Making the Most of Your Family Day at Pleasurewood Hills

Looking for a family-friendly theme park to visit in the East of England? Take a look at Pleasurewood Hills in Suffolk.

Where is Pleasurewood Hills?

Pleasurewood Hills
Leisure Way,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR32 4TZ

01502 586000
reception@pleasurewoodhills.com

Parking at Pleasurewood Hills

Pleasurewood Hills has a large car park that costs £3 per day. You can pay on the day of your visit or when you book your tickets online.

Opening times

Pleasurwood Hills is open seasonally, roughly from the end of March to the end of October. Usual opening times are 10am until either 5pm or 6pm, depending on the time of year. Check the website for up to date opening times.

Spending the day at Pleasurewood Hills

Pleasurewood Hills has been open since 1983. In 2011, the park was purchased by it’s current owners, lesiure and hospitality specialists, The Looping Group. I first visited Pleasurewood Hills in around 2015 and remembered having a great time with my friends. We wanted to take Erin for a visit ahead of a day there with Girl Guiding. 

Park maps

You can download a map for Pleasurewood Hills family theme park ahead of time by scanning a code on your tickets. Alternatively, you can pick up paper copies of the map at the entrance. 

Rides for all ages

There’s something for everyone here, even the littlest of family members. You can see the full attraction list on the parkmap, which is clearly labelled with which is a roller coaster and those rides which are family friendly. The map also details any height restrictions for each ride, which is really helpful! 

Although there are a few bigger rides, namely The Egg-Spress, Wipeout, Cannonball Express and the Jolly Roger, there wasn’t really enough for us. Erin’s at an age where she is used to the likes of Legoland Windsor and Walt Disney World, so she likes a mix of rides. Older guest, e.g. teenagers, might struggle to find enough thrill rides to keep them happy all day.

For young children, there are loads of rides… up to a point. There are quite a few rides which allow children UP TO 1.4m, meaning taller children won’t be able to ride these. Erin is around 1.3m so she was only just able to go on these. There are 5 rides with this restriction and I think I counted 10 other rides in the ‘Family Rides’ section that Erin was able to go on. It won’t be long until Erin is too tall and I really think that restricts the family market. However, on this occasion, she was fairly happy riding some of the smaller rides. 

Some rides we did enjoy was the Rootin Tootin Target Trail (even if the score wasn’t working), chairlifts, The Egg-Spressand the kite flyer. Unfortunately, some of the rides had issues which resulted in long queues. The bumper cars only had 4 working and the Cannonball Express only had 1 car where 6/8 of the seats could be used. It was such a shame to see some of the park’s rides in disrepair or not being used to their full potential. 

Go and see a show

During our visit there was a circus and sea lion show. Unfortunately, the map doesn’t give the times for these shows so you have to find out when the shows are at each attraction. I think there was once a bird show too but that wasn’t on during our visit. Sadly, we ended up missing all of the show times due to the times not being very clear at the start of our visit. 

Cleanliness and smoking

Something we had an issue with during our visit was cleanliness and smoking. This theme park does not have a no smoking policy like most others. Instead, there is just a rule that you can’t smoke in a queue. This meant that while we waited for Erin on a ride, we were constantly met with people smoking or vaping. Because of this, we also found so many cigarette ends on the floor, even in places where people sat and had picnics. 

It was sad to sit on the floor and realise what we were surrounded by. A family park such as this should be clean and the staff keeping an eye on problem areas. 

Food and drink

As well as a strip of food outlets located in the park, there are smaller outlets where you can buy food and drink. Some of the prices included:

• Classic hot dog £5.50
• 6 battered chicken nuggets £6.95
• BBQ cheesy fries £5.00
• Fries £3.25
• Hot chocolate £3.75
• Coca-Cola re-fill cup £2.50

There are plenty of places to sit if you want to take your own food and enjoy a picnic.

Updates needed

Sadly, Pleasurewood Hill is fairly run down and could do with some updating. Some buildings were either not being used or looked like they hadn’t been painted in many years. This made the overall look of the theme park dated and worn out. Compared to places such as Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, there are better value for money places close by.

Things to do on a break in Suffolk