Oasis Wildlife Fuerteventura: who the ticket suits – and who it doesn’t

Of the six offers with the most reviews on Fuerteventura, five take you out on the water or across dirt tracks. The sixth doesn’t move at all: Oasis Wildlife Fuerteventura in La Lajita, an animal and botanical park in the south of the island. The entry ticket costs €41.50, holds 4.7 stars from 3,596 reviews and ranks second by review count. Only the dolphin and whale watching from Morro Jable sits above it.

There is a sober reason why a zoo of all things ranks that high. A fixed place has no swell, no cancellation because of wind and no condition that flips overnight. That makes this ticket the answer to two questions which are otherwise hard to answer here: what to do with small children, and what to do on the day the boat trip is called off.

What the ticket includes – and what it doesn’t

The operator describes the offer in two sentences: “Discover flora and fauna from all over the world with an entry ticket to Oasis Wildlife Fuerteventura. Discover a park home to more than 3,000 animals, with an optional camel ride or lemur experience.”

The word that matters is “optional”. The camel ride and the lemur experience are not included in the entry price. The park puts it plainly for the camel ride: the price of that activity is not covered by park admission. How much the supplement comes to, and whether you pay it when you buy the ticket or only on site, is stated on the booking page and on the park’s own pages – settle that there before you book. The park also requires a reservation for this experience: directly with the park, at least one day before your visit.

What your €41.50 buys is the grounds: according to the park, one million square metres of outdoor space, and according to the operator’s description over 3,000 animals from around 250 species, plus a botanical garden that includes what the park calls Europe’s largest cactus garden. The park is also described as Europe’s largest camel reserve. The current timetable lists free sessions with sea lions, other animals and birds, plus individual keeper times. The park map includes hippos and African elephants.

How much time you actually need

One million square metres is a figure people underestimate when planning, right up until they are standing in it. Opening times are 9 am to 6 pm daily, as stated on the park’s site, with the note that times can change. Arrive at 3 pm and you have only three hours for the grounds, with much of the day’s programme already over.

The sessions run to fixed times and are spread across the day. If you want to catch two or three of them, you build the visit around them rather than the other way round; current times are posted at the entrance and on the park’s site. Plan for a full day. This is the exception to what usually applies to families: normally a half-day trip with children is the smarter choice. Here it would be money wasted.

La Lajita is in the south, and that is the catch

The address is Carr. Gral. Jandía in 35267 La Lajita, on the coast road between Tarajalejo and Costa Calma. The journey is much shorter from the southern resorts than from the north.

From Corralejo you drive across almost the whole island. It is doable with a hire car, but the round trip takes a noticeable share of the day. Without a car, getting there becomes the real question of the outing – there is more on that in our piece on Fuerteventura without a car.

The park names two ways of getting there without your own vehicle. First are public bus lines 01, 09, 10 and 25; Tiadhe also names La Lajita explicitly on lines 11 and 25. Check the current Tiadhe timetable for the connection that works on your travel day. Second, the park runs its own buses from the resorts. Its guidance is inconsistent: the directions page says no seat reservation or advance ticket is needed, while the current PDF timetable requires a park ticket to board and marks individual stops as reservation-only. Check your specific stop and obtain the ticket before departure. If you drive yourself, parking for cars and motorbikes is free according to the park.

Shade, heat and timing

A cactus garden is not a forest. Large parts of the grounds are open ground, and the south of Fuerteventura is not the cool corner of the island. Early morning is therefore doubly valuable: it is cooler, and the programme spread across the day still lies ahead of you.

What is right for you or for a baby when it comes to sun and heat does not belong in a travel article but in a pharmacy or a doctor’s surgery. Ask there before you go.

The day the boat trip is cancelled

Wind and swell are not a side issue for boat trips. When the trip to Isla de Lobos is called off, when the dolphin and whale watching is no fun in heavy swell, or when a snorkelling trip no longer appeals in murky water, you need an answer that same morning. An animal and botanical park is one – unlike buggy and quad tours, which have their own problems with wind and dust.

The rest of the fallback ideas are in our piece on Fuerteventura with children in bad weather. If you want to compare more broadly, things to do and experiences lists 83 offers from €12.50 with a median of €75.

With small children

For a holiday with a toddler the park is appealing for one simple reason: you can stop whenever you like. There is no return journey to wait for and no group to hold up. If the child has had enough after two hours, you leave.

With pushchairs and wheelchairs it gets vaguer. The park lists accessible toilets and a free adapted Ecotour train, but that does not mean every path across the large grounds is equally easy to use. Have the park confirm what applies to your specific situation before you buy. That goes for a visit with a pushchair just as much as one with limited mobility.

For the maths: the recorded ticket costs €41.50 per person, excluding the journey, food and optional experiences. The park distinguishes adult rates from age 12 and child rates from four to 11; entry is free below the age of four. The current amount for each rate is shown on the booking page. Across the island there are 190 offers from €12.50 with a median of €69, so the ticket sits below that – for a family it still adds up. The orders of magnitude are in how much tours cost and what a week with children costs.

It is a zoo, and for some people that alone rules it out

A share of travellers doesn’t visit animal parks. Enclosures, shows with animals and camel rides in particular are rejected by many, and that is not a fringe view that 3,596 reviews settle. The reviews say most visitors like the park. They say nothing about whether keeping animals this way is acceptable to you.

If it isn’t, this ticket is not for you – and it is better to read that here than at the gate. What the park itself says about husbandry, breeding and conservation is on its own pages; whether that changes your position is nobody else’s call. The island lists 190 offers in total, and the 24,671 reviews in the excursions and experiences category are spread across plenty that involves no animals at all.

When you are better off not going

If you are staying in the north, have no hire car and only one free day: the travelling eats the day, and the park deserves a whole one.

If the morning is already spoken for and you want to see several sessions and a large part of the grounds. A late start is a poor fit for that plan.

If you are travelling with a baby and a very hot day is forecast – a lot of open ground, little room to duck out of it.

If you are coming for the camel ride or the lemurs and haven’t reserved in advance. Both cost extra, and for the camel safari the park requires a reservation made directly with it, at least one day before your visit.

And if keeping animals in zoos is, for you, a matter where there is no “a little bit”.