We decided to revisit an old favourite of ours now it was back open again. I had seen the posts from Bluebells Farm, showing how they had adapted to make the farm safe for the in current climate, by making sure that all the social distancing measures were in place and I have to say I was really impressed.
Firstly you must pre-book your arrival time through their website, you won’t be allowed entry if you just turn up, this can be done through their website which was really easy to do and they are also operating a cash free system, all payments must be done using a card.
Upon entry I was given a timetable of all the experiences that were happening around the park and our wristbands, plus there is opportunity for you to buy food for the animals at £1 per bag and an extra charge for an Alpaca walking experience or to have a calf cuddling experience these are £5 each. These activities are weather dependent as we were told when we entered that if the weather became too hot, it wouldn’t happen because of the welfare of the animals.
There is a one way system around the farm, but there are shortcuts for the exits and toilets which I thought was really well planned. Throughout the different areas, there are reminders of how many families or children are allowed in one area to help keep social distancing regulations and also if there is a queue for something markers are placed to help remind people where to stand which I thought was a really good idea.
Our first stop was to help groom some of the baby goats, a really nice little activity and Haribo helped groom a baby called Brownie, the young woman who helped was very friendly and they had a system in place that before entering the area you had to hand sanitise and once a brush had been used, it had to go in a separate bucket for cleaning so no-one else used that brush.
We took a walk upto the tractor ride or cow safari as it’s known, again it was lovely to see members of staff going around spraying all the ropes that were used for queuing with disinfectant regularly and after each tractor ride, the trailer that people sat in was sprayed down so it was clean and safe for the next ride. Also there was a limited number of people on each ride, so everyone felt safe. We got to see the lovely cows up close, one even tried to get onto the trailer which Haribo found really funny, the young man who gave our tour was really friendly and even made Haribo’s day when he remembered that he told him about his favourite animal (Neil the Alpaca) whilst waiting in the queue and gave him special mention when we rode past them on the ride.
After each section and around the farm, there were lots of hand sanitiser pumps to ensure that everyone kept washing their hands.
We were going to go on the newly added nature trail but it was just far too hot so we shall save that for our next visit but it looked really interesting, there was also a maize maze but again it was too hot so I am sure we will do it on a return visit.
Haribo loves feeding animals so we spent lots of time, stroking them and giving them their food, he loves the pigs and the alpacas.
We were visiting on a Tuesday so we took advantage of the government’s ‘Eat out to help scheme‘ and had lunch from the coffee shop, Haribo had a kids lunchbox which contained a sandwich, crisps, piece of fruit, juice and a small chocolate bar and I had a delicious Mediterranean cous-cous meal, it was very good value and of course we had to have one of their delicious ice creams also, the biscoff flavour is my favourite!!
However if you wanted to bring your own picnic, there is a large marquee area set up if you wanted to eat in a covered area and lots of picnic benches.
After lunch, we played on the playground for a while whilst we waited for the sheep race. My only major criticism of the farm park is of the bouncy pillow, they had clearly put up signs saying only 3 families were allowed on the cushion at a time and each family must stay in their own blue section. However when we visited, it was very obvious that there were more than 3 families in the bouncy pillow area and no-one was keeping to their own area, it’s such a shame as Haribo loves the pillow and Bluebells had clearly done their best but people were just not following the instructions so we didn’t go on the pillow on our visit.
We had a final go on the pedal go-karts and then it was finally time for the sheep race and it was lots of fun to watch them, we didn’t win this time much to Haribo’s disappoint as he really wanted the £5 voucher but we went to our final activity before leaving as it was getting too hot, which was to stroke some of the smaller animals such as guinea pigs and rabbits.
It was a lovely trip and I really was impressed at how much effort they had put in to try and keep people safe, it was such a shame that it was being ignored in some parts of the farm park but on the whole we really enjoyed our trip!
Disclaimer: The trip was fully paid for by myself and I didn’t receive any payment for this review, these views are my own and simply done to share our experience.
Bluebells Farm -August 2020 We decided to revisit an old favourite of ours now it was back open again. I had seen the posts from Bluebells Farm, showing how they had adapted to make the farm safe for the in current climate, by making sure that all the social distancing measures were in place and I have to say I was really impressed.
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