The San Diego Zoo

We went to the San Diego Zoo on May 20th. That would have been M's 30th birthday. We took the kids out of school and hit the road. It was a 4 hour drive there and 4 hours back. It was expensive, even with the discount my son got for being active duty military and it was exhausting, but it was worth it. One tip I'll share with you, take a lunch and rent a locker to put it in. The lunch we had was very expensive and not good. The drinks were also very expensive ($5 each!) so you can save a lot of money by taking your own.



The zoo was in bloom and lovely. It was a great time of year to go. Also going during the week saved us lots of time in lines. We walked right up to the Panda exhibit and got right in. The Panda was really active, which was an extra treat since I didn't expect that and most of the other animals were asleep. It ran all over the place and at one time, got down on its knees with its back to us. It looked for all the world, like it bowed its head over its clasped hands. It made me think of a child praying next to a bed at night.



We got to see the polar bears in their new exhibit. It was wonderful to see polar bears! We missed seeing them swim though. Take a look at the polar bears yourself on their polar cam. There is also a new elephant exhibit and it was just great! We saw one of the elephants running toward another one! That was a thrill to me! The giraffes were a darker brown than the ones I've seen in TX. They had a baby giraffe and there was a baby camel too. I love to see the baby animals. They're all cute. No matter what the animal is. I could have sworn that the zebra had brown stripes instead of black, but it could have been the bright sun light. We even saw a white wolf (it was an animal ambassador).



I think the only animals we actually missed seeing were the gorillas and alligators or crocodiles. We also missed seeing the otters swimming, but we've seen them before. I think CV may have been the only one to see a koala. We all enjoyed the meercats. They had a really big exhibit and were fun to watch.




I was a little disappointed by their petting zoo, but we got there at the hot part of the day and probably just missed a lot. All in all, I enjoyed it, but I thought it was quite over priced. I do understand that zoos cost a lot to keep up and feed all of those animals, but I think they've cut a lot of folks out of ever being able to attend by their admission prices (Son was free and the rest of us were 10% off, three kids ages 6,7,9 and one adult was $106.00). That is really a shame. Zoos should be accessible to everyone. Just my humble opinion.