A Weekend Away at Wookey Hole

[Ad- gifted experience] Wookey Hole is something that has been talked about by Dann for quite some time. He remembers going there on a trip as a child – which seems like something every British kid gets to do at least once in their life! I had not heard of the place before, but am always excited to take on new adventures. Unlike other weekends away, Wookey Hole felt more in touch with nature by the sounds of things; a remote area, a cave, tons of stuff for kids to do. We were pumped.

We ended up staying the night at the Wookey Hole Hotel, which is a stones throw away from the caves. As we live quite far, it made sense to drive up the first day, spend it seeing local sites like Ebbor Gorge and exploring Wells, then sleeping until Wookey Hole opened the next day and exploring the caves, that way everyone was well rested. The hotel itself is super well presented – decorated in a way that subtly reminds you of the Wookey Hole Witch – with a statue of the witch out front and a hat-like roof to the tower on one side. Our room was also quite massive – perfect for a family of five with one king bed and three double beds, along with enough area for us to have room to play games. It’s ideal. We also went with a cooked breakfast which is worth the upgrade as you can pick anything from the menu instead of just having bread and cereal. They have great wifi too, especially as none of us had signal in the area.

Once we had slept, been fed and packed, we then walked over to Wookey Hole. I did not really know what to expect beyond going into a giant cave! So when we got our tickets and knew there was a tour, all of us were excited. Only Dann had ever been in a cave like this before (well, he had been in this cave!) and so it was a totally new experience for the rest of us. Our tour guide brought us around the cave, pausing in each chamber to tell us about it.

Wookey Hole has a myth around a witch living there, with her pet, who were both turned to stone. There were new caverns in the cave since the last time Dann had been there, and exploring the cave was my favorite bit of the day. There were so many interesting rock formations, perfectly clear pools, and strange areas of life. It’s really amazing to get the chance to check out the inside of the cave like that, and all of our children were really engaged in the whole thing too. The place was very well lit, with different colored lighting and fake lanterns lining halls, so it wasn’t at all scary. There were lots of areas where we needed to duck to not hit our heads on rocks, apart from Robin who could stand normally. These areas were short and made going into huge caverns so much more fun! We also saw some of the extras adults could do in the area; some where taking off on a boat ride through the cave and others were rock climbing in a cavern.

Wookey Hole also has cheese being made inside of it, which is something that I did not know at all! The inside of a cave has the perfect constant temperature and humidity for cheese to grow properly. The cheese we saw, we were told, was super expensive, but you can get some reasonably priced cheese grown inside the cave at the gift shop, which is exactly what we did. Once the cave tour was over, we were let out inside the rest of Wookey Hole, which was quite interesting and a bit random.

There was a huge dinosaur walk, with a massive gorilla too, and a bunch of fairy statues and houses dotted around. The dinosaurs had plaques to tell you about them and several of them moved as well. There was also a witches’ house which is what we went too next. This is actually a 4D cinema, playing Scooby Doo when we went. The beginning of the movie takes you into the Witch’s house, where you meet her pet bat (not sure when she got a pet bat!) who mistakenly turned everything upside down. This puppet talks and moves, and the witch comes on a giant mobile phone / tv to tell the bat off for turning the house upside down and for letting humans in. After this entrance, we then went to the movie, though I do with the movie area was connected more to the bat area, possibly by the bat saying something about letting you see the witch’s home theatre. The movie itself was a nice length and made great use of the 4D cinema experience.

From there, we went next door to a small diving museum, which told the history of how the cave was sort of found, when it was opened to the public and that sort of thing. Turns out they used bombs to explore a lot of it. There was also information on how people use to dive and the advances to diving technology and what people wear to dive. Next door to this museum was a paper mill museum, where you can watch people make paper once a day at a set time. This was interesting but also felt quite random – that mill was just next to the cave, so they turned it into a museum. Next to the mill was another museum, about the past of Wookey Hole, showcasing the Roman’s who had been found there and talking about how such a cave formed. These museums were interesting and well maintained! Kai was very interested in all of these museums and took a good amount of time exploring them.

Beyond the museum there were very entertaining parts of Wookey Hole; you see, the place is owned by a circus. This means that there is circus school three days a week, with circus shows on the weekends. We got to watch some children, who are currently in the school, preform their circus act! This was such a cool experience, especially as I had no idea children trained to be in the circus! They all did such a wonderful job. There was also a massive soft play area that, through a tube above our heads, connected to another soft play. Amelia and Robin spent a lot of time in there!

Beyond that there was a cafeteria where we got food to eat. The food wasn’t fantastic – just a bunch of reasonably priced classics that we could eat. The staff were really nice, and the places to eat did have a real circus vibe with tent-like decorations and half of a horse sticking out of the wall. After lunch, we checked out the mirror maze, which was everyone’s favorite indoor adventure, as none of us had been to one before. The mirror maze feels so interesting and it is very hard to tell what is a mirror and what is not. Wookey Hole also has an old penny arcade (you can purchase pennys from the booth with your card), which had a ton of classic machines that we enjoyed playing with. Dann really loves penny arcades!

We then went to the gift shop to grab some cheese, drinks and a magnet, before taking on mini-golf. Included in the ticket price, you are able to play a round of pirate themed mini-golf, which is a nice size course. They do only have white balls though, so it’s a bit hard when you are a large family to remember which one is yours, and one of our balls even got lost in the rocks. We did enjoy it overall though! Outside of the mini-golf is panning for gold, where you win a metal and a pop-gun pirate game, both at an extra cost. We opted to go over to the ice cream shop and get some ice cream as we were all pretty warm.

Wookey Hole feels like so much more than a cave adventure, as they have put so many things all around it. Though some things feel more random then others, putting them all together does make for a packed and fun day out that does cater to everyone in a large family! We really had a wonderful time and feel that it is somewhere you have to go, at least once in your lifetime.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!