We said goodbye to the Travelodge Chessington Tolworth and its horrendous spiral car park ramp early as we had an hour drive to the third and final Theme Park on our roadtrip – Paultons Park in Southampton.
We’ve never been to Paultons Park before (living in North Wales its quite the trek to get down this far) but from all the videos and pictures we’d seen it looked like a really clean and tidy, well themed and well-maintained park… and it really is!
The sun was out, the parking was free (take note Merlin) and we were all excited. Paultons Park is a family theme park with several coasters – all of which Elliott at sub-1.2m could go on – and a host of other rides and attractions. It’s great for the bigger kids, and even better for the smaller kids as it’s the home of Peppa Pig World.
Toilet and coffee stop, photo op with the Paultons logo in the main entrance plaza and we were on our way in. The younger children are all measured and wristbanded on the way in to make the day smoother and make the queues faster as the operators didn’t have to check heights every time. We checked Elliott, he was over the required height, so wristband free!
We had only just gotten through the gate, but you could see immediately what a well looked after space it is.
We were greeted in the area outside the entrance by one of the team doing a dino talk for the kids. He had a small T-Rex skull which piqued Elliotts interest straight away. Great to have things like this for the kids… and adults! I like dinosaurs too!!
Tornado Springs: Home of Storm Chaser
We headed for our first coaster of the day, and bear in mind it is a Saturday in the May school half term holidays, ‘Storm Chaser’ – a Mack Rides spinning coaster – only had a 5-minute wait. Wow! We went for our first lap, then got straight back on as the queue was still only 5 minutes. A great coaster to ride, fast and loads of fun. Pretty forceful on those final helixes too, and lots of spinning and laughter from us. We all loved it. The queue line, station, and the whole of the ‘Tornado Springs’ area looks amazing. Such brilliant theming and I’d go as far as to say the best themed area in any UK park that I’ve seen. No doubt about it. Think Cars the movie, but without the cars.
From that, Evan wanted to try the only ‘thrill ride’ in the park, ‘Cyclonator’. A gyro spin ride with a 1.4m height requirement. Think Maelstrom at Drayton Manor, but smaller. It still packed a punch though. Load and unload were a bit slow, but they are a family friendly park and very safety conscious, so fair enough. Queue was only 10 mins.
Jo and Elliott checked out one of the smaller children’s coasters ‘Farmyard Flyer’ and we joined them for a second lap after our spin on Cyclonator. It was a fun (but tad bumpy) kids coaster aimed at those who’ve progressed past your standard caterpillar coaster. Again, so well themed!
We then all went to the smaller drop/bounce towers next called Windmill Towers, but Captain Queue Moaner – Elliott’s alter ego – showed up and started having a whinge about the 15 minute queue (he’d been spoiled by walk-ons on Storm Chaser, so anything less just would not do!) so while Jo took him to a nearby playpark, we waited. There are 2 towers for capacity, just like Fire & Ice Freefall at Legoland Windsor and they were opening up the second tower just as we were boarding the first. Good fun little bounce towers.
We didn’t go on but there was a tracked tractor ride nearby. Unlike Tiny Truckers that I was forced to endure at Chessington, this was clean and impressive to look at. All of the crops and areas you drive through on the ride are real fruit and vegetables that the park grow and feed to the animals. Amazing.
We exited the Tornado Springs area and headed to the parks dinosaur themed area – Lost Kingdom. On the way, you pass though some beautifully maintained and designed garden areas with some fun themed ones for the kids, into an area featuring some animal exhibits. We saw Flamingos and Lemurs as we passed into ‘Lost Kingdom’.
Lost Kingdom
We were here for our 3rd of 7 coaster credits with a ride on ‘Flight of the Pterosaur’, which had a whopping 25-minute queue!! How would we cope!?! Flight of the Pterosaur is a fantastic inverted coaster, similar to Vampire at Chessington, but newer, cleaner, smoother and more fun! Another ride we could all go on and we all enjoyed it too! Elliott’s new favourite coaster!
Around the corner is a Vekoma Boomerang coaster ‘Velociraptor’ – not Velocicoaster, that’s a much bigger, different animal altogether! (it’s also amazing, but I digress…) Whereas Flight of the Pterosaur is a bigger, longer coaster, Velociraptor has much more of a steep drop, so if you’re not a fan of a big drop on a coaster, this might be a good one to start with. Jo has always been a bit nervous about these kind of drops so was initially hesitant, but was fine. Another great ride and had some great Raptor models in the queue line!
