Planning a visit to Longleat House, Longleat Safari Park and the other Longleat visitor attractions

With the clocks due to change in ten days time, and the Easter holidays just around the corner it won’t be long before many families are planning a trip to Longleat.  Being so close means a lot of our guests stay to make a weekend or short break based around a visit to Longleat, and I have yet to meet anyone who hasn’t enjoyed themselves there.  As you know there is a lot to see and do which means it can be difficult to fit everything into one day and it occurred to me that it might be an idea to write down a few of the tips that I’ve been given or learnt from my own visits to Longleat.

Firstly if you’re just going for one day then it’s important to get there in good time and my advice is to do your visit in slightly reverse order leaving the safari until later in the day.  If you arrive half and hour or so before the gates open you should be towards the front of the queue and then you could start with the boat trip (the Jungle Cruise), then train ride (the Jungle Express), followed by the Motion Simulator and then to visit the house.  After seeing these attractions you should have found your bearings and will be able to judge the crowd sizes and decide whether to have an early lunch – the grounds are a lovely place to enjoy a picnic, or to head off for to the Safari or one of the Ranger Shows.  I’m not sure what to suggest for the maize, I reached the centre and the got lost trying to find my way out!

Peter and I went for a lovely walk around Longleat and the village of Horninghsam earlier this month.  We started at Heaven’s Gate which has spectacular views over Longleat House and grounds, walked down through the village and into Longleat through one of the pretty gatehouses.  I know Longleat House is famous for it’s ceilings and so too should be gatehouse.  We noticed a couple of lovely statues in the lake just to the left of the bridge, and then at about 5.00 p.m. climbing up the hill returning to Heaven’s Gate we listened to the lions roaring and the wolves howling at what we assumed must be feeding time – a quite unique experience.

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