by Anna from Family Cruise Deals
We recently visited Fota Wildlife Park whilst docked in Cobh, Ireland, and fell in love with it. It is an amazing wildlife park that I can best describe as a “walk through” safari park. It is huge and covers much more land than I initially expected. The range of animals here is fantastic. Here is my review of our visit, with details of how we travelled from the port to the park…
We docked in Cobh, disembarked the ship and only had to cross the road to reach Cobh Railway Station. It was literally only 100 yards from the ship! So easy.
We bought our tickets at a ticket machine on the platform (yes, there is only one platform at Cobh station). There was also a member of staff helping out and making sure passengers selected the most appropriate tickets. A return family ticket for 4 of us to the Fota stop was only 10.80 Euro total, a real bargain in my eyes. Fota was just 3 stops from Cobh and the journey took about 10 minutes. The trains run every half an hour and Cobh is the end of the line.
Fota railway station is painted up with zebra stripes on one side of the platform and leopard print on the other! You can’t miss it and certainly know you are at the right stop. When we got off the train we walked up over a pedestrian bridge to the other platform in order to exit the station. Note: there is not an accessible way to cross the track for those who cannot manage the stairs.
On exiting the station we expected a 1km walk to the main entrance of the wildlife park, however we were thrilled to find an additional entrance to the park, adjacent to the station. This entrance was just as close to Fota station as the ship was to Cobh station, a real door to door service!
We arrived just before the park opened at 9.30am, so we lingered by the locked gate watching staff go in and out preparing for the day, and lemurs running wild in the trees above us! The children were so excited about the lemurs and thought they were escaping from the park! Whilst we were waiting we booked our tickets online (57.30 Euros for a family of 4) as it was cheaper than paying the walk up price. The gate then opened promptly at 9.30am and we were welcomed to the park.
As we were the only visitors entering at this gate at this early time, and the park was so vast, it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves for the first 30 minutes or so. We started to explore and the only other people we saw were park rangers. It seems everyone else who arrived at opening time arrived by car and therefore came in through the main entrance on the other side of the park. Due to the one way suggested route around the park we didn’t see any other guests for absolutely ages.
We loved that many of the animals were free range within the park and we loved walking amongst the wallabies, maras and kangaroos. We were thrilled to also find giraffes and zebras as we ventured further.
We arrived at the cafe and playground near the main entrance and stopped for a drink and snack, where we received very friendly service. We then browsed the large gift shop.
From here we walked around the other half of the park, seeing rhinos, lions, monkeys, red pandas and penguins, before visiting the tropical house. We also found another cafe area and playground near the entrance by the station.
I would say it takes at least 2 hours to walk around the park, just once, following the marked route. You will want to allow much longer if you wish to spend longer in certain areas, have time to eat and play, or loop back to certain areas of the park to revisit particular animals.
There was a land train available to tour the park, for 1 Euro per person, if you wished.
We saw a family doing a private tour of the park with a ranger and feeding some of the animals. Having researched this option afterwards, this appears to have been a “VIP Family Experience” (185 Euros) and looked absolutely amazing. Definitely something to consider if you are a family of animal lovers and fancy a bespoke, up close experience.
https://www.fotawildlife.ie/