Central Park Zoo (Central Park Zoo (New York))

Member Name: Dexter01

Product:	Central Park Zoo (New York)
Date:	07/07/09 (16 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good layout, well looked after animals, staff that actually care about the animals and great value.

Disadvantages: There was no Giraffe, Lion, Zebra or Hippo like in Madagascar

Unbeknownst to me when I visited New York, there is a zoo in Central Park. I should have known this having seen Madagascar, but my brain had obviously stopped working.

We only found the Zoo by chance when having a wander around Central Park and decided to go inside and see what it was like. We discovered it to be one of the best finds we had while in NYC.

Let's start with the location. Well, it's in Central Park in the middle of Manhattan. If you enter Central Park at 5th Avenue, in what would be the lower right corner, opposite the hotel featured in Home Alone 2 (who's name eludes me). As you enter, it is a roadway where the horse carriages follow. Approximately 150metres into this road, there is a pathway going down to the right. Follow this and you will locate the Zoo a very short distance down here on the left. It takes roughly 5 minutes to walk from outside the Park to the Zoo entrance.

The weather was very nice when we found it and there was not much of a queue to enter. It cost $8 for a single adult ticket and this gave you entry into the Children's Zoo located a little further up from the entrance on the right hand side of the pathway.

The main Zoo is set out in a rough square shape. The first exhibit was just some information about various animals in the world. No actual animals, just words and we gave this a quick glance and continued on. You then can walk up the left hand side of the square, which is the side closest to the entrance. You pass an entrance into a small cafe that you get into through either the Zoo or outside the Zoo. The cafe was reasonably priced and served adequate portions, but it is just a cafe, so don't expect anything amazing from that.

Just beyond this, you come to the first zone, which is the Tropic Zone. You enter through a set of doors and discover a very humid atmosphere that takes a few seconds to understand. Then you realise, it is like a rainforest (well, I assume a rainforest, but I haven't actually been in a rainforest, so that could be a lie). There is a small river flowing through the zone, with lots of trees and plants growing. Then there is alot of various different species of birds/ bats and other wiged things flying around above your head, below your head and level with your head. It is brilliant. you follow a walkway that leads to a set of stairs that go inside a room within the zone. They have a bat enclosure set up here with hundreds of bats flying and hanging around. There are alos snakes, spiders, frogs and even a cute little anteater and some form of monkeys.

After exiting this zone, you can walk just around the corner and find a pool area with turtles swimming around. You follow the pathways inside the Zoo and wander past some more monkeys of a different form. The pathway lead you to the Polar Bears. Real Polar Bears. 2 of the things, huge and cool. Follow there enclosure and you come to some seals, who like to show off the skills they have and provide a show.

Just past here is another zone, the Cold Zone (I don't think it's called that, but I can't remember the exact name now). Inside this zone, which isn't actually cold for us, but I presume cold in the enclosure part where the animals are, are penguins and puffins. Just like the seals, they like to provide a show and some love having their photo taken.

After this zone, you come back outside and in the centre of the square is a big water tank with rock formation containing some Sealions. These like to show off more than all the other animals put together. Getting up on the rocks and posing like they are models.

We loved the Zoo that much, that we went back again a couple days later and again when we visited NYC for a 2nd time last year. The 3rd time we went, they were doing some construction work in the Zoo to extend it and add some more enclosures for different animals.

The Children's Zoo contains animals you would expect in a children's zoo, but is still fun none the less.

All in all, I would thoroughly recommend the Zoo to anyone going to NYC, a must see.

Summary: Brilliant Zoo in an Urban paradise.