Matt N
CF Legend
16th May 2024: Folly Farm
Hi guys. Since Monday, me, my mum, my dad and my grandad have been on holiday in the Pembrokeshire area, on the southwest coast of Wales. We’ve had a relatively relaxed holiday thus far, but today, we fancied going out and visiting an attraction. As my parents and grandad fancied looking at animals and I fancied a ride fix after being disappointed by the crushing blow of Oakwood being shut during our entire trip to Pembrokeshire, we decided to satisfy both urges by visiting Folly Farm, an adventure park and zoo that also contains a vintage fairground with various classic fairground rides. We’ve been lots of times before and always enjoyed it, and we hadn’t visited in quite some time, with our last visit being over 5 years ago.
I know it’s not really a theme park, but I thought of writing a short trip report from Folly Farm because I thought that the vintage fairground might be of interest to people on here, and I also wanted to promote an attraction that many enthusiasts might overlook when visiting West Wales for Oakwood. Let me get straight into it!
We made the 15 minute journey to Folly Farm slightly later in the day after spending the morning playing crazy golf at Heatherton, another local attraction very near to where we’re staying. As such, we arrived at just after 1pm, parking up and entering the park swiftly:
After entering, we initially headed for the zoo to look at some animals, starting with the Pride of Pembrokeshire, Folly Farm’s pride of lions:
At this point, it then swiftly proceeded to absolutely bucket down with rain, so we took refuge within the Carousel Woods burger bar for a few minutes (I’m not sure how evident it is from the photo, but it was absolutely bucketing it down when the photo was taken):
After our brief refuge from the rain, we then resumed our journey around the zoo. We first viewed Penguin Coast and Flamingo Lagoon, the penguin and flamingo areas:
We then headed down to Giraffe Heights, the giraffe enclosure. I’m not too much of a zoo enthusiast, but I’ve always found this to be one of the more impressive giraffe enclosures I’ve seen, with a viewing area giving awesome views over the enclosure and providing the potential for very close views of the giraffes (not today, unfortunately, as they were all waiting to go back inside due to the weather):
I apologise, as I can’t remember an exhaustive list of all the animals we looked at after this, but I’ll reel off a few of the interesting highlights that I photographed.
One interesting area we visited was the Kifaru Reserve, an African safari-themed area containing animals such as tortoises and rhinos. This is one of the newer areas of the Folly Farm zoo, and it actually has some really nice theming in places:
We then visited the Asian Adventure section, which was new since our last visit and contained animals such as red pandas, Asian wild dogs and peacocks. As with Kifaru Reserve, this section has been finished off to a very nice thematic standard, with some very nice flourishes and details. As an aside, I never realised that peacocks were Asian animals, but apparently they are according to the signs in the area… you really do learn something new every day!:
We also looked at various other animals, such as camels, bongos, meerkats, lemurs and Welsh wildcats (another new addition since my last visit), which I unfortunately did not photograph.
Towards the end of our journey around the zoo, it started hammering down with rain again, and we took refuge in the meerkat enclosure for quite a few minutes. After absolutely beautiful weather during our morning at Heatherton, the sudden rain and cold during our time at Folly Farm proved rather jarring, particularly given that my parents and grandad were firmly dressed for summer and my own attire was not a whole lot better (I was regretting wearing sandals with my jeans and jacket, for sure…).
Eventually, the rain eased off enough for us to trek to the part of the day that is likely to interest you guys most; the vintage fairground! The rides were running in rotation in the fairground today, so we grabbed some tokens and headed on in to see what was open. We headed towards the back of the area to start, and me and my grandad firstly had a go on…
Caterpillar
Caterpillar, a musik express-style ride, was one of the currently open rides, so we decided to have a go. My grandad remarked to me that he’d “tried to weasel [his] way out of” a similar ride in Porthcawl a few years ago, but that “going to Alton Towers [had] made [him] feel like [he] could do any ride”! So, how was the ride? Well, it was certainly an interesting experience! It perhaps wasn’t the most comfortable, but it picked up a fair amount of speed and packed some really surprising laterals; me and my grandad were certainly getting quite well acquainted with each other by the end of the ride! Overall, it was good fun, and certainly a charming classic fairground ride; my grandad also seemed to enjoy himself:
After Caterpillar, I went alone to another ride…
Twist
Twist, a scrambler-style ride, was also open, so I decided to give it a go. I was the only member of our party to ride this, and most interestingly, I was actually the only person on the entire ride, so I got a solo experience! But how was the ride? Well, it was good fun! The ride had good speed, and while I do not have an overly high spin tolerance, the ride was spinny without being too spinny for me and had some interesting laterals! The laterals were exacerbated by me riding solo; traditionally, I’d have been accompanied by another person, but as I was alone in my ride vehicle, I was slipping and sliding around and getting pinned around in the car like I never have before, which was certainly interesting! Overall, it was a good, fun ride, and another nice classic fairground ride:
