reserve africaine de sigean

We visited the Réserve Africaine de Sigean while we were on holiday in Leucate and it made for a great day trip. We first drove through the safari part of the park and then visited the zoo park.The safari park consists of different areas where animals can roam freely (well, relatively freely as they can't leave the park); the zoo park is like a traditional zoo.This park is pretty big and I loved how it wasn't that crowded when we were there (June). I think it can get crowded in summer, though, when it's high season.The Réserve also works with schools and scientists and puts in efforts for the preservation and protection of wildlife.

We went out of season since summer lasts a lot longer over here. If you come in the height of summer, you have to expect to cue like everywhere in the world I'm sure!! You really feel like you can be in the middle of an African savannah. It's an enormous space with the stunning back drop of the languedoc. The first place we visited, the bear enclosure had bears everywhere you look. I actually thought one of them had spotted me with the window down(which is against the park rules!!) It looked (for a few seconds) that it was charging. I completely panicked trying to close the window, serves me right!! We went on to see the lions which are a bit more elusive and just hang about sleeping in big gang like lions do. It's nice to see these captured animals with so much space. Missed getting a photo opportunity so we drove through the Lion enclosure again. There are loads of other animal to drive by... You'll have to go to find out for yourselves. It was nice to get out of the car after driving around. This zoo is amazing so much to see. So give yourself plenty of time here too. There are views of the med and you will here the flamingos well before you see them. Strangely one of my favourites were the Vietnamese Pigs, unfortunately they really do stink!! All the animals are there with the addition of the stunning setting. There are lots of picnic tables and I would probably take my own food. Can't beat a baguette and the delicious cheese and ham they have put here. It's a great family day out and I'm looking forward to going again very soon :-)

Where there with my family and will come again and again. To see animals having so much free space birds in big big volieres is great and does to one of my faorite zoos ever visited

A relatively expensive day out but comparable to UK price for the same type of thing. Tour in two parts, first half you drive though several compounds housing giraffe, rhinos, emus, ostrich (very attracted to white cars!) impala and eventually the lions (very close to the car but stretched out and sleepy, as is usual for lions in our experience!) and black bears. We went in the last week in September, very quiet and you could double back and drive round again if you wanted to. Then the second half of the day is spent on foot, walking around the various areas. The whole experience is set in a very natural setting - just forget you can see the fences! It is a very hilly site with some steep areas to reach the leopard and hyena and even the chimpanzee - not a problem for us but you would struggle with a wheelchair. There is the most amazing lagoon housing the different types of flamingo, pelican and storks, sitting atop their magestic nests overlooking the view. We have never experienced flamingo flying before. It was brilliant.

this place is obviously worth visiting! animals all around you, strolling, running, eating, sleeping, having fun or even asking for food :) great experience to feel closer to the nature and great animals. some of them like hiding but most of them turning their faces to people.

I thought this attraction worth visiting...but only just. The park itself was excellent - a wide range of animals in a great setting. Like all such attractions, it's a bit of a lottery in respect of which animals are actually visible, but they have laid things out to encourage them into the open, and I think we saw pretty much everything.But the overcrowding!!! As others have noted, the safari park aspect of the tour was essentially a long queue of traffic. Perhaps not such a problem for us as there were plenty of animals to see, but as the driver you do find yourself grinding your teeth a little bit.But the worst bit for me was, having finished the long crawl round the drive, all of the car parks were jammed full. Given the price of this attraction (199 euros for our car-full), the parking situation is inexcusable. It took a long time and a lot of frustration before we were able to find somewhere.With hindsight, I'd probably have been tempted initially to skip the drive round the safari park, and park up straight away. Do the 'on foot' zoo before the car park fills up, then drive round the safari park before you leave. The ticket office directs you to do the drive first, but I couldn't see any reason why you couldn't do it the other way round....making it easer to find a parking space, and potentially giving a clearer run at the drive.Without the overcrowding, this would have been a clear five-star attraction. It takes a full day to do it properly, and there is plenty to see. The overcrowding just took the shine off it, and I think they could easily have done something about that either with additional parking or even just with some more intelligent traffic management.