The whole area looked great and all the dinosaur models we saw looked well maintained and well sculpted, and actually worked unlike the ones you’ll see at Gulliver’s World that are falling apart and look awful. They had a Spinosaurus, moving T-Rex. Apatosaurus, Raptors…. Wow. There were cast members walking around the area holding baby dino puppets that the kids could pet and take photos with, which Elliott enjoyed. Or you could queue up for a meet & greet with a big velociraptor, which took place at certain times throughout the day. There as a board outside advertising times for this. This was all very similar to the Raptor encounter at Universal, but with a smaller budget. Still very cool though!
We jumped on a small kiddy coaster called ‘Dino Chase’ for credit number 5, then moved on to the tracked ride ‘The Dinosaur Tour Co’. Beautifully themed and narrated and the landscaping made you feel like you were driving through Jurassic Park (without the running and screaming!). The big appeal for the area at the moment is the new ride ‘Splash Lagoon’, a smaller Dino-themed log flume. Elliott had decided he hated getting wet (forgetting he made us do multiple Rides on Kali River Rapids and Jurassic Park River Adventure back in November) and was not going on! He changed is mind when he got to wear my hoodie for his go, so looking like a Jawa from Star Wars, he got in his boat with Jo, while I got on one with Evan. Again, loads to see, great planting and theming and considering it’s a children’s ride with small boats, it’s a bit of a soaker!
Next up, we headed to an area of the park near the back that has minimal theming. It’s a big, clean area with plenty of space for picnics and some next-level accuracy on the hedge cutting, but nothing in the way of an actual theme. Here was coaster 6 of 7 – Cobra, a Zamperla Disco called ‘Edge’ and an 82ft drop tower called ‘Magma’.
Cobra was alright. Nothing special. It has some of those horrible ‘Wild Mouse’ coaster sharp, unbanked bends that hurt, but also had some great helixes and bunny hop airtime hills to make up for it. Slightly bruising, but enjoyable.
Operations in this park are great. Very efficient staff getting you on and off the rides, helping you with your bags and putting them in the rack so you don’t have to waste time stepping through the car and back. Brilliant.
Edge, the Zamperla Disco has a 1.2m height requirement, so Elliott couldn’t (and Jo wouldn’t!) ride. I’d imagine it’s a 1.2 due to how the ride restraints work, and not because it’s particularly forceful. Both me and Evan are a fan of a Zamperla Disco and we’ve been on a fair few over the last few years in West Midlands Safari Park, Legoland Windsor and Blackpool Pleasure Beach to name a few, but we definitely prefer this type with the hill in the middle. Again, the ride operator was friendly and efficient. It was quiet enough that we could’ve stayed on for a re-ride, but it was way past lunchtime, we still had creds to get, and Elliott wanted to go on a big drop tower while we were in the area!
He moaned about queuing for the small drop towers earlier but had zero complaints about queuing for an 82ft one! Both Jo and I thought for sure there would be tears on this ride (from him, not me). He is 6 after all, and still looks like a baby sometimes, and nearly wimped out just as we were getting on, but as Jo was going nowhere near this and the queue was enclosed, we couldn’t just pass him over a fence to her, so he decided to be brave. …and drop we did! He loved it and shouted as much to the sky and everyone in earshot! He’s still saying its one of his favourite rides. I was expecting big sads and a vow to never go near it again, but we may have a drop tower fan in the family! Next time we’re in Busch Gardens, I’ll introduce him to ‘Falcon’s Fury’!
It was a fun little drop tower though but could do with a tidy up or a retheme. Paultons Park has mentioned a new Vikings themed area for 2026, so hopefully it’ll be this area and Magma will get a facelift along with it. Given how great the rest of the park looks, I’m sure the Vikings area will look amazing too.
I need to eat!!!!!
Finally, lunchtime! And we didn’t bring a packed lunch today! We’d been eyeballing the menus here and the food looked pretty decent and the prices we’re pretty reasonable too! We headed back towards Tornado Springs (The amount of times I’ve had to stop myself saying ‘Radiator Springs’ – Maybe I watch Cars too much? Ka-chow!) and ordered at ‘Grand Central’, which is a great little spot at the back of the train station. We ordered loaded potato skins with bacon, 2 Mac & Cheese (one with bacon, one without), and the kids picnic plate, consisting of a Ham Sandwich, Carrot & Cucumber sticks and houmous) and a coffee. Came to £36, all good portions and all really tasty! Service was quick too. Possibly the best food we’ve eaten in a theme park in the UK.
Peppa Pig World
After a pleasant meal, we topped up on water (there are plenty of refill stations around the park, including one right outside Grand Central) and headed into Peppa Pig World. Word of advice as we’ve heard it ourselves: If you are going to Paultons Park and want to go to Peppa Pig World, don’t go first thing!! It seems to be the busiest area of the park all day, but mornings are the worst time. Whilst it’s difficult trying to stop the little ones doing the only thing the want to do, you might find yourself having to queue less if you put it off until later in the day!