After my ride on Twist, I met back up with my parents and grandad, and all four of us rode one final ride together…
Gallopers
Gallopers, the carousel, was also open, so the four of us decided to take a ride together. Interestingly, this was one ride I’d never ridden before, and I’m actually not sure that I’d ever ridden a carousel before full stop. But how was the ride? Well, it was interesting! It definitely wasn’t a particularly intense ride, but riding on top of the horse felt surprisingly exposed! It was quite nice and sedate, the four of us enjoyed it, and overall, it was a nice way to end our riding time in the fairground:
After Gallopers, we had a brief go on the 2p pushers (I did not win anything…) before heading into Farmer Glyn’s Jolly Barn, an area with some nice theming and various different farm animals, including horses, turkeys and goats amongst others:
After our trip into the barn, we went into the indoor Tropical Trails exhibit to view various tropical animals, including snakes, crocodiles and bats amongst others. This area definitely looked to have been spruced up since my last visit, with some really nice thematic details added:
After the Tropical Trails exhibit, we headed home after about 3 hours in Folly Farm overall:
So, that wraps up our afternoon at Folly Farm in Pembrokeshire! We all enjoyed ourselves; I personally enjoyed getting on some rides again, the animals were interesting, and overall, it was a nice afternoon despite the weather! I’ve been to Folly Farm quite a bit over the years from having regularly holidayed in Pembrokeshire as a child, and I’ve seen it grow and develop a lot in that time. To give a UK theme park comparison, it has an almost Paultons Park-style feel about it in that it is seemingly continuing to grow and improve and seems to improve the product that little bit more every time you go. Since my last visit in February 2019, they’ve added a fair amount, a fair amount more seems to have been spruced up, and they’re still seemingly building more, with another big enclosure currently under construction in the zoo. My grandad, who last went in 2012, described it as “almost unrecognisable” from his last visit. I’m not a die-hard zoo enthusiast, but from where I’m standing, Folly Farm has a pretty decent (and continually improving) animal offering, and for us, the vintage fairground is good fun if you like heritage flat rides. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re in the area.
Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! I apologise for it probably not being the most interesting, as it’s not from a “proper“ theme park after all, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. My next report is now likely to be from my upcoming solo trip to Legoland Windsor and Thorpe Park in early June, so stay tuned for that!
Hi guys. Since Monday, me, my mum, my dad and my grandad have been on holiday in the Pembrokeshire area, on the southwest coast of Wales. We’ve had a relatively relaxed holiday thus far, but today, we fancied going out and visiting an attraction. As my parents and grandad fancied looking at animals and I fancied a ride fix after being disappointed by the crushing blow of Oakwood being shut during our entire trip to Pembrokeshire, we decided to satisfy both urges by visiting Folly Farm, an adventure park and zoo that also contains a vintage fairground with various classic fairground rides. We’ve been lots of times before and always enjoyed it, and we hadn’t visited in quite some time, with our last visit being over 5 years ago.
I know it’s not really a theme park, but I thought of writing a short trip report from Folly Farm because I thought that the vintage fairground might be of interest to people on here, and I also wanted to promote an attraction that many enthusiasts might overlook when visiting West Wales for Oakwood. Let me get straight into it!
We made the 15 minute journey to Folly Farm slightly later in the day after spending the morning playing crazy golf at Heatherton, another local attraction very near to where we’re staying. As such, we arrived at just after 1pm, parking up and entering the park swiftly:
After entering, we initially headed for the zoo to look at some animals, starting with the Pride of Pembrokeshire, Folly Farm’s pride of lions:
At this point, it then swiftly proceeded to absolutely bucket down with rain, so we took refuge within the Carousel Woods burger bar for a few minutes (I’m not sure how evident it is from the photo, but it was absolutely bucketing it down when the photo was taken):
After our brief refuge from the rain, we then resumed our journey around the zoo. We first viewed Penguin Coast and Flamingo Lagoon, the penguin and flamingo areas:
We then headed down to Giraffe Heights, the giraffe enclosure. I’m not too much of a zoo enthusiast, but I’ve always found this to be one of the more impressive giraffe enclosures I’ve seen, with a viewing area giving awesome views over the enclosure and providing the potential for very close views of the giraffes (not today, unfortunately, as they were all waiting to go back inside due to the weather):
I apologise, as I can’t remember an exhaustive list of all the animals we looked at after this, but I’ll reel off a few of the interesting highlights that I photographed.
