London Zoo in Wintertime (London Zoo)

Name: nevikrose

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Product:	London Zoo
Date:	04/01/08 (207 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A lot better than i was expecting when it was cold, a quiet time to visit, avoid the crowds

Disadvantages: Some animals were staying out of the cold, Zoo can be abit backward in providing info about exhibits

My mum is a bit young at heart, as we probably all are deep down. For Christmas last year my step dad bought her a voucher that allowed her to be a zookeeper for the day at London Zoo...I was suitably jealous of course.

Its not great to do that kind of thing with no one to share it with however so I decided to go along and see if I could take some pictures of her doing animal stuff during her day out. As it happened a lot of her activities were behind the scenes and they were in a group so they took most of her photos and I just got a day out at London Zoo with my friend.

London Zoo is located about 15 minutes walk from Camden Town tube station which is on the Northern underground line. When you exit the station there are signs leading you in the right direction and further out on the street big banners attached to lampposts that mark the way for you, it was very easy to find.


<...**Entrance fees**...>
The entrance fees seem to change with the season, I think they are quite reasonable for a London attraction that you can spend all day at. But if there are a few of you going it can rack up.
Adult (16 - 59 years) £13.00 £14.50 (if you include the voluntary donation)
Child (3 - 15 years) £10.00 £11.50
Under 3's free
Concession (Student over 16, Senior over 60, Disabled)
£11.50 £13.00
Saver Ticket
(2 adults and 2 children or 1 adult 3 children)
£41.00 £47.00

You can purchase tickets online at the website; all tickets are available with this method, except the family tickets.
http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/visit/e ntry-costs,118,AR.html

Other concessions include :
One free entry for one essential carer per paying disabled visitor
One free adult ticket with every 10 paying children
These are available at the gate when you arrive

London Zoo offers free admission for London State schools

The zoo is open from 10am to 4pm in winter time.


<...**Arrival at the park**...>
There are several gates that people can pass through, presumably to avoid queues at busy periods, but there was only one open, because it was winter. So I did have to queue for a few minutes.
I found that this is because you are paid quite a lot of attention to at the gate, you are asked whether you need a concession, I showed my student card and was allowed the discount, and also if you wish to pay the £1.50 donation, which is currently to support gorilla conservation. I believe this changes cause every so often.
Then you are asked if you are a UK tax payer and if so, whether you would like the Zoo to claim gift aid, whereby they can claim back the tax you paid on the entry cost from the government. If you agree to this (it wont cost you anything but does benefit the park) they will take your name and address and claim the money back later.
You are then given your map of the park, which is not especially easy to follow but gives you a rough idea of where things are, and highlights some of the new exhibits.

Inside the park is a small strategically placed gift shop and toilets, and you can immediately see the arrows on the ground which take you on the suggested route. I prefer to wander though.
There was a nice volunteer in a kiosk that told us that a show would be starting soon in the amphitheatre, we didn't ask her, but I think we were the first people she had seen that day.

<...**the exhibits**...>
There are a lot of animals at London Zoo, it is a fairly big example of an animal park, and so there is a lot to see. I won't mention all of them, but I will highlight some that I think are worth a mention.

<The rainforest exhibit>
This specially built building houses a recreation of rainforest environment, it was honestly my favourite bit of the park, you walk inside onto the top floor and are enveloped in steam and humidity, which was lovely because it was 3 degrees centigrade outside and trying to snow.
The room is open and the animals are free roaming, from this top floor you can look down into the exhibit and see everything moving about, there was a sloth doing the rounds, another one asleep and three or four species of marmoset climbing around, one of which was no bigger than a hamster and climbing up and down the stone pillars where we were standing. Around the outside of this room are some more traditional glass fronted tank exhibits that housed more rainforest creatures, snails, a few more marmosets and reptiles etc. there were also a few birds flying around in here. One was looking quite comfortable on a bench.
It isn't advisable to touch any of these animals and there was a zookeeper in the room keeping an eye out and answering questions.
You can then move down to the next level and see the rainforest room at ground level through glass, we spotted a tortoise on the floor then and a couple more birds.
Under this main room is the night time exhibit, which has more glass tanks, but with nocturnal rainforest animals like aye-ayes and jungle rats.

<The Gorilla Kingdom>
This is the new exhibit at London Zoo and they are very proud of it. It gives a lot of information about gorilla conservation and is a nicely designed path around the gorilla paddock, and entry into a bright open space where you can see one of the inside playrooms for the gorillas. There are also some other monkeys in exhibits here.
We only got to see one gorilla, she was very beautiful and pregnant, the others I think were in a room away from the public, since gorillas hate eye contact I think it is nice that there is somewhere they can get away from the eyes of the public and it was very cold that day.

<Asian Lions>
My mum got to help with clicker training for the male lion as part of her keeping day, but I was less than impressed with their enclosure, they looked cold and unhappy and it didn't look very big. Since it was winter it was also covered in mud, and there wasn't much they could do to keep out of it, they were huddled up on their wooden platform looking very sorry for themselves.
We heard him roaring later, it was incredible.

<Butterfly house>
I don't remember this being there last time I went, so it might be new, its great either way, the butterflies fly around you and you can see huge ones hanging off plants, there are one or two atlas moths in there, that are as big as two hands.
There were some pretty butterflies in there that I had never seen before, one with see through wings and one or two that looked like they had been drawn by an artist they were so outrageous.

<The aquarium>
Quite small for a zoo aquarium and not very informative, often there were no cards for what was in the tank, or there was only one species mentioned and you want to know 'what's that thing at the back??'
No exciting things like seahorses or octopi, but there is a tank with the biggest fish I've ever seen in, which was pretty impressive, they were easily the size of a toddler.
This room was not heated like the other indoor exhibits either, so I felt they could have done better here.

<The meercats>
I love these little guys. This troupe has become so tame that they will come up to the front of their enclosure and talk to you, which is just lovely!

Overall, the zoo could be a little bit better at giving out information about their animals, the inside exhibits do a better job, with placards and exciting educational bits, especially the bug house and the gorilla kingdom. But the out door animals were just on display with little more than a few lines to explain what they are and where they come from.

<...**Facilities**...>

Toilets are good, clean and spacious and wheelchair friendly, with space to get pushcairs around if you need to. They also seemed to have a good supply of toilet paper, always a good sign. They seemed to be well maintained. I don't know what they would be like when it is busier.

The catering is basic, it is a canteen style arrangement, with hot meals or sandwiches, the ladies behind the counter were helpful and cheerful and allowed us to buy childrens portions as we weren't that hungry. The food wasn't brilliant, I had lasagne and chips and it wasn't much better than a school dinner, but it was starchy, warm and filling and that's what I needed. The children's portion was plenty big enough, and was £5(ish) with a drink it came to £5.80.
Other options were sausages, vegetable stir fry, soup or cannelloni. You could have chips, rice, new potatoes or beans with any option.
The cabinet with the bottled drinks was locked for some reason, we had the soda fountain drinks but you could have bottled water, fruit shoot, milkshake or slushy instead.
There was a salad bar but it was empty, they hadn't served any that day.

There are a few stalls around selling snacks, the fish and chips stall and the pancake stall were closed, but the snack stand with drinks and fresh doughnuts was open so we treated ourselves to some at closing time. The doughnuts are big, not the bitesize kind and are £1.50 for two, or £2.45 for 4. They were delicious.

There is a lot to see inside, but I would perhaps avoid taking kids at this time of year as there can be a lack of comfortable seating outside in the cold, you have to walk to an inside exhibit and sneak a seat in there.

Summary: I would definately go again this time of year, walking around the park keeps you warm