IS THE EDEN PROJECT A TOURIST TRAP RIP OFF? | CORNWALL

if you fancy spending 35 quid to stand in a queue for five minutes to walk across a rope bridge come to the eden project wendell reporting on a field excursion and today i've took the opportunity to come and see the eden project which is something i've wanted to see for about three years since i've lived in cornwall now i'm going to level with you right now i don't know a lot about the eden project apart from what i read when i booked my tickets which were very expensive but more about that in a moment so first of all what do i know about the eden project well it's a former like abandoned china clay pit and the mission statement of the people that own it is that they want to make people become more aware of nature and that they wanted to turn a disused area into something beautiful that could educate people about the wonders of the natural world there are a couple of biomes behind me with tropical and sub-tropical plants in well i'm a sucker for palm trees and sub-tropical plants so really my whole interest in coming here was to save a beautiful flora that they've got here at the eden project now another thing about the price of the ticket i was a bit shocked when i bought my ticket online but it was 35 pounds entry for an adult which for me seems quite a lot for a day or in my case just an afternoon's excursion here in cornwall so i guess the mission of my visit today is to let you guys know whether it's worth 35 pounds to come and visit the eden project obviously if you've got a family if there are two adults two or three kids then you're looking at around 100 pounds even with the discounted child tickets so maybe i can shed some light onto whether it's worth the trip now what they do say is that with your 35 pound adult entry fee you do get one year's unlimited visits to the eden project now obviously if you're down here on holiday that's really not going to be something that you're going to use probably more than once but if you live down here then i guess you can come and visit a few times and hopefully i enjoy it and i will visit more than once and get value for my money but let's come check it out and see what wonders the eden project beholds okay so when i checked in on my online ticket the lady that checked me in tried to sell me a guide a guidebook that was worth six pounds well i've already spent 35 quid on the ticket so i was hesitant and declined the offer of a six pound guidebook so the result of that is that i don't really know what's going on and what i'm looking at but i'm hoping i can figure it out myself that i didn't have to pay that extra six pounds now i've just entered and the first route i'm taking is to look at the career gardens but korea is a fascinating country to me culturally and geographically i'd love to get there one day so i'm taking the route through what is apparently for korean gardens let's check it out so i'm under the impression that i'm walking through the korean gardens if somebody wants to put in the comments below what these flowers are they're very pretty i've never been to korea hopefully i will one day so you could show me anything if it's different to what i normally see in cornwall and i'd probably believe you if you said it was korean some kind of giant lettuce i think that everybody comes here to go into the huge biomes to look at the like the climates that have been engineered there so not many people in the gardens now i must admit that there's probably a natural skepticism in me because i often try and avoid organized like theme parks like this although obviously this one has a bit more of a natural theme so there's probably yeah there's probably a natural skepticism in me that i'd far rather hike into the middle of nowhere in cornwall and up a cliff path or down to a remote cove or beach and come and investigate something like the eden project like this but let's get inside these biomes and see what tropical delights are in store now that is a very very important crop in my life hops where would i be without hops i probably would have achieved more and had a few more fresh mornings [Music] [Applause] wow so i'm currently in the tropical rainforest biome and i'm working my way through tropical islands area which is very humid and pretty impressive pretty exotic i hate to think how much it's cost a family of five or six people like those behind me we were on holiday down here in cornwall it's probably cost well over 100 quid to get the parents and the kids in what an expensive time a holiday can be in 2021 now in the southeast asian area which is a part of the world i've visited a few times maybe i'll recognize some of the flora this beautiful raised timber and tin hook definitely reminds me of my time in rural thailand i've been inside about 10 minutes in the first biome and i can already say but if i ever visit again it will definitely be outside of the summer season it's just the start of the six weeks holiday now and this is with like people being spaced out with their entry and having to pre-book because i've covered restrictions but it's uh there's quite a lot of people around and i'd like it to be a bit more relaxing and a bit more space to myself to enjoy all the different plants here than i have at the moment [Applause] after you've spent 10 or 15 minutes in the rainforest biome it's obviously a very humid place so i'm quite looking forward to the less heavy and dense atmosphere but hopefully the mediterranean biome brings