Knowsley Safari with kids: prices, the baboon question and what a family of four really pays in 2026
Five miles of lions, rhinos and camels from your own front seats, then a walk round sea lions, tigers and bears, 20 minutes from Liverpool. Here is how to do Knowsley Safari with children, including the days it is shut, the 3pm cut off and what the baboons will do to your car.
There is a moment on the Knowsley Safari drive, somewhere between the camels and the rhinos, when a child in the back seat realises the car is the cage and they are the exhibit. The yak looks in. Then you reach the sign for the baboons and the whole family has to vote.
Knowsley Safari has been doing this for over 50 years on 550 acres at Prescot, and it remains the only place within half an hour of Liverpool where you can see a lion with nothing between you and it but a windscreen. It is also a day with more small rules than most, so here is the honest version.
The Safari Drive
The drive is 5 miles through the park in your own car, split into zones: Eastern Asia (Bactrian camels, yaks, Pere David's deer), Southern Asia (axis deer, nilgai, blackbuck), the African Savannah (white rhino, ostrich, roan antelope), African woodland, the baboon enclosure and Lion Country, where you watch the pride "without a fence between them and your vehicle".
The park does not publish a time for the drive. Budget an hour with the inevitable rhino in the road, and note that you can go round as many times as you like on one ticket, the answer when a four year old falls asleep before the lions. Stay in the car and do not feed anything.
The time that matters is 3pm. The park closes at 4.30pm, but the last entry to the Safari Drive is 3pm and late arrivals "will be refused entry". Do the drive first, every time.
Baboons: the lane, the bus, the wipers
The baboons get their own section because they are the reason your neighbour's car has no aerial. The car friendly route skirts the enclosure and still gives a view. The other lane goes straight in, and the baboons "will come right up to your car", which means on the bonnet, on the roof, and testing anything that moves.
The park says that if you follow the rules significant damage is highly unlikely, and in the same breath that it is "not able to accept any responsibility for damage caused by our baboons within their enclosure". Read that as: roof bars, trims and wipers are at their own risk. If it is a lease, take the car friendly lane.
The third option is the Baboon Bus, £7.50 a seat on top of admission, under 1s free on a knee. It runs at weekends and every day of the school holidays, not term time weekdays, and does the full drive in about an hour, up to two when busy. No food, no prams, no air conditioning and windows shut in some sections. Book online; it will not wait for latecomers.
The Foot Safari
Park up (parking is free) and the walk round part is included in the ticket. The headline acts are the Andean bears, giraffes you can stand face to face with, meerkats, a pack of bush dogs, birds of prey including a bald eagle, California sea lions and the Russian themed Amur Tiger Trail, home to Makari, who has a large pool and does sometimes use it.
The sea lion display is at 12pm, 1.30pm and 3pm. Bird of prey displays (12.45pm and 2.15pm) and the animal talks (giraffe 12.30pm and 3.30pm, tiger 1pm and 3pm, meerkat 1.30pm, bear 2pm, bush dog 2.30pm) only run at weekends and in school holidays. The park does not say how long the Foot Safari takes; with a sea lion show and a sandwich, two to three hours is realistic.
Then there are the rides, which are the budget trap. Tokens are £1.25 each and most rides want two or three, or an unlimited wristband is £16 a child. Smaller rides take children over 0.9m, the bigger ones over 1.1m, and four were closed for maintenance when we checked. Rides open 12.30pm on term time weekdays and 11.30am at weekends, a useful excuse until lunchtime.
Food, picnics and the wet day
The Oasis Restaurant is open weekdays and weekends with bowls, burgers, a pie of the day and Little Rangers kids' meals, bottle warmers and a Costa coffee house inside. Outpost Kitchen, outdoors by the bush dogs, only opens at weekends and in school holidays. Staff cannot provide hot water for flasks. The food page says nothing either way about picnics, so pack one and check at the gate.
Rain matters less here because the whole drive is done from the car. There is also a Rainy Day Promise: if continuous heavy rain lasts more than 90 minutes between 11am and 3pm on a day the park lists as qualifying, advance online ticket holders can email for a free return visit within three months.
Getting there, access and the small print
From Liverpool, it is the M57 to junction 2 and follow the brown signs, under 30 minutes from the city centre. Without a car, trains run from Lime Street to Prescot about every 30 minutes, then a taxi or a walk of under half an hour on the footpath from the town centre, crossing the busy A58. The safari names no bus number, only Prescot bus station.
Access is good on the ground: level footpaths, ramped kerbs, accessible toilets and baby change in every toilet block, and two adult changing rooms, one with a hoist. The site does not call them Changing Places, so check if you need the registered spec. Wheelchairs (£5), single buggies (£8), doubles (£12) and mobility scooters (£20) are hireable, first come first served. Essential companion tickets go through the Nimbus Access Card scheme, applied for at least 7 to 10 days ahead; same day applications are refused. Dogs are not allowed anywhere in the park, though there are basic kennels.
What it really costs
Two adults and two children aged 3 to 15, booked online: £26 and £26 and £24.50 and £24.50, which is £101. Pay on the day and it is £113. Add the Baboon Bus for four (£30) and two rides wristbands (£32) and the same day is £163 before lunch. For comparison, Chester Zoo online is £25 an adult and £25 a child, so the two are near enough level on entry; Knowsley wins on distance.
If you will come more than three times a year, a membership is £87 an adult and £78 a child, or £7.25 and £6.50 a month, and pays for itself on the fourth visit, with 20% off the Baboon Bus.
The FamDays verdict
Knowsley is the big ticket zoo day for anyone who does not fancy the drive to Chester, and the Safari Drive is a genuinely different thing for a child to do: the animals come to you, and the car stays warm. Respect the 3pm cut off, decide about the baboons before the sign, and set a rides budget before the first token.
