ZooWorld

Happy Friday the 13th everybody! Here is another Zoo Review for our Zoo Readers! 

ZooWorld

Panama City Beach, Florida

Website

Hours: 9:30-5

Admission: $16.95

Date of Visit: March 2015

Highlights: Large variety of animals. Species from all over the world. Get to see the animals up close. Prairie Dog exhibit was epic and one of the best I have seen.

Disappointments: Almost every enclosure looked to small and you felt bad for the animals. It was sad at several of the cages, especially the Jaguars and Giraffes.

Additional Tips: If you do end up going, purchase the feeding experiences. I am not sure those animals get fed outside of those experiences and they are cool. Jr. loved feeding the camels.
The walked a timberwolf around the zoo for kids to pet just like it was a dog. I decided to pass on letting my kid pet it, because at the end of the day its a friggen wolf. They said it was safe, but that was just one of the sketch things about this place.

Pictures

Entrance Sign

Awesome White Lion Cub

Fun Feeding Experience, Not A Lot of Space For The Giraffes

A cat this majestic needs a bigger habit. Still cool to look at, but felt bad.

Awesome Mandrill that was fat and happy

Peacock

Jr.'s favorite part, the prairie dog tunnel

Serval

Funky Snake

Another Snake

We had a good time just hanging around

Turkey

Tiger

Final Rating:
This zoo was the hardest to rate out of any we had seen so far. The variety of animals should lend itself to a 5 rating. However, the exhibits have to knock it down some. That being said, the Reston Zoo got a 4.5 from us early and they had charges of animal cruelty brought against them (we didn't know about at the time). The species of animal at this zoo were about as cool as can be. There have never been any charges against them, but I still feel bad for the animals. We are unsure if we are willing to give them a second chance and unsure of the rating. It just is what it is at this place. It will appeal to many, but disgust many as well. It is an interesting phenomenon. This zoo will remain unrated due to the complexities involved with it.

-Noland

Brevard Zoo

We are back with another zoo review for our zoo lovers. Sorry for the long hiatus, but we will try to post weekly again! This one is for the wonderful Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida. Brevard is one of our favorite zoos and one of the premier attractions in all of Florida.

Brevard Zoo

Melbourne, FL

Website

Hours: 9:30-5

Admission: $16.95

Date of Visit: Feb. 2015

Highlights: So many highlights, but most of them come from the zoos African section. The meerkat exhibit and the cheetah exhibit are as cool as they come. They have my favorite animal (the rhino). They have an awesome giraffe feeding experience and they even have an anteater. This zoo also had incredibly well done themes and animals from every continent except for Antarctica. There are a lot more highlights than this.

Disappointments: Not a lot of disappointments other than our kids being too little to do the extra experiences like kayaking past Rhinos! How cool must that be? I guess the Europe, Asia, Australia section could be a little bigger.

Additional Tips: Go and have fun at this zoo. This zoo has the best concession stand I have seen at a zoo, but everything is made to order there. Arrive at the stand by 11am and eat an early lunch. :)

Pictures!!!

Our team leader was excited to tell us animals to see first!

Anteater

Bald Eagle

Giraffe

Cheetah

Black Swan

Condor

Cool Bird I had never seen before called a Crested Caracara.

Emu Egg

Kangaroos and an Emu

Foxes

Cool Bird

Cool Feeding Experience that this zoo and Lowry Park do.

One of our favorite Rhino exhibits!

The highlight of this trip was this meerkat experience. They had an underground tunnel system for the kids to experience the exhibit. Those pictures didn't turn out well, but it was probably the coolest exhibit I have seen so far at a zoo. The meerkats could travel in tunnels right over the kids heads. So cool!

Final Rating: 

5/5 Elephants

This zoo is one of the best in the state and possibly the country. The meerkat exhibit and the cheetah exhibits are the best of their kind. This zoo would be even better with the special experience add-ons that we didn't get to do. It is so great that we took another track across state recently for a 2nd trip. This zoo comes highly recommended by the Robinsons.