One interesting area we visited was the Kifaru Reserve, an African safari-themed area containing animals such as tortoises and rhinos. This is one of the newer areas of the Folly Farm zoo, and it actually has some really nice theming in places:
We then visited the Asian Adventure section, which was new since our last visit and contained animals such as red pandas, Asian wild dogs and peacocks. As with Kifaru Reserve, this section has been finished off to a very nice thematic standard, with some very nice flourishes and details. As an aside, I never realised that peacocks were Asian animals, but apparently they are according to the signs in the area… you really do learn something new every day!:
We also looked at various other animals, such as camels, bongos, meerkats, lemurs and Welsh wildcats (another new addition since my last visit), which I unfortunately did not photograph.
Towards the end of our journey around the zoo, it started hammering down with rain again, and we took refuge in the meerkat enclosure for quite a few minutes. After absolutely beautiful weather during our morning at Heatherton, the sudden rain and cold during our time at Folly Farm proved rather jarring, particularly given that my parents and grandad were firmly dressed for summer and my own attire was not a whole lot better (I was regretting wearing sandals with my jeans and jacket, for sure…).
Eventually, the rain eased off enough for us to trek to the part of the day that is likely to interest you guys most; the vintage fairground! The rides were running in rotation in the fairground today, so we grabbed some tokens and headed on in to see what was open. We headed towards the back of the area to start, and me and my grandad firstly had a go on…
Caterpillar
Caterpillar, a musik express-style ride, was one of the currently open rides, so we decided to have a go. My grandad remarked to me that he’d “tried to weasel [his] way out of” a similar ride in Porthcawl a few years ago, but that “going to Alton Towers [had] made [him] feel like [he] could do any ride”! So, how was the ride? Well, it was certainly an interesting experience! It perhaps wasn’t the most comfortable, but it picked up a fair amount of speed and packed some really surprising laterals; me and my grandad were certainly getting quite well acquainted with each other by the end of the ride! Overall, it was good fun, and certainly a charming classic fairground ride; my grandad also seemed to enjoy himself:
After Caterpillar, I went alone to another ride…
Twist
Twist, a scrambler-style ride, was also open, so I decided to give it a go. I was the only member of our party to ride this, and most interestingly, I was actually the only person on the entire ride, so I got a solo experience! But how was the ride? Well, it was good fun! The ride had good speed, and while I do not have an overly high spin tolerance, the ride was spinny without being too spinny for me and had some interesting laterals! The laterals were exacerbated by me riding solo; traditionally, I’d have been accompanied by another person, but as I was alone in my ride vehicle, I was slipping and sliding around and getting pinned around in the car like I never have before, which was certainly interesting! Overall, it was a good, fun ride, and another nice classic fairground ride:
After my ride on Twist, I met back up with my parents and grandad, and all four of us rode one final ride together…
Gallopers
Gallopers, the carousel, was also open, so the four of us decided to take a ride together. Interestingly, this was one ride I’d never ridden before, and I’m actually not sure that I’d ever ridden a carousel before full stop. But how was the ride? Well, it was interesting! It definitely wasn’t a particularly intense ride, but riding on top of the horse felt surprisingly exposed! It was quite nice and sedate, the four of us enjoyed it, and overall, it was a nice way to end our riding time in the fairground:
After Gallopers, we had a brief go on the 2p pushers (I did not win anything…) before heading into Farmer Glyn’s Jolly Barn, an area with some nice theming and various different farm animals, including horses, turkeys and goats amongst others:
After our trip into the barn, we went into the indoor Tropical Trails exhibit to view various tropical animals, including snakes, crocodiles and bats amongst others. This area definitely looked to have been spruced up since my last visit, with some really nice thematic details added:
After the Tropical Trails exhibit, we headed home after about 3 hours in Folly Farm overall:
So, that wraps up our afternoon at Folly Farm in Pembrokeshire! We all enjoyed ourselves; I personally enjoyed getting on some rides again, the animals were interesting, and overall, it was a nice afternoon despite the weather! I’ve been to Folly Farm quite a bit over the years from having regularly holidayed in Pembrokeshire as a child, and I’ve seen it grow and develop a lot in that time. To give a UK theme park comparison, it has an almost Paultons Park-style feel about it in that it is seemingly continuing to grow and improve and seems to improve the product that little bit more every time you go. Since my last visit in February 2019, they’ve added a fair amount, a fair amount more seems to have been spruced up, and they’re still seemingly building more, with another big enclosure currently under construction in the zoo. My grandad, who last went in 2012, described it as “almost unrecognisable” from his last visit. I’m not a die-hard zoo enthusiast, but from where I’m standing, Folly Farm has a pretty decent (and continually improving) animal offering, and for us, the vintage fairground is good fun if you like heritage flat rides. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re in the area.
Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! I apologise for it probably not being the most interesting, as it’s not from a “proper“ theme park after all, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. My next report is now likely to be from my upcoming solo trip to Legoland Windsor and Thorpe Park in early June, so stay tuned for that!
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