Butterfly Creek product reviews

My family went to Butterfly Creek last Christmas, for the Heart Kids Christmas Party. The buildings were still new, and fresh, incredibly designed and and well planned. The animals and their surroundings, or enclosures, were healthy and well, clean, fed, and were coping extremely well despite it being a hot day.

The restaurant staff were very friendly and helpful , and there was a fabulous choice of food to suit all stages of my family. (Partner and I and 3 and 6mth old).

I breastfed in the Restaurant side, and felt free to do this. Had no problems with this.

Have recommended Butterfly Creek to loads of my friends. Its a precious place.

Butterflies, crocodiles and farm animals, oh my! For any animal loving person, Butterfly Creek is definitely an awesome experience and a must-visit, especially for kids. Both my kids and I were rather excited at the idea of getting to see real giant salt-water crocodiles (the only ones here in NZ!) and many species of butterflies we'd never come across before, and my 11 yr old and I had done a bit of butterfly research in preparation. Because we don't get to get up to Auckland very often, we decided to treat ourselves to the full experience, with the "Super Combo", which includes access to everything: the butterfly house, crocs n gators, aquarium, buttermilk farm, and the bug room. At $19.90 for an adult and $10.50 for children aged 3-15 (children under 3 are free), I'd at first thought the price was a bit steep, but after having been there, I'd happily pay that again as it is fully worth it! There is a fantastic playground to help keep the kids amused in between checking out the different enclosures, a cafe with a VERY tasty menu that, although rather highly priced, offers generous portions and plenty of choices (or you can just take a picnic), an ice cream shop, plenty of toilets and a parenting room (which I did find to be on the tiny side)... and a fun little train that the kids absolutely LOVED (Mr3 would've quite happily spent all day on this if I'd let him I think, but at $3 per person, PER RIDE, that would've gotten expensive rather fast) that does a couple of loops of the "Rocket Ropes" adult course.

So, after a nosey through their gift shop with all sorts of reasonably priced, interesting souvenirs for both adults and kids, our first stop was the aquarium. I will admit, I'm not much of a fish fan, so this was a rather rushed look through, but both the kids loved it, especially with the "Finding Nemo" tank where they had fun spotting all the fish that looked liked the characters in what is one of their favourite movies, and the sturdy half-boat with steering wheel that my youngest kept running back to play with. Then,of course, it was onto the butterfly house... which was like walking into an awesome, huge sauna-like greenhouse! There were huge plants everywhere, little quail running about in the gardens, a pond filled with heaps of turtles, and, of course, lots and lots of gorgeous butterflies of several different species fluttering around. Within a minute or two of walking through the door, the kids and I had all become landing pads for more than one butterfly, which is not something we were used to. Butterflies normally want to staying away from the big moving creatures, right? Not these ones! We had them land on our bags, in our hair, clothes, hands, etc, along with landing on the path (and everywhere else) so we'd have to be careful where we walked to avoid stepping on any of them and how we moved as you just never knew sometimes where a butterfly had decided to land... which can be a little worrying when you have a rather impatient active 3 yr old with you. I'd definitely advise on keeping small children under VERY close supervision, as it would be all too easy for these bold butterflies to land somewhere and end up squashed or with broken wings due to a youngster getting a bit too excited or not watching where they were walking. It was a lot of fun though, trying to identify all the different types of butterflies flying around, making for a very educational experience as well as a thoroughly unique and enjoyable one.

With the weather being quite icy outside when we visited, it was rather pleasant inside the butterfly house, which was kept extremely warm so that its occupants could live there all year round. I can well imagine though, that if you visited during Summer, it could get rather uncomfortable, heat-wise, as even during the middle of Winter I walked out of there sweating. Hot and humid, much like a tropical rainforest. As well as the butterflies, birds, and turtles, the butterfly house also had a small enclosure that housed two baby crocodiles, that were only 7 weeks old. It even still had the eggs they'd hatched out of in there. Except for on tv and in photos, this was the first time either the kids or I had ever seen a crocodile, baby or otherwise, and we found them absolutely fascinating! There was also an enclosure with several water dragons along with another enclosure which had several rows of racks on its walls, each with dozens of (at this particular time) empty chrysalides of different shapes and sizes, along with a few freshly hatched butterflies still clinging to some of them. A bit later in the day we came back to see the "butterfly release" experience, where the newly hatched ones were gently taken out and placed on the wall to finish drying off before flying off to join the rest of their kind flying around the butterfly house.