-Noland

Central Florida Zoo

Hello again zoo lovers! We have a few more zoos to review this year and thought we would get started with the Central Florida Zoo.

Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens

Sanford, FL

Website

Hours: 9 AM-5 PM

Admission: $16.50

Date of Visit: March 2015

Highlights: The Indian Rhino exhibit was awesome and even better than the one at Lowry Park. You were able to get closer and view them quite well. The black leopard exhibit was something I had never seen before which is always awesome. It was a special part of the zoo. Likewise, the crocodile monitor was something I had never seen before and really neat. I just wish we got a better picture of it for you, but it was difficult with the glass. They had a neat butterfly garden for the kids to look at and a cool playground for them as well.

Disappointments: Outside of the highlights and the cool animals in the pictures below, this zoo really lacked something. I was surprisingly underwhelmed. The zoo also didn't have the animals separated by continent like most zoos and just had a confusing layout in general.

Additional Tips: This zoo is actually about 45 minutes outside of Orlando. It is not actually in Orlando, do not be confused by Central Florida Zoo. It is in Sanford and not Orlando. 

Pictures

Gila Monster

Cool Iguana

Indian Rhino

Another Indian Rhino

Snake

Butterfly from the Butterfly Garden

Not the best quality because of the glass, but a cool caiman swimming towards us.

Really cool bird by the entrance

Camel

Porcupine

Crocodile Monitor

And the highlight of the visit, this beautiful black leopard. This zoo is also where we learned about why some leopards are black (similar to albino alligators) and that there is no such thing as a black panther.

Final Rating: 

3 out of 5 elephants

This zoo had it's highlights, but a confusing layout and a surprising lack of cool animals would have had this at a below average zoo. The Indian Rhino exhibit (which is the best of its kind) and the black leopard exhibit (which is incredibly rare) really saved this zoos rating. If you have never seen these animals, it is worth it just for them, but we will be spending our time at other zoos/attractions. There is so much to do in Florida, and you can do much better than this place. It disappointed me overall, but had some 1 of a kind cool stuff also.

Stay tuned for our next review on a much more pleasant zoo experience in a few weeks.

-Noland

Sarasota Jungle Gardens

We are all settled with the move and baby is here so we are able to go through some of the old pics and get back to ZooZooReview. We have about 6 zoos to do that we visited this year before the year is out and will post about each zoo every couple of weeks.

Sarasota Jungle Gardens

Sarasota, FL

Website

Hours: 10 AM-5

Admission: $15.99

Date of Visit: 2/7/2015

Highlights:
A few weeks earlier our visit to the Gulf World Marine Park was the closest we had been to flamingos. However, at this park you can walk among the flamingos and even feed them. I enjoyed their Koi Pond as I love those fish. The American Crocodile was pretty cool and not expected at this place. I expected the alligators and the pets, but not the crocodile. The spider monkeys were also really neat.

Disappointments:
Not a lot of variety and the birds were mostly macaws. I enjoy macaws, but I thought there would be a wider variety of birds. There was a lot of empty space that was used for just plant life as well. They could do some really cool things with the extra space they have, but some of it was wasted space.

Additional Tips:
Do not buy lunch there. Pack a lunch and eat it as they will let you bring it in. We wasted money on lunch and I felt sick afterwards.
The shows are cool, but not a necessity.

Pictures

Sign

They May Have Had An Alligator or 2

And a Big Ol' Crocodile

This fake one bit my son

My son loved mommy time

And family time

Also this cow

This show was his favorite though

Until the Iguana

And of course the flamingos!

Final Rating

We gave this zoo 2.5 out of 5 Elephants
There were some really cool experiences and the zoo does great work. However, the zoo didn't really have too much of a wow factor. There was no super crazy animal or new animal. It was all stuff we had seen before. Since all of the animals were exotic pets there were no huge surprises. However, some of the stuff was really neat for what it was. It was cool for what it was. If you are comparing it to a major zoo though you will be disappointed. I do not plan on going back.

-Noland