I love Cromer; It’s not too far from where I was brought up in Norwich and we spent a lot of time there when I was little. My Grandparents first took me camping there when I was just a few weeks old and we continued to go to that camp site every year in our caravan until I was a teenager. I even went with my best friend as we got older and had my first weekend away without parents!

Cromer is all kinds of awesome from the fact it is so unspoilt and like stepping back in time to simply just having a wonderful beach. I remember sitting in a pub at the top of the cliffs in the town with Jonny when we were in our first flush of romance and I ran down to the beach from the bay window where we were sitting to write ‘I Love You’ in the sand to him.

This is us in Cromer a couple of years ago! It’s a great place to visit!

Cromer is fabulous and I simply won’t have a bad word said about it! I know it very well so if you ever want any hints or tips for things to do in the area then just ask! One thing I didn’t know however, until yesterday anyway, was what a wonderful zoo they have just minutes walking distance from the town centre! I think I can be forgiven as it wasn’t there when I was growing up and I had heard that Amazona Zoo existed in recent years, I’d just not visited!

But… Now I have! My Mum and I took the children on the train yesterday morning (we also met friends there) and as we enjoyed the Bittern Line vista on our journey from Norwich to Cromer we already felt like our day out had started. It really is a very pretty line and more feels like an extension of the day out rather than a vehicle of getting somewhere! I absolutely cannot stand the train company Abellio Greater Anglia who unfortunately have the monopoly on this line. They are usually, in my opinion, 100 shades of terrible when it comes to customer service but even they can’t muck up the aesthetics of the view as you travel from Norwich towards Sheringham – I hope I haven’t spoken too soon there, I’m sure if there was a way for Abellio Greater Anglia to ruin it then they absolutely would, that would be my experience of them anyway! I will tell you of my distaste for the company very soon – I have decided to unleash the beast of my roth about them on the blog so watch this space!

Anyway, back to Amazona Zoo! It took us around 25 minutes to walk from Cromer station to the entrance and all along very pretty country path ways. I expect if you don’t have a buggy with two children then the journey could be much quicker and I love that you don’t have to drive to be able to get to the zoo. So many places in Norfolk are simply not possible without a car which makes me grumpy. I am used to London living where everybody takes the tube and it’s so much easier to do so. Amazona Zoo is perfect for non drivers and environmentalists because it is one of the few which is very easy to get to so it immediately gets a thumbs up from that point of view.

I’d read reviews before we visited and of the people not satisfied the main problem seemed to be the cost of entry and the fact that the zoo is small. I actually think the cost is very reasonable at £11.50 for an adult and £8.40 for children aged 4-14. It doesn’t seem too terrible when it comes to my standards anyway. I might be on ‘London living’ mode of course but Banham Zoo, also in Norfolk, costs considerably more and when you look at the costs of looking after all the animals I think it seems perfectly acceptable, if not rather good value.

The zoo is small, I would say that it might be a suggestion to change the name from ‘zoo’ to ‘animal park’ as perhaps the title conjures up a certain image that isn’t lived up to for the ‘bad reviewers’. I mean for me, I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest, had expected it to be on a smaller scale to other zoos we have visited and was very impressed with quality over quantity but some people just can’t be pleased can they!

We strolled around and spent around 5 hours enjoying the animals, play areas and pretty landscaping of the zoo. We saw Maras feeding their young just on the pathways (which are prettily decorated with leaf imprints) as well as spider monkeys, crocodiles, capybaras and much more. I was most impressed with the pumas and jaguars. We’ve been to London Zoo (which has a £21.81 entry price for an adult in August) twice this summer and NOT seen their lions or tigers on either visit. I’d much rather see the pumas and jaguars up close at Amazona (you really can get very close to them) than not see the lions and tigers of London Zoo any day!

We enjoyed our day at Amazona Zoo greatly!

The bigger cats at Amazona were amazing and so beautiful! we loved watching them get fed and hearing the interesting facts given to us by the keepers at both their feeding time and that of the spider monkeys. The facts given for each animal on their enclosures is also very interesting and written in a way which is engaging when read out to little ones.

The animals all seem very happy and have interesting enclosures!

It may have been a summer holiday day but the zoo was not wildly busy and as well as the pretty pathways they have paid lots of attention to detail where they might not have bothered. A yurt is up for undercover picnics and lots of picnic tables are placed around the park. Interesting walk ways and enclosures kept our interest and the cafe is extremely inexpensive which is a massive draw. A cup of tea costs £1 and an ice cream around £1.50. The gift shop is also not terribly expensive which always makes me happy because part of a day out for children, and I remember it being the same when I was little, is to spend a bit of pocket money at the end of the day.

We liked all the elements and the play areas are superb!

To top things off they also have a wonderful soft play area which is safe and interesting as well as clean! There is also a coffee machine inside the soft play area and both of my children enjoyed two sessions in there at the beginning and end of our visit!

Take a look at this video we made of our day out at Amazona Zoo!

So I’ve said all the good but I will say how I would improve, aside from perhaps calling it an ‘animal park’ rather than a zoo!

• They need more benches throughout the park as it is the sort of place Grandparents will want to visit. Easy to walk around but without many perching points at intervals along the zoo route. Just some log benches dotted here and there would perk it up perfectly.
• They also need to squeeze more picnic tables inside the yurt, it is big enough for more than four.
• They write the feeding times on a black board at the zoo entrance but on each enclosure it would be an idea to have black boards with the times on as well. It’s easy to forget them all as you go around.
• One more little suggestion might be to have a stamp book trail around the zoo. Lots of parks like Drusillas in Sussex offer something like this and even though they are usually free or very cheap (50p for example) they make the trip around the zoo, finding the animals with stamps to pop in the book, all the more interesting for little ones.

And that’s it! We had a lovely, lovely day and will be back! I thoroughly recommend Amazona Zoo! It’s also worth noting that buses run from Norwich to Cromer as well. You would certainly miss out on the Bittern Line views but the bus is cheaper and means you won’t be lining Abellio Greater Anglia’s pocket which is never a bad thing in my book!

We were given complimentary entry into Amazona Zoo in return for an honest review.