| rev:text
| - Our family just moved about 20 minutes away from the zoo and as soon as I heard it was free on Mondays for Cuyahoga County residents, I figured I'd check it out. My two and a half year old son and I went yesterday. Kids are still in school, so there was a couple field trips, but other than that, I didn't think there was much of a crowd, which was really nice. We were able to spend more time at exhibits than I think we would have been if it was Monday during the summer.
I'm terrible with directions, but it wasn't hard to find. As soon as you take the highway exit there are signs. I lucked out with a parking spot in the lot right in front of the entrance. I don't have my new local address on an ID, but I had a piece of mail, so that got us in no problem. The elephants were right inside, and they have two huge enclosures that served as a central landmark to help us figure out where we were...I did find the layout a tiny bit confusing; the signs around the inside of the zoo could have been a little better...I didn't actually figure out where I was and the route I wanted to go until I got a map.
Some people have mentioned that they didn't like how spread out the exhibits are. We weren't in a hurry to get through, so I rather enjoyed how spacious it was. It leaves time to get people off your back if you get stuck in a crowd at one of the animal stops. My son would not have been able to walk the whole thing though. Short stints in the stroller helped him rest his little legs a bit...and pushing the stroller up some of those big hills was a good workout for me!
The zoo was very pretty...it seemed like there was a lot of emphasis on the details and surroundings in addition to the animal enclosures, which I appreciated. The Wolf Lodge was really neat looking, I don't recall ever seeing something like that at a zoo before.
I packed a lunch and the little guy and I found a bench with a view of the kangaroos to eat it on. We didn't even bother looking at the food places, so I can't comment about their prices. When I saw a Ben & Jerry's sign, I got excited...I didn't plan on eating anything but the lunch we packed, but it was hot so I instantly wanted ice cream. Sadly, they weren't open...too early in the season I guess. Oh well.
I spent $2 on 2 cups of nectar to feed the lorikeets at lorikeet landing, which was well worth it. My son loved feeding them. Not all the birds were interested though, so after 15 minutes or so, we passed our nectar to some other people and moved on. I could see this not being as fun when it's crowded because I'd imagine the birds would get sick of it early in the day and the enclosure might get more crowded. Just a guess though. But we really enjoyed it yesterday.
We were lucky enough to be chatting with one of the keepers by the giraffe feeding area while he was doing a training exercise. He let us behind the gates and explained that he was trying to get the giraffes to come when their names were called. He called one named Travis and he came right up to us, literally inches from our faces! My son adored this. Upon seeing that we had no food, Travis left, but the keeper told us to come back in half an hour. In half an hour, we went back again and we got to feed lettuce to Travis! So very cool! The trainer called him over, and we held up the lettuce and he took it right from our hands.
On the way out, I almost got dragged in to the gift shop, but I saw one of those penny press machines outside the door and was able to convince my son that a penny with a giraffe on it would be a great souvenir to remember our experience with Travis, so we did one of those and headed for the car. So for a total of $2.51, my son and I got into the zoo, fed animals, and got a small token to remember the day...and he was tuckered out. He had a blast. He couldn't stop talking about Travis the giraffe the whole night.
Since it's so close, we'll definitely be going back. I would probably pay regular admission to avoid the Monday crowd if we go during the summer, but still pack a lunch. As a stay at home mom, I try to "do" as much as I can with my son without breaking the bank. Being able to really linger wherever we want without being pushed out by other people would be worth the price of admission here... it was beautiful, clean, and a very enjoyable day for myself and a toddler.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)