Oh man, I have waited so long for this day! Its been a dream of mine for years to visit the San Diego Zoo. I first learned about it when I was about Killian's age and I wanted to go so badly. An opportunity to go has never presented itself in my life...until now. And getting to share this experience with the 3 people I love most in the whole world? Truly priceless ♥
We got to the Zoo about 20 minutes before it opened, and ate a quick breakfast of muffins and yogurt in the car. We were the first people in line and as soon as the gates opened we got our first taste of this wonderful place. Right up front, like he was waiting to greet us was this beautiful peacock, looking ready to impress:
Behind him were a bunch of flamingos, this picture doesn't do them justice - they are such a vivid pink and very beautiful:
Next up was a reptile house, with lots of snakes and lizards, some of them quite big like this guy:
The kids were pretty fascinated with them, but I was eager to see some animals! When we got done looking at all the snakes, we headed over to the Skyfari Aeriel tram. It takes you 180 feet over the zoo, going from one side to the other. The kids were so excited about riding this!
We had a good view of the Gorillas:
And of the pandas, but I was too slow to get a picture of them. The kids were enjoying themselves so much that we stayed on the tram and rode it back to where we had got on. Once we were back at the front of the zoo, we stopped and admired the flamingos again:
And found a guy to follow that really knew his way around the zoo:
We entered the Lost Forest section, home to lots of birds, monkeys, gorillas, hippo's, crocodiles and more. We spent a lot of time looking at the gorillas, they are so magnificent. There was a big daddy silver back gorilla, the sign said he weighed 350+ pounds!
Their exhibit was huge, with waterfalls and lots of space to roam. In fact, that's something that really impressed me about the whole zoo. Sometimes I will leave a zoo and feel sad for the animals that live in its cramped, outdated cages. But I didn't feel that at all here, everyone seemed to have plenty of room to roam. I guess that's the perk of having 107 acres to work with!
There were a mama and a baby gorilla here too:
He was sure a curious little thing:
Haha! I didn't realize what was happening when I took that picture, and we all had a good laugh when we saw it! A few more pictures from the gorilla area:
We continued on through the Lost Forest, and saw these hippo's. We were wondering why they were so small, until we saw that they were pygmy hippos, which explained their smaller stature!
A little while later, we came across the big ones, who were lounging by the glass sleeping:
The kids have such huge grins because the top hippo had just pooped in the water, much to their delight. One of the pygmy hippos had pooped when we were walking by their exhibit too, so the kids must bring out the best in this species ;)
We stopped by the Orangutans, which are one of my favorite animals. They always look so wise to me. This one was sitting next to the glass, munching on a couple of peas. He seemed unfazed by all the attention he was getting from passing kids.
There were plenty of unusual animals throughout the zoo to check out, one of them was these turtles - I have never seen a neck this long on a turtle, and couldn't help but wonder how they had room to tuck that thing in their shell!
This is an okapi:
This is a red river hog:
I think this is a Kudu, but I am not 100% sure on that:
At this point we had been at the zoo for a few hours, and wound our way through the Lost Forest, and the Polar Rim. We headed down to check out Panda Canyon, and got in line to walk through and see the new baby panda. He was sleeping which apparently he does a lot of, the zookeeper said that the day before he had only been awake for a total of 1 hour - all day long!
We saw this other Panda taking a nap:
We had to cut our time at the pandas short because we were trying to get back to the front of the zoo to see a sea lion show at Wegeforth Bowl (named after the man who started the San Diego Zoo). We made it just in time, and it was a nice break for all of us, our legs were already pretty tired by this point!
The show was pretty neat, I have never seen a sea lion "perform" before, and it was fun to watch. This guys name was Jake:
Here is Jake pretending to be a seal:
Jake in action:
And another sea lion named Riley:
After the show we found a bench to sit on and made some sandwiches with the bread, jelly and peanut butter we had brought along for lunch. We decided to save our legs a little and ride the gondola to the other side of the zoo (this place really is huge - much bigger than I imagined it would be) to start working our way through the rest of the exhibits. The kids were thrilled to ride it again:
This time we started in Elephant Odyssey, a 17 acre area that houses their elephants (I think there are 7). At the beginning, it has a lot of information and statues of prehistoric animals, including elephants, sloths, and big cats. They also had an area that replicated the La Brea Tar Pits, and a lot of information about all the fossils that have been found in the southern California area. We passed the lions, a jaguar, some vultures, and a horse (just a regular everyday one...it seemed strangely out of place) and finally we arrived at the elephants.
They had such a huge area to roam! There were lots of those metal trees, where bags of hay were hung, and other toys to keep them entertained.
There was a children's play space, with an area that had a bunch of the transmitter collars that the elephants wear. Look how tiny Rowan is compared to them!
On our way out of the Elephant Odyssey area, we checked out some camels:
We learned later that his hump is flopped over due to his age...I guess even animals have to deal with sagging as they get older!
And we saw a bunch of lemurs. I didn't notice when I took this picture, but the bottom lemur is cradling a little baby! You can click on the picture to see it better...
