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I am so excited by this post by Heledd about a family day out in a Hello Kitty Secret Garden, my three girls would LOVE this place. As always the post is full of beautiful photographs. If you enjoy this post you can read Heledd’s blog Running in Lavender by clicking here or follow her on twitter @HeleddLavender

Yes, you read that right, there is a Hello Kitty Secret Garden! We found out about this exciting fact from a flyer my daughter picked up at the theatre last week. The flyer was for Drusillas Park, in East Sussex and on the cover was a picture of Hello Kitty and the words ‘New for 2014′.

Now, to say that my daughters are fans of Hello Kitty would be an understatement. My eldest daughter was given a Hello Kitty soft toy when she was just six months old and instantly it became a favourite. So as you can imagine, the girls were pretty excited when I told them on Sunday morning that we were going to see Hello Kitty. Drusillas Park is around an hours drive from our house in Surrey, so we set off reasonably early with two very (for a change) obedient little girls.

The Zoo

The Park is in fact a zoo, although as its tagline says it’s ‘No Ordinary Zoo’. I completely agree with this statement, it’s so much more than just a zoo and is ideal for younger children. The animals on display are active and fun – basically lots of leaping monkeys and no empty enclosures on this zoo trail!

There are no big animals but this adds to the charm, as I personally don’t like seeing larger animals held captive. We especially loved the monkeys, meerkats, birds, llamas and penguins. Interaction is a big theme, you can walk amongst the lemurs, feed the birds and chat with the animal hands who are more than happy to talk about the creatures. They’ve also made a huge effort to ensure that the kids are educated on all the animals, which I found so impressive. There are voiceovers, games, challenges and the zoolympics – all of which we really enjoyed.

More than a Zoo

As I’ve already mentioned the park is more than a zoo. During our visit we also rode on ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’, ran around the numerous play areas (there are three in total, one is a water park, which was not open on Sunday but would be great fun in the summer months) and got lost in the ‘Eden’s Eye’ maze.

Of course, as I’ve already mentioned, the big pull for us was the new ‘Hello Kitty land’ – as the girls called it. The Hello Kitty Secret Garden has three fun rides, a photo spot with (a plastic) Hello Kitty and a Hello Kitty house, where the kids can get their face painted (and meet Hello Kitty on certain days). Lucky for us, there were no queues on Sunday morning, so the girls literally ran around from the tea cups to the Kitty cars and the jumping cloud ride, again and again.

We went to Drusillas because of the Hello Kitty Secret Garden but we got so much more out of our visit and we’ll go back for the zoo, the play areas and of course the rides.

Park Details

Drusillas Park is located in Alfriston, East Sussex and is open every day of the year except Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Summer Opening (BST) is 10am – 6pm with last admission at 5pm. Car Park closes at 6:15pm.
Winter Opening (GMT) is 10am – 5pm with last admission at 4pm. Car Park closes at 5:15pm.

Prices for a family of three start at £37.50 and a family of four start at £50. For more information on opening times and prices, click here.

These pictures should give you a taste of our day…