This isn't a cheap day out but you can spend a whole day here if you have the time.There are two sections - one by car and one on foot. The car tour has a number of separate areas to keep various animals apart. The dangerous animals (bears and lions) weren't really cooperating the day we were there but the zebras and the ostriches made up for it as they came really close to the car.The area by foot has some sections that are really steep so do these first! The elephants were fantastic but the highlight for us was watching the alligators being fed. They were ferocious but the keeper feeding them didn't seem to care.If you can spare a full day take a picnic as the queues for food were long and there are plenty of picnic areas to sit in.

This is a Safari Park well worth visiting. Quite frankly I am amazed that there is any complaint about the charges for admission to the Park - a charge which is comparable to that made by similar establishments in the UK and elsewhere and which not only allows one to spend a whole day in brilliant surroundings and in the company of hundreds of animals who are clearly well looked after but which also provides the funds for animal conservation projects. It is an attraction at which one should plan to spend at least 4 but preferably 5 or 6 hours. The is my second visit - my first was way back in 2009 - and I will assuredly be returning. I have only two criticisms - the catering facilities are not great (my advice is 'take a picnic') and the gift shop is not that impressive.

Charged €80 euros for an adult and 2 kids. Drove through gates and sat in a traffic jam around the park for 2 hours - no joke. Saw one ostrich which attacked our car, the back of a bear and a lion pride for all of 3 seconds. That was all! Traffic in two lanes so felt more like sitting on a motorway than being a part of the natural world!Traffic management extraordinarily poorly managed. No attempt to control the number of cars going around.No attempt at conservation, breeding programmes, no education material. Infact an uncomfortable feeling that it's just another tourist trap and I feel bad that I fell for it.The zoo itself (walking part) is much better - elephants seemed particularly happy splashing about in the water, giraffes had a great deal of room, savannah area impressive but jaguar cage far too small, the same goes for the wallabys.

It is expensive but it is totally worth it. Adults and kids had a lot of fun, the place is beautiful and the animals are treated very well. I highly recommend this place. It takes between 3 and 4 hours to visit.

Simply because they don't allow soft tops for safety reasons. We had to wait 30 mins for a mini bus but got a private VIP tour of the park with commentary ( in French) for free. The buses run every hour so check timetable before you arrive if you have a soft top or jeep type car. The park was magnificent and cost 130 euros for two adults and three kids

I really had to persuade my husband to agree to the 106euro entry fee but feel it was worth it within the first 30 mins. At this reserve all the animals were moving! The emus responded to us through the car windows, the alligators were fascinating to watch and 30 mins watching 2 elephants playing in the water was wonderful. Maybe we were lucky and it is expensive, bring a picnic and see what happens.

So this was our first experience with an 'open' zoo, where you can drive your car and check out the animals.The first part of the zoo contain 8 areas with different animals which you will all get to see. The bears and lions are the most exciting ones.The good thing is that you can always decide to check out an area again, even after you made your visit to the 'normal' zoo.Be aware that the ostrichs will get very close to your car, and will try to grab some insects or pick your windows, which we considered very funny.We also had 2 bears fighting right in front of our car, which was an impressive thing to see!The second part, the 'normal' zoo, is not that special, but it does have a great view, and it has a big open water with a lot of birds, which is impressive to see. Be aware that there can be quite some steep roads to walk in this part of the zoo, as it is partly situated on a small hill. There is no stairs, so visitors in wheelchairs should be allright.We had a great day here, and our children liked it very much, so we would say it is very recommended!

The lion and bear sections were brilliant! It was an expensive trip for 2 adults & 3 kids €128.00 to get in.

An excellent day spent in this attraction. Pricey at €31 for adults, €22 for kids, under 4's are free but worth it as you can easily spend a full day there. We did the safari part first, doing most of the trails twice. It was amazing to see the animals up close and roaming around. The zebras decided to cross the road in front of us, all of them in a line, causing quite a traffic jam. Gave a new meaning to zebra crossing! Afterwards we did the zoo part & had food in one of the restaurants. Food was ok, something to suit everyone and reasonably priced. Plenty of toilets throughout the zoo and all were clean. Before we left, we did a few of the trails from the safari part again, for another close-up look at the animals. Not to be missed if you're in the area!