The next area was the Outback, and first up were the koalas! They are so darn cute, even though most of them were sleeping:
This was the only koala that was awake and moving around. They look so cuddly and soft, I can see why people are fascinated with them (there was a whole gift shop dedicated to Koala items right next to their exhibit).
We explored the Urban Jungle next (it had Rhinos and Giraffes) before heading through the rest of the Outback. There were more monkeys, tree kangaroos, and wombats, but my favorite were the anteaters - I had no idea that these animals were so big! I would say that it was a bit bigger than a German Shepherd or similar sized dog:
While touring the zoo, we had seen multiple double decker tour buses driving by, and the kids were desperate to go on one. The loading area was near the front of the zoo, so after we were done in the Outback, we headed that way. We were at the front of the line, so we got to ride on the front of the upper deck, which was where the kids had wanted to be.
The bus drives through about 75% of the zoo, and we were bummed to see that although we thought we had covered almost everything, there was an awful lot we had missed. But by the time the bus tour got done, we had just enough time to stop by the gift shops and then head home because Matthew had to be back in time to get ready for the premier. I would love to come back to the zoo again, probably when the kids are a little older, and have longer legs :) There is a LOT of walking involved and they were pretty tired through parts of it, even though we stopped to rest a lot. We also felt a little rushed because the Zoo is only open from 9-5, and we had to leave by 4:30. I think spending two days there would be ideal, because then you would really get a chance to see everything. But I was thrilled that we had made it through everything we did, we got to see so many neat and unusual animals. It was such a fun day!
After we got back to the hotel, Matthew got ready to leave and headed down to the lobby to wait for the HBO lady to take them to the premier. The kids and I were hungry so we decided to walk (more walking!!) down to the Gaslamp quarter for dinner and to try to find a candy shop I had read about online. We got some pizza for dinner, and after much walking (and some help from a local) we finally found the candy shop. It was so cool! They had all kinds of candy from when I was growing up that you never see anymore like candy dots, and they had a whole wall of bins filled with interesting candies. Killian got some chocolate that looked like small rocks, and lego bricks made out of candy that actually fit together. Rowan got some gummi brains, butterflies, centipedes and penguins. We picked up some candy treats for some friends, and Rowan picked out a chocolate shaped bee and a chocolate ladybug for Matthew. Which we were sure he would enjoy more than the candy suckers that had real ants in them! It was a fun little store, and the kids really enjoyed picking out their treats.
On the long walk back to the hotel, we were all grateful that there wouldn't be as much walking happening the next day - we were sick of it! The kids went to sleep fast, excited about what tomorrow would hold....
We got to the Zoo about 20 minutes before it opened, and ate a quick breakfast of muffins and yogurt in the car. We were the first people in line and as soon as the gates opened we got our first taste of this wonderful place. Right up front, like he was waiting to greet us was this beautiful peacock, looking ready to impress:
Behind him were a bunch of flamingos, this picture doesn't do them justice - they are such a vivid pink and very beautiful:
Next up was a reptile house, with lots of snakes and lizards, some of them quite big like this guy:
The kids were pretty fascinated with them, but I was eager to see some animals! When we got done looking at all the snakes, we headed over to the Skyfari Aeriel tram. It takes you 180 feet over the zoo, going from one side to the other. The kids were so excited about riding this!
We had a good view of the Gorillas:
And of the pandas, but I was too slow to get a picture of them. The kids were enjoying themselves so much that we stayed on the tram and rode it back to where we had got on. Once we were back at the front of the zoo, we stopped and admired the flamingos again:
And found a guy to follow that really knew his way around the zoo:
We entered the Lost Forest section, home to lots of birds, monkeys, gorillas, hippo's, crocodiles and more. We spent a lot of time looking at the gorillas, they are so magnificent. There was a big daddy silver back gorilla, the sign said he weighed 350+ pounds!
Their exhibit was huge, with waterfalls and lots of space to roam. In fact, that's something that really impressed me about the whole zoo. Sometimes I will leave a zoo and feel sad for the animals that live in its cramped, outdated cages. But I didn't feel that at all here, everyone seemed to have plenty of room to roam. I guess that's the perk of having 107 acres to work with!
There were a mama and a baby gorilla here too:
He was sure a curious little thing:
Haha! I didn't realize what was happening when I took that picture, and we all had a good laugh when we saw it! A few more pictures from the gorilla area:
We continued on through the Lost Forest, and saw these hippo's. We were wondering why they were so small, until we saw that they were pygmy hippos, which explained their smaller stature!
A little while later, we came across the big ones, who were lounging by the glass sleeping:
The kids have such huge grins because the top hippo had just pooped in the water, much to their delight. One of the pygmy hippos had pooped when we were walking by their exhibit too, so the kids must bring out the best in this species ;)
We stopped by the Orangutans, which are one of my favorite animals. They always look so wise to me. This one was sitting next to the glass, munching on a couple of peas. He seemed unfazed by all the attention he was getting from passing kids.
