Did you know that you can stay overnight at Port Lympne Animal Reserve? If you love animals and are looking for something different we highly recommend a stay there. There are many different accommodations to choose from at Port Lympne. Ranging from glamping, hotel rooms, houses and lodges. They can suit any budget and some of the accommodations come with very special animal neighbours. We opted to stay at Wolf Lodge as our little lady has a bit of a wolf obsession. This is our experience of an overnight stay at Port Lympne.
Preparing For Our Overnight Stay At Port Lympne
Booking an overnight stay at Port Lympne also gives you entrance into Howletts Wild Animal Park during your stay. They advise visiting their sister park on your second day. As we had a busy May half-term we decided against adding it to our short break plans. Opting for a more relaxed experience at Port Lympne. We hope to visit Howletts in the future as it looks like a lovely day out.
Booking Restaurants For Breakfast and Dinner
Before our arrival date, the reservations team contacted us via email to make our restaurant reservations. We have eaten at Babydoll’s Wood Fired Pizza before so I thought that would be a good choice for our dinner. I requested The Garden Room for breakfast but to be honest I was worried about how family-friendly it would be. Babydoll’s was fully booked for dinner unless we didn’t mind eating at a later time. As we didn’t think the children would be able to wait for a later dinner, we went with their recommendation of dinner at Bear Lodge.
Booking Our Safari
When we booked our stay at Port Lympne the safaris were closed to day visitors. This was due to the covid restrictions in place. They were still available to book for overnight guests. The safaris did become available for day visitors again before our break but the reservations team still contacted us to book a safari slot. We thought it would be best to book our safari for our second day. They only had morning slots available. I was worried the traffic might stop as making the time on or arrival day. It helped with our more relaxed plan.
Checking In At Port Lympne Animal Reserve
On your check-in day, you can arrive at Port Lympne reserve as soon as it opens to the public. If arriving by car you must be aware of where you need to park. Different accommodation has different car parks and check-in locations. We arrived at about 11.30 am but our check-in for Wolf Lodge was at 2.00 pm. Before our accommodation check-in time, we grabbed ourselves some lunch at the Basecamp Cafe. We then went off to do some exploring of the reserve. Port Lympne is located on a very hilly landscape which makes it such a beautiful location. As we knew our stay at Wolf Lodge came complete with access to a golf buggy we stuck to exploring the top of the reserve and the hotel grounds. We would then explore the bottom area of the reserve when we could use our golf buggy to get there.
Check-in at Wolf Lodge was very simple. At 2.00 pm we went to guest services where we were given the Wolf Lodge golf buggy and directions to Wolf Lodge. It was a short drive to our accommodation from there and we were greeted by members of the reservation team. They quickly checked us in, letting us know how to get to our dinner reservation. They also put our credit card on an account so that we could charge our meals to our accommodation. It wasn’t long before we were left to explore Wolf Lodge.
Our Experience Of An Overnight Stay At Port Lympne
After Hours Access To Port Lympne
The beauty of an overnight stay at Port Lympne is that you have access to the reserve when it is closed to the public. You are free to go for walks or use the golf buggy routes during this time. We did this after our evening meal and we were able to take our time visiting the different animals without any crowds.
Having the golf buggy was a real highlight of our stay it was worth booking an accommodation option that came with one.
Dinner At Bear Lodge
The Bear Lodge restaurant can be found at the Bear Lodge glamping site. Looking at the menu I knew the children would be happy with the meal offerings here as it had all the food they will happily eat. This meal did cost us £100 for four but the food was amazing. I think the children’s drinks easily escalate our food bill costs. Ethan will only drink fruit shoots without prompting. They also gave us water for the table so there isn’t any need to buy extra drinks. Unfortunately, we can’t get away with that one.
Darren had a buttermilk chicken burger whilst I went for chicken and chorizo from the robata grill. When my meal arrived Darren got food envy! Little E had chicken and Ethan went for his regular choice of a burger with chips. I also went a bit mad and ordered us some extra sides of chips, garlic bread and onion rings.
For dessert, I went for the sticky toffee pudding with hazelnuts and everyone else had the chocolate brownie. They had an adults version as well as a children’s version available. The food really was amazing and we left happy with very full tummies.
Breakfast At The Garden Room
I was looking forward to our breakfast as The Garden Room looks so pretty. I couldn’t find an example menu online to make sure that there were breakfast options that Ethan would eat. The reservations team did find out if they had pancakes on the menu for us. As long as there are pancakes we are normally good to go.
The breakfast menu was perfect for us all. Darren had a full English and I had an American breakfast. The children both had pancakes and a bowl of Coco Pops. Another great meal at Port Lympne and what we didn’t realise is that breakfast is included in the price when you stay in Wolf Lodge.
We had a great time when we visited Port Lympne for the day but an overnight stay at Port Lympne takes this experience to the next level.
