Earlier in the year I spotted a Groupon offer that sounded like it was made for me – Breakfast with the Big Cats! So I bought the voucher and got to use it this summer.
The voucher included an overnight stay at the Cheshunt Marriott hotel with dinner included. The hotel was clean and nice. The menu for this break was fairly limited but you could choose alternative things off the ordinary menu if you didn’t mind paying extra. They seemed to be a bit confused about which menu they were giving us as they gave us two different ‘special’ menus at one point. I thought it was a shame that they didn’t let you pick something off the main menu if it was cheaper than the options on the specials menu.
In the morning we made our way to Paradise Wildlife Park before it was open to the breakfast. There we met our guide, who was one of the cat keepers, and the other 4 people who were doing the tour with us. We also got given some goodie bags which included DVDs and t-shirts.
Our guide took us around the different big cats and told us about their stories, as well as some general information about the work that Paradise was doing. It was lovely to have an opportunity to see the cats while no-one else was around – made for some nice photo opportunities.
At the end of our tour we got to get up close with one of the tigers while our guide showed us how they perform some routine medical checks on the animals – namely feeding small bits of meat through the bars so the tiger put his feet up and the keeper could check his paws and belly!
After the tour we got to go and have a full English breakfast in the restaurant. They couldn’t have been friendlier – greeting us and checking what we’d like to eat, and then coming back and asking if we wanted more! There was plenty of tea, coffee and orange juice to go around too. The food was fairly basic canteen style but it was all freshly cooked and nice.
While we were eating breakfast the zoo opened to the public and we were free then to spend as much of the rest of the day as we wanted in the park. One of my highlights was watching the white lions – they were just about to get their enclosure refurbished, but the male lion decided it was time to make a start. He managed to chew his way through one of the huge logs making up his platform and totally rip it out of the rest. It then became a rather large cat toy!
Overall I thought the deal was excellent, and the park very good. The zoo is relatively small but they had made a lot of effort to design to park in ways that meant there was plenty of room for everyone to see, with raised walkways as well as the standard viewing windows. It also meant that is was good for photography as there was some different angles and places you could view the animals from.
More photos from our visit on my Flickr set.
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