This is an absolutely gorgeous gift for anyone who loves animals, and meerkats in particular. My mother bought it for my father for his 80th birthday. What do you get someone on a special birthday? You can get them meaningless gadgets - or you can give them an experience they will always remember.
My father never expected anything like this meerkat experience for his birthday gift. He chuckles away every time their advert comes on the TV, so it sort of gave us an idea (not a hint).
The wonderful thing about animal experiences is that it's the animals who provide the magic. The animals are the real stars.
We spent about five hours at Paradise Wildlife Park, thoroughly enjoying the views of the animals from the many walkways. All the animals looked really well cared for. Dad's time experience with the Meerkats probably lasted about 40 minutes, 30 of which were in the enclosure with a keeper and the meerkats.
I can't remember the last time I saw such a smile on Dad's face. It said everything. My father has had several heart operations and to see him so alive and happy and so much enjoying the moment, feeding meerkats and hearing all about them from the kindly keeper meant absolutely everything in the world to me.
The meerkats climbed over him, they took the food from his hand, they were oblivious to the crowds around the enclosure who were watching them - all their attention was on my dad and the food he had in his hand. And Dad's attention was entirely on the meerkats, with an occasional smile in our direction.
The biggest "thank you" to the staff at Paradise Wildlife Park, who made our experience so enjoyable - and most of all, a thank you to each and every meerkat who made Dad so happy. Bless you all :-)
