A couple weekends ago my family and I had the opportunity to visit Canada's Original Safari Adventure, African Lion Safari! I've been waiting to tell you all how much fun we had and I'm super excited that Just Us Girls gets to offer one of our readers a family pack of four to visit this amazing place as well!
Since African Lion Safari is about three hours away from us, the hubby and I decided it would be nice to go up the night before and stay at a hotel so we can wake up fresh and relaxed and get there right when the park opened. Luckily there are a number of nice hotels around and near African Lion Safari and we ended up staying on Holiday Inn. The ride up there was pretty great and the kids weren't too bored because they had not only crayons and coloring books, but they also had their Nintendo DS and tablets in case they got bored.
The morning of our trip we got up, dressed and packed our stuff and headed out. We got there just in time. The park had just opened and it wasn't too busy. As we pulled up the lovely lady at the booth gave us our packet which included four day passes to African Lion Safari that included lunch and the Safari Tour Bus and the official guidebook.
After we parked and got the kids ready, we decided that we would first head to the Safari Bus Tour to schedule our trip on the Safari Tour Bus. We decided that we'd schedule it for around one o'clock. This would give us time to walk around the park for a bit and take a look around.
I can't tell you how perfect the timing was. Since we decided to do the tour a bit later, we were able to walk around the park and check out all the birds they had around, including flamingos. It was so much fun to watch and at each stop my husband read to the kids about the birds so they'd learn a bit more.
After checking out the birds we ended up going on the Nature Boy Scenic Railway, which was one of my son's favorite parts of the day. He is absolutely in love with trains and he loved riding on this one where we got to explore, learn and see lots of the exotic animals that included reindeer, ducks, turtles, llamas and Canadian Geese.
On the way back we spotted a play area with slides and a small play ground and across from it was a play area with climbing rock that landed the kids in a ball pit and to get out they had to climb up and get on a slide, they loved this and went on it a few times during our visit.
Up next was one of my favorites, the African Queen Boat Tour. This was such a beautiful tour. We got to cruise the Water Safari Lake and learn about some of their Spider Monkey's, White Ruffed Lemurs, Marabou Storks and so much more. I absolutely loved how beautiful the scene was and loved that not only were we getting a tour, but my kids were also learning about many different animals that they got to see.
After we were done on our boat tour we decided to head to get something to eat for lunch. We were given pizza meal vouchers which included a large pizza, chips and a drink, which was perfect and the kids loved because along with their pizza meal they received a little African Lion Safari plastic tote that they love and have been using around the house ever since. If you are not a pizza lover then have no fear, there were still tons of different types of places with different food from burgers, sandwiches, you name it. And if you don't want to spend money on food, you are more than welcome to bring in your own lunch, which would probably be a cheaper route for those of you on a budget.
Next after lunch we headed to our Safari Tour where you do have the option to either get on one of the buses, which isn't expensive to do and worth it in my opinion or you can bring your own vehicle through the Conservation. I think we picked a perfect time. As soon as we were getting on the bus, the park was starting to get busy with those that were on earlier tours and with those that got to watch the elephant show.
The tour was absolutely amazing. We got to see so many types of animals from lions, giraffes, zebras, baboons, cheetahs, rhinos, deer and so much more. We not only had a great view because we were pretty up high on the bus, but it didn't take us hours to get through the conservation which it might have if we would have took our vehicle in because let me tell you, it was packed. The tour took about an hour to get through, but man was it worth it and so beautiful. My family and I loved seeing all the animals and learning a bit about them.
Once we were done with the tour on the bus we came back to African Lion Safari being super busy, we were pretty glad we got to experience some of the different stations earlier. Once we were back in the park they had a few shows going on, their Birds of Prey, which we had just missed, but then we did get to see their Elephant Round Up Show where we got to see two elephants put on a show for us, which was very entertaining. One even painted a picture on a t-shirt that turned out pretty awesome. The kids were very impressed.
To save one of the best for last, African Lion Safari had an amazing Misumu Bay Wet Play, which the kids had so much fun. It was better than an average splash pad and had tons of things for the kids to play on, slides, different water stations, tunnels, buckets of water that splash them, it definitely was a great treat that was best for last before our day ended and definitely cooled them down on a hot day.
The kids played for about an hour and then once we were done and after about eight hours at African Lion Safari, we decided it was time for us to say goodbye to one of the best places we've visited this summer. It was an amazing day filled with so much fun and amazing memories that will last for our family forever. We wish we were able to see the Elephant Swim Show, but since the next show was starting at 7pm and we still had a three hour drive home we had to miss it. Next year that will definitely be one of the first things we do!
Disclosure: All opinions are my own. I received a family four pack to African Lion Safari at no cost for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received.
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