Amazing animals at Amazonia

This week we headed along the M8 to Amazonia, which is a part of M&D’s theme park.

Amazonia is a temperature-controlled tropical house, home to over 60 different species. From monkeys, parrots, snakes, frogs, tarantulas, fish and more.

They also have a nocturnal area to see bats, kinkajou (honey bears), snakes and scorpions.

Our little one is a huge fan of animals, so he was very excited.

From 25th March right through to 31st August, the keepers are doing a free butterfly tour every day at 12pm. The keeper handed out fruit pots to encourage the butterflies to come closer. With some landing on people’s hands.

Amazonia runs animal handling sessions for the bargain price of £1.25 per person on top of entry tickets (£6.80 adults, £5.20 child when booked online). This lasted around half an hour.

Animal handling tickets are only available to buy on the day of your visit at Amazonia’s reception, on a first come, first serve basis per session. The sessions run at 11:30am, 1:00pm, 3:00pm and 4.30pm.

The animal handling sessions run in a side room which holds around 30 people. My little one loved the session. The keeper was lovely and really great at letting everyone have a few minutes with each animal and was really knowledgeable with fun animal facts.

In each session the keeper brings out 3 animals. In our session my little one got to see a stick insect, snake and giant African land snail.

Amazonia also offer talks across the day if your little one has a favourite animal.

·       snakes get fed, every Sunday at 4.30pm.

·       Fruit bats are fed daily at 12.30pm

·       Monkey feeding tour, daily at 4pm.

·        Butterfly talk at 12pm (running to the 31st August)

In the middle of Amazonia there is a large pound full of fish and terrapins. You can buy a bag of fish food at reception for £1.

Overall, Amazonia is not very big but was enough to keep my son entertained for around an hour and half and is perfect for young children.

Afterwards we had a walk around M&D’s, which now is very much looking past its best. (There’s no entry fee for the theme park – you can buy a wrist band for the rides.)

There was a brilliant free dinosaur show M&D’s were running for kids which we never expected, with realistic T-rex costumes and hand puppets – so for young ones, it is definitely worth taking a walk to the mini stage area at the far end of the park.

The dinosaur show is running until the 11th August as a special free summer holiday event.

After, we grabbed a quick slice of pizza from one of the food stands before heading back on the motorway home.

All in all, when you consider the Amazonia ticket price isn’t a lot, this was a fun day out, easy to get to, and something a bit different.

It’s probably best as something fun to tag onto a trip somewhere else such as Glasgow. Timecapsule, the indoor waterpark, isn’t far away too. There’s also a big country park next door to have a look around to make more of the day.

For more information on Amazonia, click here