Philadelphia Zoo Review

We went to the Philadelphia Zoo. It's going to celebrate its 150th anniversary next year. Because it was a school day, it was virtually empty except for about 4 school buses of elementary school kids and some homeschooling parents. 

The idea of having 4 adults to 30 kids on a field trip really made MacTroll and I feel for their teachers and chaperoning parents. The kids were excited and happy and outside! So staying in a single file line without jumping up and down, or touching things, or touching each other was impossible. 

X-man, however, liked watching the big groups of school kids. He also liked to visit with the bear family below: 

He got to brush his first goat in the Children's Farm.

He pushed his own stroller for most of the visit before he got so tired Daddy had to carry him.

His favorite part of the zoo visit was "driving" the tractor. 
He also thought the education center at the new big cats exhibit was a lot of fun. Here he listens to how he can donate money to buy land to protect the jaguar population in Mexico. 

He had Daddy pick him up so he could get a better view of the "BIIGGGGG Lion, ROAR!"

In the primate house, even MacTroll monkeyed around. :-)

It was a nice November day when we were there, low 60-degree temperature. It was also a great trip for X-man to get out some running time before having to deal with air travel. Ticket prices were  $17.95 for adults, $14.95 for all kids over 2. The prices do reduce December through February to $12.95 for everyone. Also, if you go in the fall, there is only one food vendor open over by the Big Cats. Most of the school groups had brown bag lunches for all-around convenience. If we lived in the city, or weren't flying out afterward, we would have opted for the same thing. As it is, we ended up pushing lunch time until we were at the airport. 

The exhibits were nice, and it's a zoo that is totally doable with little kids. It's not overwhelming, and you can get it all done in about 2 hours. Only half of the animals were outside in their habitats due to the change in weather. We parked in the Zebra lot a short 1/4 mile walk from the gate. It cost $12 per car.

You can also take a real hot air balloon ride (it just goes up and down) for $10.95 per person.

We instead opted for the $3 per person kiddie train ride, because our kid loves sitting in a caboose.