Sussex columnist: Family fun at Drusillas including new SPARK interactive play area and Rainforest Adventure

The sad death of the Queen has brought out a huge range of emotions in so many of us.

For me, it made me think so much of my nan. She was a massive royalist, and absolutely loved the Queen. She always had a calendar of the Queen hanging in her upstairs hallway, and when I went round to stay, she loved showing me which hat or outfit she was wearing in the picture for that particular month.

It’s exactly the kind of example, I think, that shows just how much she meant to people up and down the country. The term ‘constant’ has been used so much in the past two weeks, but that’s exactly what she was.

In the midst of the national mourning period last week, it didn’t seem right for me to write a column. But as we begin to move forward in the new era of King Charles III, it feels right to make tentative steps into returning to some kind of ‘new normal’.

With that in mind, my family had a long-standing invitation to visit Drusillas at the weekend and we decided to keep it.

We wanted to experience the newly renovated Rainforest Adventure area featuring three rethemed rides, and the new SPARK immersive play experience.

Arriving at 10am, as the park opened, we got straight into experiencing some of the animal enclosures.

My children, no strangers to being loud, were straight into the indoor enclosures with fever-pitch levels of excitement. My son loudly and repeatedly proclaimed he’d found a snake, and my daughter rushed round to find sloths, monkeys, tortoises and more at break-neck pace, animatedly beckoning me over to see what she’d discovered.

Back outside, we loved watching tamarins, marmosets and meerkats being very excitable. And I could have watched the lar gibbons hanging around upside down, and then zooming through their enclosure, all day.

The whole animal trail is kept entertaining for children with the opportunity for them to collect stamps in a ‘spotters book’, plus there’s also several interactive spots, such as where they can see which animal they can run as fast as, see if they can hang around like a monkey, or stand on one leg for as long as a flamingo.

All the animals are so entertaining to see, but our favourites were the fennec foxes (so, so cute), red pandas (elusive, but wonderful if you get to see them), giant anteaters, armadillos, coatis and penguins (forever my favourite).

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At midday, we had a pre-booked slot for SPARK. It’s an interactive indoor play zone, that allows children to ‘colour’ animals on the wall, design sea creatures which then swim into a pool projected on the floor and even see themselves riding on rainforest animals on a giant screen.

It was so cleverly done, with so much to see and do packed into a relatively small space. When I asked my children what their favourite part of the day was, they said SPARK (closely followed by pretty much everything else!).

We were intrigued to see how the Hello Kitty area had been changed into Rainforest Adventure. The rides remain the same, but are now themed on animals and the rainforest. It seems much more fitting, and the area is colourful and inviting. The kids were tall enough to ride on their own, so they ran round and around and around, taking their newly bought monkey toys onto the jeeps and drop tower rides over and over again.

We also loved the intricate theming of the Rainforest Carousel, the thrills of the Hippopotobus and the view from the Flying Cheetahs.

We ended the day with the children playing in the indoor soft play area Amazon Adventure, followed by a long time in the outdoor play areas Go Wild! and Go Bananas!.

Having grown up in Sussex, and been a regular visitor to Drusillas as a child (the barn with the hay bale rope swings was legendary!), it was such a treat to see my children enjoying a place I’ve always loved.

Drusillas will always hold a special place in my heart, and it makes me so happy to see this family-run business continuing to invest in making it relevant to the latest generation.