Trip to San Diego Zoo w/ Kids

Now that my kids are a little older (they're now 11 and 9), I thought we'd have a fun-filled, low-stress day at the San Diego Zoo this past Monday.  With the weather on our side, we headed out with just a smidgen of traffic on our way down from North County (where we were staying).  Good thing I'd invited my sister-in-law to come along.  You see, the Zoo has caught on to those of us who have bought the Annual Membership in order to take advantage of the 2 free passes to the Zoo or Animal Park that accompany it as a perk.  Now you can only purchase an annual membership if your home zip code begin with a "9".  So, I bought my sister-in-law an annual membership as an early Christmas present (thus getting her into the park that day for free) and took advantage of the two free passes for myself and my son.  My mom, who also accompanied us, had saved her passes from when she became a member earlier in the spring.  So, I ended up getting in for free.  NICE.

For the most part, things went well.  Definitely purchase the refillable plastic to-go bottles.  That will always save you money in the end AND when you purchase drinks in a regular cup, you do not get lids or straws to help keep the park clean and the animals healthy and safe.  Those with small children know what this means: MESS and WASTED MONEY ... so get those refillable bottles.

I also recommend hanging around as long as possible in order to take advantage of the Night Zoo.  You will see animals that aren't normally awake during the day AND behaviours that change as night falls.  During the day hyenas typically sleep, but once the veil of darkness falls and the red meat is distributed, it's a different story.  Just the interruption of my daughter's cheery voice was enough to cause the hyena to bare its teeth and the hair on its back to go up ... demonstrating that these animals are still wild, undeniably dangerous, and tend to act out of instinct.  Sobering to say the least.  At that point I recall a street lamp on the path went dark and being surrounded by darkness with zoo animal noises was enough to just about to do my daughter in when the lamp came back on.  She said she couldn't imagine being in the wild with them at night in the dark.  Perhaps next summer's visit will include one of the overnight camping things at the Wild Animal Park?

Anyway, even though my kids aren't super small anymore, they still thoroughly enjoyed the Children's Zoo complete with Petting Zoo, Nursery, Sea Otters, Naked Mole Rats, and birds.  My son got to pet an akidna and they saw a wombat fairly close up.  The new addition of the Insect Zoo to the Children's Zoo was also a major hit and one of the highlights of their day.  The other highlight was the Hummingbird exhibit where you enjoy the atrium with birds whizzing past you to enjoy the plants and fruit provided for them.  While crowded but shady, the Reptile House was also captivating and educational.  The culmination of the reptile house was the Kimodo Dragon, which the kids had only seen on Animal Planet.  It's so great to see what you've only viewed on TV!

Even if we had paid full price for admission (which now includes the bus tour) the trip would have been worth every penny.  We didn't get to see everything (we didn't want to venture to the far western end of the park for the polar bears), but we saw more than enough and stayed until the park closed at 9 pm.  We can't wait to come back next year!