This is a brand new attraction in Christchurch, so we thought we'd give it a go. We already love the Maize Maze (see here for my review), which we make a point of going to every February or March (best time of year for corn mazes!) so were excited about a new maze in town.
Firstly, there are two mazes at Tothill's. One is a wooden one, the other a corn one - the wooden maze is open year round.
Secondly, you can pay to do just one maze or both of them. We decided to do both.
So, we paid a whopping $57.60 for two adults and two children (it's usually $10 per person per maze, or $16 for both) to do both mazes. Compared to the other maze's $35 family ticket it seemed steep, so I was really hoping it would be worth it!
Short answer: no.
Long answer: The wooden maze is kind of fun - but only took us 15 minutes to conquer. I guess we could have taken our time and read all the interesting facts about New Zealand and Kiwiana along the way, but the kids were really too interesting in winning (we split into two teams to see who could find all four corners and then make it to the centre tower first) to want to take their time and read stuff.
The corn maze lacked a real sense of purpose. We had a list of animals to find, but after finding the second duck and second mouse we started wondering if we were just finding the same animal over again or whether there were multiple stone statues of animals all through the maze. The other maze in town has a much better goal in place (e.g. finding the answers to 10 questions, if I remember rightly) which gives you a sense of purpose. There were also brainteaser puzzles scattered around the maze, which were fun for me, but the others weren't interested in stopping to ponder them, so I gave up after a while and just followed the kids.
And, that was it.
It took us just over an hour to be done. Again, the other maze takes a good hour and a half to two hours, plus has a lot of other free activities as well.
On the positives, the staff were friendly and the place has potential. Their long term aim is to be better than Wanaka's Puzzling World. As I LOVE Puzzling World (we can easily spend a whole day there) I would really like it if Tothill's reaches its goal!
But in the meantime, my suggestions are to drop the prices (to better compete) and give the cornfield maze punters something more defined to search for.
Where: Tothill's is on the corner of Shands Road and Marshs Road, out past Hornby.
When: Open every day but Monday from 10am til 5pm.
For more info visit their website: http://www.tothills.com/