well that's probably the most interesting thing i've learned today the banana is a herb and a fruit and behind the bananas are the hipsters favorite fruit the avocado okay so i'm now in the mediterranean biome immediately it's not as humid and for some reason even though it's incredibly impressive that they've got a tropical rainforest in the other bio it's just really pretty in here they've got probably less plants they've got these beautiful white wall buildings too it's just refreshing and the smell it's just really uh just like hangs in the air like a perfume it's beautiful so i'm now in the western australia area of the mediterranean climate biome and western australia is pretty much my second home out of all the places i've visited in the world one of my dear friends old cuda lives there let's see if i recognize any of this flora and shrubbery i think i recognize these grass trees [Applause] from over on old cutter's farm the spiders are not that big in australia despite what everyone says i do recognize the gerritry as well although the gerritries over in southwestern australia when i visit are a bit bigger than that one [Applause] what a wonderful surprise a little western australian garden [Applause] maybe this is the closest i'll get to that greek holiday we wanted this summer [Applause] as much as i would love to have a glass of wine in a mediterranean bar right now after 35 quid for a ticket to get in here i don't think i'll be spending the prices at the eden project will charge me for a drink in their full mediterranean bar honestly i think i could probably say that unless you're really really motivated in coming and seeing specific types of exotic plants and that you're really like committed to the idea of the project that i have here at the eden project then it really is not worth the entrance fear 35 pounds for an adult just for a one day visit like i've like i've done i think that if you bring a family and you spend over 100 pounds i mean it's a lot of money and i feel like i've looked at everything and exhausted everything from a layman's point of view in just less than a two-hour visit here i guess some people in the comments will probably say oh well you didn't look at this in enough detail wendell you didn't look at that but i've looked at everything i can to the level of interest i've got i think that from my perspective i really do love exploring the natural world and i think it's amazing what they've done here at the eden project it really is a feat of engineering what they've achieved but for me you really can't beat if you're lucky enough to go into these places and one by one sampling these environments in all their natural wonder so for me it's an amazing feat of engineering it is i guess a really interesting place to bring the family and get the kids to learn about nature but it's incredibly expensive for what it is and i do not think it is worth the 35 pounds entrance fee i guess you get the annual membership that comes with it but how many times realistically are you or a family gonna visit the eden project in 12 months that's a question you can only ask yourselves but would wendell pay 35 pounds to enter the eden project again if he had his time again probably not no i do have to give a shout out to my founding patrons all five of them as i make this video because the income from my first month's patreon pretty much paid for the entrance fee so i could come in and check out the eden project and see whether i think it's worth the entrance fee so i could only thank those patreons enough because they're really helping to grow the channel and grow the community here and it's pretty safe to say that any income any donations i received from the patreon page will all get put straight back into the making of this channel believe me i'm not taking anything for myself and even if sometimes i do visit places like the eden project and i come to the conclusion but i don't think it's a good value destination but at least i've given that information to other people that are thinking of coming down to cornwall or people that live here and are thinking of visiting these attractions so if you're interested in helping like the founding five patrons do then i'll put a link in the description below of course like all good well-organized and well-designed tourist attractions the eden project filters and guides you out of its premises via the gift shop look at the size of this gift shop folks it always leaves a sour taste in my mouth when i visit these tourist attractions and they send me out through the gift shop it kind of tells you where the interest really lies so i think that my conclusion of my visit to the eden project is that it's probably not worth the money unless you're specifically interested and it does feel a little bit like a bit of a rip-off i'm gonna jump out before they take any more money off me until next time thanks for watching ride on

Channel: Wendall

Views: 8,356

Keywords: Eden Project, St Austell, Cornwall, Par, Nature, Biome, Climate Change, Tropical, Rainforest, Tropics, Sub Tropical, Subtropics, Mediteranean, Climate, Western Australia, Soiyth, East, Asia, Palm, Tree, Olives, Grapes, Wine, Forest, South West, England, Britain, Summer, Holiday, Tourist, Tourism, Staycation, Vacation, Day, Out, Kids, Children, School, Outdoors, Attraction, Value, Wendall, Walk, Talk, Humour, Comedy, Gift Shop, Engineer

Id: DYWLamLHBKE

Length: 14min 37sec (877 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 31 2021