I have a love-hate relationship with zoos. It makes me sad to see the animals in captivity. But it makes me happy to see the animals at all! When I was a kid I loved reading about animals from other countries and the zoo was my favorite place to go. I had it a little mixed up in my head with the circus but I blame the fact that a lot of zoos have carousels. This zoo has the Endangered Species Carousel, how's that for a mix of happy and sad? Anyway, I advise just getting a membership. If you're going to spend the money on one trip, a membership is a better deal, and it gets you into all kinds of other zoos and aquariums around the country, so if you go traveling you already have a discount to local attractions. I thought I might not actually use that perk but I've already visited the San Francisco Zoo, the Omaha Zoo, and the St Louis Zoo with business and family trips over the last year. Also if you happen to be some little person's aunt, a zoo membership makes you the funnest aunt around. Yeah, I said funnest.