There were plenty of unusual animals throughout the zoo to check out, one of them was these turtles - I have never seen a neck this long on a turtle, and couldn't help but wonder how they had room to tuck that thing in their shell!
This is an okapi:
This is a red river hog:
I think this is a Kudu, but I am not 100% sure on that:
At this point we had been at the zoo for a few hours, and wound our way through the Lost Forest, and the Polar Rim. We headed down to check out Panda Canyon, and got in line to walk through and see the new baby panda. He was sleeping which apparently he does a lot of, the zookeeper said that the day before he had only been awake for a total of 1 hour - all day long!
We saw this other Panda taking a nap:
We had to cut our time at the pandas short because we were trying to get back to the front of the zoo to see a sea lion show at Wegeforth Bowl (named after the man who started the San Diego Zoo). We made it just in time, and it was a nice break for all of us, our legs were already pretty tired by this point!
The show was pretty neat, I have never seen a sea lion "perform" before, and it was fun to watch. This guys name was Jake:
Here is Jake pretending to be a seal:
Jake in action:
And another sea lion named Riley:
After the show we found a bench to sit on and made some sandwiches with the bread, jelly and peanut butter we had brought along for lunch. We decided to save our legs a little and ride the gondola to the other side of the zoo (this place really is huge - much bigger than I imagined it would be) to start working our way through the rest of the exhibits. The kids were thrilled to ride it again:
This time we started in Elephant Odyssey, a 17 acre area that houses their elephants (I think there are 7). At the beginning, it has a lot of information and statues of prehistoric animals, including elephants, sloths, and big cats. They also had an area that replicated the La Brea Tar Pits, and a lot of information about all the fossils that have been found in the southern California area. We passed the lions, a jaguar, some vultures, and a horse (just a regular everyday one...it seemed strangely out of place) and finally we arrived at the elephants.
They had such a huge area to roam! There were lots of those metal trees, where bags of hay were hung, and other toys to keep them entertained.
There was a children's play space, with an area that had a bunch of the transmitter collars that the elephants wear. Look how tiny Rowan is compared to them!
On our way out of the Elephant Odyssey area, we checked out some camels:
We learned later that his hump is flopped over due to his age...I guess even animals have to deal with sagging as they get older!
And we saw a bunch of lemurs. I didn't notice when I took this picture, but the bottom lemur is cradling a little baby! You can click on the picture to see it better...
The next area was the Outback, and first up were the koalas! They are so darn cute, even though most of them were sleeping:
This was the only koala that was awake and moving around. They look so cuddly and soft, I can see why people are fascinated with them (there was a whole gift shop dedicated to Koala items right next to their exhibit).
We explored the Urban Jungle next (it had Rhinos and Giraffes) before heading through the rest of the Outback. There were more monkeys, tree kangaroos, and wombats, but my favorite were the anteaters - I had no idea that these animals were so big! I would say that it was a bit bigger than a German Shepherd or similar sized dog:
While touring the zoo, we had seen multiple double decker tour buses driving by, and the kids were desperate to go on one. The loading area was near the front of the zoo, so after we were done in the Outback, we headed that way. We were at the front of the line, so we got to ride on the front of the upper deck, which was where the kids had wanted to be.
The bus drives through about 75% of the zoo, and we were bummed to see that although we thought we had covered almost everything, there was an awful lot we had missed. But by the time the bus tour got done, we had just enough time to stop by the gift shops and then head home because Matthew had to be back in time to get ready for the premier. I would love to come back to the zoo again, probably when the kids are a little older, and have longer legs :) There is a LOT of walking involved and they were pretty tired through parts of it, even though we stopped to rest a lot. We also felt a little rushed because the Zoo is only open from 9-5, and we had to leave by 4:30. I think spending two days there would be ideal, because then you would really get a chance to see everything. But I was thrilled that we had made it through everything we did, we got to see so many neat and unusual animals. It was such a fun day!
After we got back to the hotel, Matthew got ready to leave and headed down to the lobby to wait for the HBO lady to take them to the premier. The kids and I were hungry so we decided to walk (more walking!!) down to the Gaslamp quarter for dinner and to try to find a candy shop I had read about online. We got some pizza for dinner, and after much walking (and some help from a local) we finally found the candy shop. It was so cool! They had all kinds of candy from when I was growing up that you never see anymore like candy dots, and they had a whole wall of bins filled with interesting candies. Killian got some chocolate that looked like small rocks, and lego bricks made out of candy that actually fit together. Rowan got some gummi brains, butterflies, centipedes and penguins. We picked up some candy treats for some friends, and Rowan picked out a chocolate shaped bee and a chocolate ladybug for Matthew. Which we were sure he would enjoy more than the candy suckers that had real ants in them! It was a fun little store, and the kids really enjoyed picking out their treats.
On the long walk back to the hotel, we were all grateful that there wouldn't be as much walking happening the next day - we were sick of it! The kids went to sleep fast, excited about what tomorrow would hold....