Overview

My experience was awful and so bad I wrote to them but they haven't bothered replying... The information on their website suggests a certain degree of accessibility which just isn't there. Access to the bear house involved crossing the grass. When we reached the house, the entrance had a large lip which my carer had to tip me up and over. This wouldn’t have been an option in my electric wheelchair. Then we headed to the dolls house section. The ramp was not flush to the ground and at the other end was not flush to the floor inside, again requiring my carer to lift and tip the wheelchair. Once in, not all houses are visible because they are too high. The wheelchair map wasn't given to us and when we found out about it, staff made a song and dance about getting it for us. Access to the cafe was via the toilets and two heavy doors, one of which opened onto a slope making access exceptionally difficult. I believe access to the hall itself was impossible.

Transport & Parking

Disabled parking was badly signposted and required navigating round trees which was ok as we were in a small car but I think wheelchair accessible vehicles would have struggled

Access

we found very few disabled signs and where we found them it was very unclear where they were taking us. We hit numerous steps during our walk of the grounds. Only towards the end of our visit, were we told we should have been given a wheelchair map. When we entered the property, I was in my wheelchair and I was the one who paid so I don’t understand why we weren’t given one or made aware of it then. When my carer popped into the entrance to ask for the map, she was made to feel like she was being awkward. The wheelchair map took us over a grass which, depending on the weather, isn’t wheelchair friendly and didn’t include routes which would have been fine regardless of the weather. The café required us to enter via the toilets unlike none disabled people who would access through the nice patio doors. The first door we came to opened outwards onto a ramp. My carer had to find a way to open the door, hold it open and get me into the building. We then had a similar battle with the second door, although this was more manageable given it wasn’t also on a slope.

Toilets

The disabled toilet was dirty, tiny (too small to turn my small manual wheelchair around let alone an electric chair) and the red pull cord didn’t reach the floor as it’s required to. It would have been impossible to use the toilet had I needed someone in there with me to transfer me from my chair to the toilet due to the lack of space. The toilet itself was probably 1-2 inches higher than a normal toilet which meant my feet didn’t touch the ground causing more risk of falling. The toilet was also used by children getting changed in and out of swimming costumes.

Staff