Life, hopes and dreams of Kat (original) (raw)

Where: Central Florida Zoo And Botanical Gardens, 3755 NW Hwy 17-92, Sanford, Florida
Website: www.centralfloridazoo.org
Admission fee: adult $19.50 (no online purchase for single tickets)
Hours: 9 am - 5 pm daily

Recently I spent two weeks in Orlando, Florida - mostly to meet with my boyfriend and attend various pro wrestling events such as Wrestlemania. However, when I visit a part of the world that I haven't been in before, I will also seek out the nearest zoo and visit that. Pre-vacation research told me that the nearest zoo would be Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens, about 30 miles from downtown Orlando. So on 28 March, 2017 I took an Uber to get me to said zoo.

The zoo is not just a zoo and botanical garden (as its complete name already tells you), but it also is home to the Wharton-Smith Tropical Splash Ground, a water playground within the zoo, and the ZOOm Air Adventure Park with various treetop adventure courses. While the former is included in the admission fee, you have to pay extra to enjoy the fun of ZOOm Air Adventure Park - well, if you are one to call it fun to be so high above the ground. I'd rather pass on that, though. ::shivers::

The zoo is spread out over an area of 116 acres (47 ha) and is home to around 400 animals from over 200 different species. To be honest, I cannot at all confirm that size as it felt significantly smaller to me. I have a very strong feeling that in the area size they have included both the ZOOm Air Adventure Park (which is about 2/3 in size of the actual zoo) as well as the parking lot area. In any case I can't believe at all that the zoo should really be nearly twice as big as Leipzig (27 ha), for which it usually does take me a whole day to make it through, or Fort Worth Zoo (26 ha) which I visited last year and which took me around 6 hours. Depending on how much time you take at each enclosure, a tour of the zoo will take you around 3 to 4 hours, I'd say. If you catch all 5 "Meet The Keeper" events during the morning and have luck in feeding the giraffes, the duration could be increased to maybe 5 to 6 hours. Of course, if you've brought kids, it might be even longer due to the playgrounds. Also, if you bring kids, please do remember to bring towels and swimgear/change clothes for them because they are bound to want to play at the splash ground. Heck, I'm 41 and very much wanted to!
Personally, I arrived at the zoo around 11.00 am and left again at just after 3 pm which makes this a 4 hour visit to the zoo.

Although I greatly enjoyed my visit, I must say that, looking at the number of different species (200 compared to 542 at Fort Worth Zoo and even 850 at Leipzig Zoo), the admission price for Central Florida Zoo And Tropical Gardens is too high. Sure, your kids can enjoy the Splash Ground, but what about those who only go to the zoo? I'm sorry, but that's a bit much.

The largest animals you can meet are giraffes and Indian rhinos. At the giraffe enclosure you have the possibility to buy a few leaves of lettuce for $5 and feed the giraffes with it. When I passed the enclosure there were three people trying to get the giraffes to eat but they couldn't be bothered. Still, it's great to be able to do that.

Apart from the aforementioned, I saw warthogs, cheetahs, spider monkeys, lemurs, bald eagles, macaws, pumas, river otters, crocodiles and alligators, sloths, and various snakes and lizards, but also a dark-skinned leopard. When I passed the enclosure it so happened that a school group was being shown around by a keeper so heard the information about the leopard being dark-skinned, and indeed - in the sunlight you could still make out the typical spots in its fur. An animal I had never seen before, and is also the latest addition to the zoo, was the fossa. However, even though I stopped by the enclosure two or three times, I could only catch it sleeping. Still, it is an interesting animal from what I read on the information plate next to the enclosure. Speaking of the information plates, they were indeed very informative with pictures of the animals, the standard facts and also some trivia. Also, you could find various information plaques around the zoo about the plants which of course makes sense seeing as the zoo is also a botanical garden.

The zoo is laid out in such a way that you can pass all enclosures on your round throughout the zoo. There are several picnic areas and benches where you can rest throughout the zoo, many of them conveniently in the shade because, well, this is Florida we're talking about, and when I was there at the end of March, it was sunny with no clouds in the sky and around 86 F (30 C). So the shade was definitely welcome. The zoo offers its own catering on two points - one close to the entrance, next to the water playground, and the other between the giraffe and rhino enclosures, but the latter is open only on weekends. There is also a non-water play area situated next to that second snack bar but since I wasn't there with kids, nor to check out the playgrounds, I didn't pay too much attention to how it looked.

The zoo has a souvenir shop which ironically is situated at the relative start of the tour of the zoo instead of at its end - but maybe that's the whole purpose so visitors will take two rounds of the zoo and thus feel like it's bigger than it is. Who knows?

The highlight of my visit to the zoo was the chance to watch a Gaboon viper shed. As I arrived at its enclosure it was just starting so I stayed around until it was almost completely done some 20 - 30 mins later. It certainly was a fascinating thing to watch. What was also fun was to watch the different lemurs interact with one another across the visitors' path that separated their enclosures. As always the otters were great fun which I was able to watch both inside and out of the water.

Despite the irritation at the zoo's size and accordingly too-high admission price, I had a lovely time at the zoo and saw some really wonderful animals, and I guess in the end that's all that counts. So, without further ado (there's been enough of that already, anyway) - here are the pictures I took, but not without the rules:

- All photos were taken by little___hobbit aka @lepsaxon on Twitter aka Lepsy aka Kat Eichner
- You may share the images and/or use them for artistic means but please ALWAYS credit me with one of the names above.

( the rest under the cut Collapse )

Finally, here's also four short videos I shot at the zoo:

http://sendvid.com/d5wjfd7k
http://sendvid.com/ajxh4zdo
http://sendvid.com/8783daso
http://sendvid.com/ey3fndvf