans. I look forward to revisiting this in the future as our little one gets older.

During the day we left the park briefly for a lunchtime reservation at Evolution. This is an immersive restaurant very similar to the famous Rainforest Cafe you’ll find located by Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney World. I will write more about this restaurant in a separate blog post because we had a lot of fun here and I highly recommend a visit for the experience.

We ended our visit with a trip to the local ice cream place on site, what’s a family day out without ice cream?

Overall, we had a fantastic day at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. I’m only disappointed I haven’t visited sooner! One thing is for sure, we will enjoy many family days out here in the future.

Whilst I’ve only just got around to publishing this post, I did actually write it over 6 months ago at the start of 2025. At the end of this year we will be heading back to visit this years Winter Illuminations. It will be our first time doing something like this and I really look forward to it kicking off our Christmas. Stay tuned for my review on here once i’ve been and look out for any more early booking discounts they may have on offer – I paid 40% off usual price! You know I can’t resist a bargain.

Useful bits

Website: https://www.yorkshirewildlifepark.com/
Location: Doncaster, Yorkshire
Entry Fee: (Correct in October 2025) – Adult £29.99 (Peak online) – Child (3-15) £25.99 – Under 3s Free – Prices vary depending on season, day of the week and whether you book online or not. Look out for online discounts and advance pricing.
Verdict: Brilliant price when grabbing an advance booking offer. Plenty of animals here so many reasons to go back. Plenty of opportunities to catch feeding events too.
TripAdvisor: Yorkshire Wildlife Park