When we headed in, it was busier than everywhere else in the park understandably, it is a family park aimed at younger kids, so Peppa is a big draw. Peppa Pig World looks fantastic though. Elliott likes Peppa Pig, but has outgrown the rides here, but we jumped on one or two, just to say we’d been. We waited 30 minutes for Georges Dinosaur Adventure. no adults allowed, sorry, but 10 year olds are fine, so Evan headed on after Elliott. We also did Grandpa Pig’s Boat Trip which was a walk on. Most of the other rides were 40 minutes give or take, but we were only in for a quick look and had bigger rides to do, so we did a fly by on Peppas house and headed out. For the younger kids, Peppa Pig World would be a phenomenal day out. Very immersive, you might as well be in the cartoon!
We only had one coaster left to check off our list – ‘The Cat-O-Pillar’, a weirdly themed caterpillar coaster over in the weirdly themed ‘Critter Creek’ area of the park, but before we headed to that, we took a ride on the train!
Leaving from the back of Grand Central, the train drives around Storm Chaser, through the back of the park and around Peppa Pig World. We saw lots more animal exhibits around the back on paths and areas we didn’t even know where there! It’s definitely a 2-day park if you want to be able to see and do everything Paultons Park has to offer.
We jumped in line for cred 7 on Cat-O-Pillar. Operations here were ruthlessly efficient and commendable. The solo staff member running the ride definitely had a ‘take no prisoners’ approach and got the rides loaded and out and back brilliantly. Kudos to her.
With everything we wanted to do now done, it was time for re-rides before we ventured to the ‘Big Toy Shop’. Storm Chaser was still only a 10-minute queue, so 2 more rides on that. Another quick walk through the gardens over to Lost Kingdom for a final ride on Flight of the Pterosaur with a 20-minute queue, and only 5 minutes for Velociraptor. Again, it’s May half term and we’d done LOADS! What a great place.
By now the queues had closed, so we took a stroll through the rest of the gardens on our way out. There was an Owl Walk area with some charity painted owl statues, and a Japanese Garden which was impressively landscaped and maintained.
Of course, we had to buy something to remember our day. Probably something magnetic that would stick to a fridge. So, we headed to ‘The Big Toy Shop’.
Souvenir shopping at ‘The Big Toy Shop’
Now, for the most part, shop prices were pretty reasonable. A lot of things you’d find in there were either branded toys (like Marvel/Minecraft) at the same or slightly over the price you’d see them at in Smyths. There were the usual teddies and plush toys you get at most parks and zoos at similar prices, and then there is the pocket money bits and bobs you might find in the pound shop.
They did have some branded Peppa Pig World toys, which was nice. You’d expect them to be standard issue Peppa Pig toys you can find in any toy shop, but actual branded Peppa Pig World? I couldn’t tell you if they were unique sets that haven’t just been repackaged, but still, it’s something. Prices were a little over average, but nothing too high.
Along with the Peppa Pig World merch, including toys, hooded robes, and other items, they did have some Paultons park branded items. A few t-shirts and hoodies for Flight of the Pterosaur, Storm Chaser and Tornado Springs and some Paultons purple ones but they could have done with a better selection of designs for adults and kids. Pens, pencils, rubbers, keyrings, etc. The usual souvenir stuff. Magnets were £3.50 for basic ones, and £4+ for fancier ones, but nothing like the £6.50 of Chessington. So, we bought a few magnets: a Paultons Park logo, Flight of the Pterosaur, a fancy Storm Chaser bottle opener one and a Peppa Pig World one with George on a dinosaur… nice! We got some pens, a Storm Chaser zip pouch and a Tornado Springs keyring. Spent about £30 which wasn’t bad for the amount we picked up.
What a great day we had. We’ll definitely come back to Paultons Park and would love to see everything. We did a lot, but there was so much more to see and do. Rides, shows, animals… plenty for all ages. There’s a new attraction – ‘Spooky Manor’ – opening in 2025, then Vikings in 2026. So, there’s a few good reasons to make the trip!
How much is Paultons Park?
We have never seen any offers for a day at Paultons Park, so a family ticket cost us £174. I’d definitely keep an eye out for any deals in the future and the have offered hotel stays with an extra day in the park, but we only wanted the one day this time and the partner hotels all seemed to be a little further out. An onsite hotel at Paultons Park would be great!
We didn’t want to do the big drive home after a full day in the park, so we’d booked a Premier Inn nearby for the night and headed there. As we were in that ’neck of the woods’, we planned for the next day to visit somewhere I never thought I’d ever visit. We were going to Stonehenge!
We arrived at the hotel, the Premier Inn Salisbury North Bishopdown, after a confusing and stressful drive, checked in and grabbed a beer from the bar to chill out, and settled in for the night. Evan had added some extra plans to our itinerary, so we needed an early night!
