Last weekend, we were invited to a press event at Drusillas Park to try out their new ride for 2019; the Rainforest Carousel. It’s been a while since we last visited, and seeing as it’s just around the corner from us we jumped at the chance to visit again.

We love Drusillas for so many reasons, not only is it a lovely little zoo but it has some fantastic rides for young children / thrill seekers. There’s also always something extra going on, from visits by Hey Duggee or Peter Rabbit, to seasonal events at Christmas and Halloween!

The Rainforest Carousel opened last weekend and we were lucky enough to be one of the first few people to ride on it before everyone else. Here’s what we thought and what we got up to.

If you’ve been to Drusillas before, The Rainforest Carousel is situated by the Explorers Cafe but before the Hello Kitty area, and is the perfect addition to the theme park area. It’s incredibly bright and colourful, and has a huge amount of choice available; with over 30 animals to choose from – including a few who are currently residents at Drusillas! We brought T’s nursery buddy, who’s the same age, with us and they had loads of fun choosing which animal to ride on.

As well as your usual merry-go-round style seats, there are also a number of other seating options available, from a round snake basket that could hold a family, to an accessible turtle for wheelchair users. Every thought has clearly been put into the ride to make sure that everyone is welcome.

The ride is suitable for all ages – even adults – thanks to a number of safety measures in place, such as seat belts, for little ones. Due to the boys’ height, us parents had to stand next to them just in case they slipped off, but older children were allowed to ride alone.

The ride lasted for a few minutes and goes round at a really gentle pace. The animals do go up quite high, but that just made it more exciting. T rode on a parrot the first time which he said was brilliant. The next time, because we could go on a second time straight after, we went with the snake basket which came with a spinning wheel to make the basket go round in different directions. This also meant us mums could have a go!

As it was a press event, we were treated to some lovely pastries. I was also lucky enough to finally meet Lyndsay from Fizzy Peaches as well as catch up with Tom from Diary of the Dad. It really got the day off to a lovely start.

Once we were done stuffing our faces, and the boys were happy to leave, we spent the rest of the day exploring Drusillas – catching up on what else was new or different since our last visit.

The biggest change since our last visit was probably the disappearance of the Thomas train. I completely forgot it had gone, which was bit of a shock, however once we saw what was in it’s place it cheered us right up! What a beauty. In addition, there were lots of new additions to Drusillas; from baby Macaques to lots of new baby farm yard animals!

We must have spent a good few hours exploring the zoo area, especially the walkthrough areas. There’s just so much to keep you busy!

Once we had explored the zoo, we then made our way back to the ride on area as well as had a little play in the play area. This is where T really shone as this was the first time he was going to be going on some of these rides or climbing areas!

Before, he was either too small or not that keen, so this was going to be exciting!

A post shared by LesBeMums (@lesbemums) on Apr 6, 2019 at 10:45am PDT

As expected, T absolutely loved them, and when our friends had to leave us to go home he asked to go on a few of them for a second time – this was helped by the fact that the queues on the day were minimal!

Thank you so much to Drusillas for inviting us to see the new Rainforest Carousel, we had such a wonderful day. If you fancy a ride, or would like to find out more, you can find out more over on their website.

We were given complimentary tickets to Drusillas for the purpose of viewing the new Rainforest Carousel, however all thoughts, opinions, and images are our own.