People will know by now I am a big lover of our local wildlife parks, especially sister parks Howletts and Port Lympne. Back in August a group of us stay at the Bear Lodge for a night, following a lovely trip - I eye spied an offer too good to miss, two nights for the price of one. So my friend and I decided a mini girls getaway was needed.
October soon creeped up - we both arrived at the Bear Lodge entrance around 4pm as we had both been at work but that's ok as check in is 4 - however you can go explore the park during the day if you wish. After checking in and booking for dinner/breakfast times and evening safaris we were quick to drop off our bags and see the view. You can't deny that is an amazing view! and after being disappointed not seeing the bears on our last visit - there they were happily playing in plain view.
Part of the package is you can book a complimentary evening safari each night, or you can pay a bit extra for evening feed runs. We went for the safaris, and it's safe to say night one was certainly an interesting one - due to unruly guests. However I have huge respect for the staff and how they handled everything. Getting close to animals never fails to entertain me, cue tons of photos on my camera.
Upon return to the tents we headed off for dinner in the restaurant which was lovely and me being a extremely fussy eater I could just pick off the children's menu and they are still a decent size to fill me up. I must admit I was knackered by this time on Friday so it was a lazy evening in the tent after dinner and lights were soon off.
So a little bit about the tents -
- Can sleep up to 8 people, with a mixture of double beds, bunk beds, sofa bed (tents vary)
- Bedding and towels provided
- Each tent has like kitchen area with fridge, sink, kettle - but there is no cooking facilities.
- Wood burner for chilly nights.
- En-suite toilet and shower
- Private decking with seating
- Free WIFI for sharing those holiday snaps
- Free parking
Within the bear lodge area is the clubhouse restaurant, bar and a play area for the kids.
As well as access to see the bears, alpaca and meerkats.
Midweek stays start at £210 per night or weekends for £250
Saturday was an early start in the tent, waking up to the sound of lions and monkeys. Slowly getting ready and another trip down to the bears to see if they were out again - breakfast was booked for 8, and after that we sorted our stuff and prepared to drive over to Howletts for the day. Another bonus of the stay you get entry to both sites.
We had a fantastic walk round Howletts, which was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday - and we stopped in our local services on the way back for a spot of lunch and stocked up on supplies. As Howletts doesn't take long to explore we had time to come back to Port Lympne and did a bit of exploring before the park closed for the day where we headed back up to our tent.
Saturday night we went back out on the evening safari and when we got back even though it was coat weather it was still nice enough to sit out on the decking and we did a bit of star watching.
Sunday morning we woke up again to the sound of the animals, and again it was a very lazy morning and breakfast was booked for 8 again. Holiday blues were already kicking in as I didn't want to leave and return to reality. We went down to the main park for 9.30 as it opened up and went out on the truck and then went on the complete the walking half of the park, to see the gorillas, monkeys and cats.
It's safe to say we loved our stayed at Port Lympne and hopefully will go back again at some point next year. I personally would love to check out the tiger lodge or treehouse hotel. We wish to say thank you to all the staff that made our stay wonderful.
