Unless you’ve hidden your TV remote control from sight, the chances are, if you’ve got a pre-school child, you’ll be well aware of Peppa Pig. And one of the biggest treats you can give a small kiddo is taking them to Peppa Pig World near Southampton. We took our (then) two year old last year and she had the MOST FUN EVER. And unlike a lot of theme parks aimed at very young children, it wasn’t too painful for us grown ups either. I even had a stinking wine-head on me that day, and I still coped admirably (I know – I deserve a medal, right?).
If you’re thinking of taking a trip to Peppa Pig World this summer, there are some Dos and Don’ts to help you make the most of your visit…
measure your child before you book tickets – kids under 1m are free and don’t need a ticket. I recommend buying tickets in advance to avoid queuing when you arrive.
worry about your little one coping with a huge theme park – Paulton’s Park is large but the Peppa Pig World area is very compact and it’s the perfect size for two or three-year-old legs to get around.
take a packed lunch. There are plenty of places to eat in Paulton’s Park but it’s the usual burger and chips affair. Inside Peppa Pig World, the cafe sells kids’ lunch boxes with sandwiches, crisps, fruit, yogurt etc but it can get very busy around lunchtime. There are lots of picnic tables and outdoor seats to lunch on.
arrive at peak times – we arrived at 10am and the park was lovely and quiet for a good hour, meaning we didn’t have to queue for longer than a few minutes for each ride. Later in the day (we went on a Saturday in April) queues were 10 minutes long or so – still not massive but toddlers don’t have much patience!
explore the rest of Paulton’s Park – we discovered rides for tots, nearly identical to the ones in Peppa Pig World, with no queues simply because they weren’t Peppa Pig themed! We also enjoyed walking through the dinosaur area, spotting the different dinos!
rush home if you don’t have to – we did the journey to and from Paulton’s Park in one day (it’s around three hours drive from us) but if we did it again, we’d stay overnight in Southampton and do some more exploration of the area the following day.
Brilliantly, Holiday Inn have got some packages ideal for families travelling from afar, to Peppa Pig World. For around £150* the Holiday Inn Peppa Pig package allows you to stay in a family room at their Southampton hotel (or three others nearby), have a slap-up Full English breakfast and entry into Peppa Pig World, for two adults and two kids under 1m tall. You can also upgrade the package to add extras like Peppa Pig bedding, hotel chocolate before bedtime and a DVD player in your room, to watch some episodes of Peppa Pig before breakfast. Sounds fab, doesn’t it?
What are your top tips for visiting Peppa Pig World?
• Big thanks to Holiday Inn for sponsoring this post and working with Not Another Mummy Blog. For details on how I work with brands, see my Work With Me page. *Prices vary depending on availability and there’s an extra £24 charge for any kids over 1m tall.
Great tips as always Ms Perry! We are thinking of going to Peppa Pig world with Miss M this summer. Not sure if she is still a little too young – but all this sound great. And, the Holiday Inn deal makes it sound like a treat for adults too!
Was Miss Rabbit working all the rides and food stands too??
Great post- you really do need to do a travel/days out with kids blog. Everytime I read your posts I want to go there…Camp Bestival, Butlins, Portugal!
xx
Author
YES – Miss Rabbit works all the rides, cafe and ice cream stand! 😉 Glad this was useful, Bonita. I think Miss M would LOVE it.
Thank you so much for writing about this, we’ve been considering it for too long (eldest is 7, youngest is 2) and really should make an effort! Both girls love Peppa, despite the 7 year old saying she’s ‘over her’ now! We are a similar distance away so I am going to look into staying over. x
Great set of tips. We are thinking about going – it’s a bit far for us coming from Liverpool – might be next year now when the baby is a bit bigger to appreciate it. Your tips are great though. Mine are ob-bloody-sessed by Peppa! x
I’m imdsserep. You’ve really raised the bar with that.
why the 1m restriction? Is this discrimination against tall children?
Hello from the U.S.!
If we were traveling to visit London and family near the city, would it be worth taking an over night excursion to Peppa Pig world? My 3 year old will be nearing 4 when we go and would ADORE seeing her favorite characters and riding the rides that are the big versions of all he Peppa toy sets and of the show.
Is there music playing on the balloon ride? The “Flying High” balloon song? While at the park do you hear sounds and songs and other highlights from the tv show?
Maxine (3yrs) is also very into the “Bing bong song”.
I want to find out details of what to expect to judge if it’s worth extra travel. Holiday Inn sounds perfect. That’s our go-to hotel in the U.S.
I will YouTube search for people’s videos of the park too.
Cheers!
Emily (AKA Maxine’s Mummy Pig “Oink oink!”)
Please, if you could email me on gmail that would be such a help.
Emilyfaye7
Hee hee! It’s was funny to see 8pm. It’s 2pm here. Boy will we be jet lagged.
-Oink oink!
I took my kids on a day trip from London and it was too much driving/train riding for one day, so I would recommend staying overnight. It was not an option for me as I was not going to try and rent a car and figure out the whole wrong side of the road with the steering wheel on the right, what? So I partly Ubered, partly took train/underground. Peppa world is amazing, you will definitely have a huge grin on your face the entire time. It is the size of a Toon town in Disneyland Cali but with more rides, there’s a splash pad(muddy puddles) too, sounds and music everywhere, you do feel like you are right inside of the cartoon. I am going back to London this summer and am trying to figure out if I want to do it again. My kids 6 and 3.5 at the time didn’t mind the trip, they napped on the way their and/or back, but I was exhausted. Left our rented apartment at 6 am and got back at 8:30 pm having spent bout 5-5.5 hrs at the actual park. I will be staying by Waterloo station this time and it is about hour and a half train ride to Totton station and then a 30 min X7 bus to the park from there. I know kids would love it!