Disclosure: We were gifted tickets for the purpose of this post

Blairdrummond Hallowild

Be afraid!  Be very afraid! Blairdrummond Safari Park’s Hallowild event, just outside Stirling, has lots of spooky activities for the whole family!  From the fantastic decorations, to slime making, a pumpkin patch and a very scary haunted house!

Blairdrummond Hallowild is open from 12th-27th October 2019, head over there for some scary fun!

Safari Park Drive-Through

We started with the drive-through and had great fun watching the animals eat their breakfast.  Some of the residents had spookier breakfasts than others, with bright orange pumpkins on the menu.  The Barbary Macaque’s were on top form, leaping and tackling each other on the giant haystack spider in their enclosure!  We couldn’t help but giggle at their antics!

The lions are always a favourite too, plus when you get there when the gates open they are eating a delicious meaty breakfast.  Well, delicious for them!  It does make it more interesting at feeding time, especially with the lions who are often lazing around at other times.

Spooky Tent

The spooky tent at Blairdrummond Hallowild has lots of great activities for the kids.  You can make slime and a forky toy for free, neither of which my children chose to do, of course!  Face painting is available for a small fee and then there’s magic show throughout the day.

The boys were excited to watch the magic show and littlest was able to take part in one of the magic tricks too.  They loved the silliness and were in fits of giggles at simple things like a ghost hiding from the magician.

The spooky tent is also where you can head to get photos with the dress up items and sit on a huge purple thrown for a great photo opportunity.  A small cafe area serves hot drinks and delicious snacks, with plenty of seating area.

Pumpkin Patch

We couldn’t visit the safari park without picking up a couple of pumpkins at the Blairdrummon Pumpkin Patch!  The spooky decorations look great and it’s right beside the spooky tent with skeletons and spiders galore.  There are plenty of pumpkins to choose from, although you will have to carry them back to the car!

The children took their time choosing a pumpkin each, eldest (of course!) chose the largest one he could find!  It was a little too big for him to carry, so I did help him out and carry it for him, whilst he held my smaller pumpkin!  If you amenable children you can get some fantastic photographs in the patch, however mine were keen to explore elsewhere, so only had a moment of pumpkin photos!

Haunted House

The haunted house theme this year is ‘The Tomb’, an Egyptian tomb where you will need to wear 3D glasses to get the full effect.  My eldest (8 year old) was pretty excited about this, however hearing other children in front of them get scared and leave the queue they did get very nervous waiting.

I couldn’t get any good photos inside as they were holding my hands pretty tightly and found it a bit too terrifying!  I think if you have less sensitive children you will be fine, but mine still seem to be easily scared!  The actors dressed up inside were great and the neon paintwork looked fantastic!  Only go in if you’re brave enough!

Halloween Trail

We spent time walking around the park looking at the animals and also following the Halloween Trail.  When you arrive you will be given a trail leaflet with clues to the locations of each letter pumpkin.  Once you have found all 6 letters you have to unscramble the word and hand it in at the gift shop beside the dodgems for a small sweetie prize.

Some of the pumpkins were quite hard to find, so don’t give up if you don’t spot them straight away, they are definitely in the locations described on the form, just look EVERYWHERE!

Walk Round Safari

There isn’t just the Halloween fun at Blairdrummond safari park, the usual animals are all there and you can get photos taken with lots of different straw bale spiders. As it was a bit wet at times during our visit (think torrential downpours!), some of the animals were hiding in the inside parts of their enclosures.  We did get to see quite a few outside during the sunnier spells.

The rides are all available at the main car park entrance, with both our children loving the big slide by the Sea Lion’s.  We headed there before the rain storm started!  The slide is free, however you will need to pay for the other attractions such as trampolines, mini rollercoaster, dodgems and mini landrovers.

At the other end of the park are the pedalo’s which are always fun and even though it had rained the staff spent a lot of time drying the boats out again for everyone to use.

The boat ride to chimp island had a huge queue at the weekend, but as three boats were running a continuous loop the queue didn’t take long.  I noticed that there is now a recording for chimp island, which is very informative, but I did think it was now lacking the personal touch.  When we visited the previous month the staff on the boat would point out the different chimps by name and discuss their behaviours, which was great to understand them better.