It currently costs £8.50 (£4.25 for children) or £21 per family for admission to the visitor centre, which allows customers access to a cafe, shop, exhibition, toilets and changing facilities.

This also gets a ticketpayer an audio guide for the walk and car parking.

There is no access to any of the facilities at the centre without paying the admission fee.

It is still free to visit the ancient basalt stones and walk along the coastal site, but some have complained that this is not made clear by the National Trust.

Although most are postive, a significant number of reviews of the multimillion pound centre on website Tripadvisor are less than complimentary, with reviewers daubing the centre, "rip-off", "underwhelming" and even "embarrassing".

DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr said the centre is a "must-see resort" but the pricing needed to be revised.

"What the (pricing) structure is currently doing, is you are going to go there once, you are going to spend that money, but you're not going to become a multiple visitor, you're not going to become a regular," he said.

"I think if the pricing structure was more realistic, if it was per car as opposed to per person, or another arrangement was looked at, that you could have multiple entry over the course of the year I think that people will come back more and more and of course that generate more footfall.

"The fact of the matter is, anyone will tell you, that it is too expensive to go in in the first instance and already the National Trust, and I welcome this, have conceded that the signage does need to be looked at again as it could be construed as being misleading.

"I'm glad that they've conceded that point, and I think they now need to concede the other point that this pricing structure needs to be looked at."

Billy Reid from the National Trust said they had benchmarked prices against other international destinations.

"The vast majority of feedback that we've had from over 116,000 visitors is they've found it really good, they've enjoyed themselves, they've had a good time and they think it's value for money," he told UTV.

He said he didn't think the cost of the visitor centre needed revising.

"People expect to pay whenever they go to world class facilities," he said.

"Any money that is earned up there is going straight back into conservation in Northern Ireland. This is not about the National Trust making money, it's about trying to do the work we do and put money back into it, and of course to pay for the running of the centre which has a lot of high-tech equipment in it and employs a lot of people in the North Coast.

Responding to claims that customers were being misled into thinking they have to pay to see the stones he said: "We have a sign before you actually drive into the car park, we're not into trying to lure people in and give them a bad time. What we want is for people to come along and have a really good visit.

"You can walk on site at anytime and see the stones, but I would suggest you are missing out.

"The feedback that we're getting is that people are really getting a lot from it."