Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens – Great Norfolk Days out Part 4

This weeks review is for Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens, located between Acle and Great Yarmouth, in the heart of the Norfolk Broads. This is not a paid review, ad, or gifted post – just an opinion of our recent visit.

Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens

We’ve been to Thrigby a couple of times now – and it’s quite unique in a few ways. The biggest surprise is just how close you can get to the animals. Thrigby has a few tree-top walk ways that take you past the Tigers and Monkeys – at one point if the Tigers are in the right mood, and the right place, you are literally a few inches away from them (safely, still, of course!). Being so close to such beautiful animals is incredible. Whilst I’m not a fan of the Zoo concept, the animals at Thrigby seem to be well cared for and very content (although, I’d rather they were in their natural habitat, but that’s for another post!).

Covid Precautions

As with most places now, it’s pre-booked entry only. So make sure you visit the Thrigby Hall website and book those tickets before you head out. There are plenty of hand sanitiser stations across the park, and one way systems in place around areas where people are in close proximity. All the attractions are open, so you can go to experience the Crocodiles etc inside – but you must wear a mask and follow the one way route.

Staff can be seen cleaning across the park – so in areas where items are touched (doors, toilets etc), you know that it’s been cleaned. I guess a bit of common sense helps for places like this (or just life in general now) – keep a distance, wear a mask, wash your hands. You know the drill.

Food and Drink

We bought a picnic with us – there’s a huge field outside the hall itself which has plenty of benches scattered around. There’s Ice Cream shops, and a Cafe serving the typical spoils, the first time we went we had Jacket Potato – they had a selection of sandwiches too. Basically, you won’t go hungry if you don’t bring food with you – which is great!

Activities

There’s lots to see at Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens, I’ll list the main animals:

• Sumatran Tigers (critically endangered)
• Red Pandas (endangered)
• Snow Leopards
• Meerkats
• Gibbons
• Otters
• Alligators & Crocodiles
• Reptiles
• Birds (lots of birds!)

The Gibbons and Tigers have woodland treetop walks as I said earlier – they’re amazing for getting a different view of these stunning animals.

Pricing

Thrigby is another venue that offers discounts if you have a season pass for other locations. We saved 50% by using our Sea Life Center passes, which is great. Children under 4 are free, and adults are priced at £15.50. Children over 4 are £11.50. They have various prices for groups, carers and so on, and you can see all these on their pricing page.

Summary

We’re lucky to have places like this so close to us – Thankfully, Thrigby doesn’t draw in the crowds on the levels of other Zoos. Whilst it was busy when we went, we didn’t find ourselves struggling to see the animals, and never feel like it was over crowded. I’m not sure you can make a day out of Thrigby, we find that a few hours is plenty of time to stroll around and see everything a couple of times, and have some food, but with the Broads within touching distance, it’s worth popping to Thrigby, then finding a nice nature trail to walk around to see even more animals.

We’ll certainly be heading back to Thrigby before the season is over.

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You can find out more about Thrigby Hall Wildlife Park on their website – and read more of our Norfolk Days Out series here.