When things started to get a bit too warm, and Mr3 a bit too bored with staying in one place with all these creatures he wasn't allowed to touch, we moved on to the next lot of enclosures, after doing a thorough check of all our clothing and bags etc, to make sure we didn't have any winged passengers trying to come with us (there was a corridor between the butterfly house and the door to the next enclosure, just to help make sure no butterflies managed to get through)... which was the reptile house. This was definitely my other favourite part of the whole experience, as this is where they had the two fully grown (I think) crocodiles (after seeing the 7 week old babies, these 2 were HUGE!), the bearded dragon,the blue tongued lizard and several 4yr old alligators! Each alligator and crocodile had its own enclosure, and with the crocs, it was quite difficult at first to actually spot them, as they were well camouflaged in their environment. As much as I loved the butterfly house, I would definitely have to say the crocs and gators were by far my favourites, especially when they had their "Reptile Encounter" and the "Baby Crocodile Encounter" where we got to touch (and even HOLD) one of the alligators and one of the baby crocs! This was definitely the highlight of my visit, even though I kept worrying if one of these creatures was going to turn their head and decide part of me would make for a good snack! With each of these encounters though, there is a staff member standing right there beside you, and they show you how to properly hold them so that the risk is extremely minimal. These reptiles have obviously been well handled and were amazingly placid. I could've easily spent most of my day with these guys, and would've loved to have taken one home! Don't think the landlord would've been too keen on approving that kind of pet though. Even the kids got to pat and hold them! Unfortunately though, with everything there was to look at, we missed out on seeing the "Giant Crocodile Encounter" (along with a couple of the Buttermilk Farm encounters), plus with visiting during the week, there were a couple of encounters that weren't available, as they're only available during weekends or holidays. I guess that just means we'll have to go back again so we can do those ones as well! Hehe!

Next stop after the kids finally managed to drag me away from the reptiles, was the bugs! Here, my favourites were the tarantulas, but they also had frogs, cockroaches (in their own little dollhouse type enclosure, which was kinda funny), wetas, locusts, crickets, and bees. Then it was time to head outside to go check out Buttermilk Farm where you can pat (and buy food to feed) rabbits, sheep, goats, a donkey, chickens, a possum, and a few other assorted farm animals. This was definitely another area where you can easily spend quite a bit of time and I absolutely loved the hands-on side of this part of Butterfly Creek. All the animals were very gentle, and obviously very used to small children as none of them tried to run away when you went to pat them, whether we had food to offer them or not. Great for the kids to get the chance to touch the animals without worrying about fragile things like butterflies, or sharp reptile teeth.

Overall this was a wonderful and very educational experience, both for adults and children, where you can easily spend a couple of hours, or a whole day. The staff are friendly, helpful, and informative; the layout is easy to find your way around and very child-friendly; and there is plenty to do and see. PLUS... it's all under cover, except for the playground and some of Buttermilk Farm... so it doesn't matter WHAT the weather is, you can still go along and enjoy the experience! Now, if only I lived a lot closer so I could visit on a regular basis!!

When we arrived at this place, I was opened mouthed at the place. I had expected it to be an actual creek, I never thought it would be a large wildlife sanctuary! I had a wonderful time here, it was a great day full of crocodiles, alligators, farm animals, spiders and cockroaches, and let's not forget BUTTERFLIES! I really loved the butterfly house, it was cool seeing all the little insects fluttering around me, plus there was the baby crocodiles which my mum loved.

The best part of the butterfly house was that I actually got to hold one of the baby crocs, they felt so cool and unusual. Up in the reptile house, I was thrilled at seeing real live alligators for the first time in my life! While I was there I was able to hold a large baby alligator, but it didn't bite me, the staff made sure of that by telling me to grab the neck so the teeth couldn't reach my hands.

The train rides were fun, and with them departing every half hour it was nice and easy to catch it. Once, my little brother even tried to sneak aboard the train when it was about to depart, and he threw a big fuss when I had to drag him away from the station! The best part was the fact that the train took us beneath the Rocket course at Rocket Ropes, which was right next door to Butterfly Creek.

The website was good, it had pretty much the same layout as the Rocket Ropes one, but the cool part was that there was a page about the butterfly house which had a list of the butterflies they had in captivity, and when you clicked on a name, a picture popped up showing what it looks like! I really want to come here again, and then I might even try out the minigolf course next door, if it's open!