Is the Eden Project Worth the £27.50 Entrance Fee?

On our little road trip to Cornwall, G had the Eden Project on his bucket list.  I had visited many years ago with my folks and we’d enjoyed our day out…roll forward a few years and I received a big shock when I saw the price of entry now.  So is the Eden Project Worth the £27.50 Entrance Fee… hmmm let’s find out!

               

^^The iconic domes!

Travel Tips for the Eden Project are found at the bottom of this post.

We arrived early morning and desperate for a cup of tea and a piece of cake…sadly the cake is labelled as low in gluten which isn’t allowed in the labelling world and Mrs D has taken this up with the Eden Project in the past and it still hasn’t changed.  I decided to give it a go and the cake was lovely but it made me wonder how on earth it can be low in gluten rather than gluten free.  The price of two cakes and three drinks set up back over £15…ouch!

G and I had a wander outside first taking in the gardens…

…with the colourful dahlias…dahlias have become the new peony and they are so easy to grow as well…

…the Japanese anemones…

…it was fun to see how the gardens have all being designed and to get some inspiration for our own garden.

The Eden Project is an educational  garden which is trying to teach folks about biodiversity, fair-trade and how we all need to work together…no bees, no humans…basically we need to plant flowers to help out our bee population…we did this year and the amount of wildlife we had in the garden was incredible from bees, insects to birds.  If we all made one small change in our lifestyle just imagine how we could help Planet Earth…time to start thinking about our diets, fast fashion, travel and how we live on this planet.

We entered the humidity dome first, which is like a huge hot house but not as humid as I last remembered…if you like giant palm leaves then you’re going to love this dome…

…it was like taking a journey around the world…

…from New Zealand……to the islands…to Asia…

…to Africa…

…we learnt a few new facts which will be great questions for a pub quiz but you know…I suffer from dory brain so I can’t remember the facts now…doh…

…there was some really great information on fair-trade and food miles…

…G was gutted to learn that he couldn’t go to the very top of the dome as it was just too hot inside….we may have begged to differ but hey ho.

Humidity brings the most beautiful plants to life…

…Monica Hair vs Beautiful flowers…

…I can live with Monica Hair but not without pretty flowers in my life.  I still remember when Lisa and I visited Samoa and the local bus took us through the Rain Forest…it was simply gorgeous.

I wouldn’t mind a pretty waterfall like this in my back garden?

G and I managed to agreed on a plant we both liked…

…chalk and cheese when it comes to gardening!

We left the humidity dome and wandered past all the restaurants, pondering if we were requiring more expensive and poorly labelled food in our bellies…the answer was no…so we hit the gift shop instead…I bought G some bamboo socks which apparently are better for your feet…he agrees.

I’m taking more of an interest in ethical fashion and where my clothes are coming from now more than even and it’s amazing to see more companies advising how they’re cutting down their water usage on materials etc. and the use of sustainable materials.

Next up we hit the Mediterranean dome, to be fair I felt a bit let down with this dome…

…it was pretty don’t get me wrong…

…you felt like you were transported to the Mediterranean in some areas…

…but we didn’t learn as much as we did from the first dome which is a shame.

Am I the only person out there that thinks a cactus plant looks like a giant willy…

…I’ve backed into a prickly willy plant while having a wee out in the open in Libya…thankfully I only received a prickle in my foot and not my bottom!  I dine out on my disaster travel stories….they’re the best part of travelling.

The Australian garden was interesting but once again I felt it lacked a bit in imagination with the educational detailing and layout…the colours were beautiful though…I was expecting more from this new addition…just bring the crisps around as I’ve got the wine…wine, wine, wine (moving on from my wine)

…we took an interest in the vegetable garden as our veggie patch was really good this year; just blowing my own horn here and there folks!

Not golden balls but green balls!

I’ve made chutneys and also frozen a lot of our vegetables for use over winter…The Good Life, the Bedford version!  I grew heirloom tomatoes this year and the crop was amazing…go for the older variety plants for a change, not the modified seeds that you find these days…think purple carrots, yellow tomatoes, bobbly red tomatoes…embrace the old fashioned varieties and you will be surprised with your crop.

The sunflowers were beautiful…happy flowers…

…these guys were rather photogenic.

We took another walk outside and watched the zip wire whizz overhead…someone was burning a £50 note with that ride…truly everything is wildly expensive here.

^^Is it a man…is it a giant butterfly…who blooming knows!

G and I spent less than 2 hours at the Eden Project and to be fair, it wasn’t that busy and it was at the start of the school holidays when Cornwall was super busy.

Personally I feel like the Eden Project has really priced itself out of the market especially for families and overseas travellers…if I was travelling from NZ this would be costing a crap load of money and I would have felt short changed by the experience.

I was disappointed with the lack of events on for children who were visiting…it was the start of the school holidays and just felt like the Eden Project was missing a trick or ten…it’s one of those places, you visit once and don’t go back even though your ticket allows entry for a full year from the first date of entry. More activities especially around sustainable gardening would have us visiting again.

G and I had a discussion if we thought the Eden Project was worth the £27.50 entrance fee and the answer was NO!  The B&B owner also agreed and thought a fair price would be around the £15 mark which I think is more reasonable overall however if you can find a 2 for 1 voucher than I would recommend a visit.

We felt that The Eden Project could push so much more on showing how to live more sustainably with nature it just felt like it has given a half heartened try…we heard rumblings about financial pressures and redundancies so who knows if this has had an impact on the Eden Project overall.

I’m not saying don’t go…just that we were both disappointed with the cost (if we had paid full price!) vs what was on offer on the day of our visit.

Travel Tips for the Eden Project, Cornwall

• Booking tickets online on the Eden Project website prior to your visit can save some money
• If you’re into collecting avios, weirdly after our visit I noticed if you go through the British Airways Gateway 365 portal you can earn avois on the purchases and there were some good values offered (at the time of writing it was 7 avois per £1 spent).
• I’m pretty frugal at the moment and found a really great way of saving money; the May Gardener’s World offered a discount card with 2 for 1 tickets to many gardens around the UK including the Eden Project; for us this made the entrance reasonably priced.  Unfortunately the magazine is completely sold out online now however check it out next May as you can also gain entry to Kew Gardens.
• If you can find another way to gain a 2 for the price of 1 ticket then this is definitely more purse friendly.
• If you are wanting to buy your meal inside, make sure you have all your credit cards handy as it’s blooming expensive; we saw a number of folks with packed lunches which is the way to go if you are watching your pennies or the eye watering ticket price has emptied your purse.
• The shop inside the domes wasn’t too badly price however I thought the plants and accessorises were overall very expensive and thanks to smart phones you can do a quick search online to see if it’s cheaper elsewhere.
• There is plenty of parking so don’t worry about getting to the site early and they offer a shuttle bus from the car park to the entrance
• You can take photos wherever you fancy which is great!
• Take flat comfortable shoes as the site is rather large and there are some stairs around so comfy shoes are a must!
• If you fancy reading more posts on Cornwall then way not take a gander at these puppies –Our Road Trip Around Cornwall, Exploring Poldark Country with a Visit to Charlestown and Port Isaac: A Bucket List Destination for Doc Martin Fans

xx

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