Detailed review by Fritzthecat
Fritzthecat(44)
Essex, United Kingdom97%
Adventure Island is perfectly located right at Southend's seafront, next to the pier.
The park offers a wide range of rides for all ages and whenever we go to Southend we always pay a visit.
Adventure Island9
Ratings
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Accessibility
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"Must See"-Factor
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Budget Friendliness
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Adventure Island is fairly easy to find with its seafront location. Once you've reached Southend just follow the signs towards the beach, the park itself is signed out too so no its hard to miss. There is no parking directly at the park but plenty along the promenade or in town. We usually park at the promenade's park and display facilities and walk down to Adventure Island much nicer to walk along the sea than through the town. From the town centre it is only a short walk and a bus stop is close by.
When we were still living in North-London Southend was the closest beach to us and we came here several times a year. Now we have other and nicer beaches closer to home but we still go back to Southend because the kids love Adventure Island.
There is no admission to the park; the tickets for the rides need to be bought at the ticket booth. They offer you to buy either a wristband that enables you, or your kids, to take as many rides as possible. The wristbands are divided into height-groups, the smaller the guest, the cheaper the band but also of course the less choice of rides. All visitors over 1.20 meter pay the maximum but also have the largest choice of rides. The prices vary depending on the season, if you go off peak you'll safe around £3-4, if you have the possibility to buy online it gets even cheaper.
Single tickets can also be bought but if you are planning to stay the whole day a wristband can save you a lot of money, although they don't come cheap at £22 for a child taller than 1.20m. Our kids are 6 and 8 and have both reached that size by now, sometimes I really do wish they wouldn't grow that fast !
Now let's get to the most important part, the rides. Adventure Island is a real family park and offers rides for toddlers and teenagers alike. The whole theme of the park is tropical with plenty of pirates in between and kids just love it. Even for the smallest children there are more than enough rides and what we always liked is that a parent can accompany the little ones without having to pay. Plenty of parks handle it different and you need to pay for yourself if you want to accompany your two year old on a kiddy ride, so we really did appreciate that when we still needed it. At the entrance of every ride you will find a height chart that will indicate if your child is tall enough to get on the ride. From what we have observed they do really check and we had a few occasions when the little one had to stay outside and wait for her older sister. The rides for the older guests are of course much faster and wilder and they have some where you need a really good stomach. What I do find a bit annoying are the photographers that run around trying to convince you that you need them to take your photo while you are on the right, of course you need to buy the photo (only if you like it) and they don't come cheap.
All in all there are more than 30 rides in the park and for us that is more than enough. The kids usually find their "favourite" ride soon anyway and that means that mostly we are stuck in front of one while they have one go after the other.
There are also some restaurants and gift shops in the park. We've never eaten there and try to avoid the shops which sell the usual, slightly overpriced stuff. As I've mentioned earlier, there is no general admission which has the added bonus that you can come and go in between as you please and you don't need to rely on the onsite catering. We normally arrive early, let the kids have some rides, then venture of to have something to eat and enjoy the beach and then go back again to let the girls have some more rides before we return home. For them its the perfect day out and for us it makes the fun-fair style park much more bearable as there is a chance to escape in between.
So do I recommend it and would I return? Surely and we do return regularly already. At around £40 for both kids it is not exactly cheap but still much cheaper than many of the other theme parks we've been to and it offers more rides than many of them did. If you do have kids and are planning a visit to Southend I really recommend it, it definitely beats the bingo halls and amusement arcades along the strip by a mile.
