Posts tagged Chester zoo

I’ve been dying to take MissB and MasterB to a zoo for ages and whilst we were on holiday in Derbyshire, we decided to visit Chester Zoo as it was within easy driving distance. The lovely people from Superbreak provided me with tickets for the day. Check out their website for great value cheap breaks and days out

We arrived around 11am and as we had prepaid tickets we were able to go straight through the fast track gate which was lucky as there was a long queue building up to buy tickets. We had taken my parents with us, who didn’t have prepaid tickets but we were still allowed through the fast track gates to buy tickets for them at guest services inside which was good. MissB is not yet 3 and we didn’t think she would manage to walk all around the zoo and as we didn’t have a double buggy on holiday with us, we hired one from the zoo for the day. It cost £10 but it was seriously the best £10 I spent on the entire holiday MissB and MasterB absolutely riding around in it and it made our day a thousand times easier If you have young children I’d highly recommend you consider one!

Chester Zoo has over 8000 animals, many of which are exotic and endangered. With a lot of animals to get around we set off on our zoo adventure, first stop of the day was the elephants. MasterB was mesmerised by them and MissB could only stare in awe. It must be strange suddenly seeing all these animals in real life for the first time, I don’t think she ever expected them to be so large bless her We found certain parts of the zoo were much busier than others, the elephants, the chimpanzees and the realm of the red ape were all very busy. We didn’t manage to go into the realm of the red ape unfortunately as it looked like they were queuing to get in and my two little monkeys were getting hungry.

The zoo is absolutely huge, you are provided with a map when you enter and it is a good idea to plan a route before you start to make sure you don’t miss any of your favourite animals, I think we saw pretty much everything and we were there for over 5 hours which is a long time for two toddlers, two parents and two pensioners Luckily there are frequent refreshment stops around the zoo which was very handy as it was a very hot day when we visited and constant supplies of drink were needed, followed by frequent toilet visits from a recently potty trained toddler lol. I was impressed with how clean the facilities were and how little time I had to spend queuing for toilets.

Up until the 4th November there is a Dinosaurs Bite Back! exhibit which features 19 lifelike robotic dinosaurs. I had a feeling MissB might not be too keen on them and I was right! They were really impressive and I wish I’d managed to take some photographs of them but MissB had a complete freak when the spitting dinosaur soaked mummy (I didn’t mind!) and our walk through the exhibition turned into a mad dash to get her past all the dinosaurs bless her. We’ve now explained to her that they are just big toys but there is no reasoning with a 2 year old. I can’t quite figure out how she thinks lions and tigers aren’t scary but robotic dinosaurs are lol. The photograph below was taken by my sister Sonia from This Mummy Loves when she visited the zoo.

The only other area we had an issue with was the Fruit Bat Forest, I loved it as I have previous experience of fruit bats from when I lived in Cairns but with it being dark and bats flying around, MissB wasn’t too impressed. She did however love the monkeys and the penguins. The lions and the tigers were very impressive, a little on the lazy side because of the heat but we did finally manage to find them lying down in the shade The butterfly house was a huge hit, there seemed like hundreds of beautiful butterflies everywhere and MissB loved watching them (as did I).

The giraffes were one of my favourites, they are so graceful and elegant I was impressed with how much space all the animals had, none of them seemed overcrowded and they all looked happy and healthy (well ok it’s hard to tell if an elephant is smiling so I can’t guarantee happy but they looked it in their own elephant way ). I’ve always had a bit of a doubt about zoos in the back of my mind but visiting now as an adult and seeing the lovely conditions that the animals live in and the work that the zoo does protecting animals and plants from extinction, I feel much happier about them.

The highlight of the day for MissB was the Zebras. She had been looking forward to these the most and they didn’t disappoint. There is something about Zebras which is just absolutely mesmerising I could have stood there and watched them all day. They are located right on the other side of the zoo from where we started and so by then we had walked a very long distance and were getting tired. We considered going for a ride on the monorail or on the water bus but after 5 hours we decided it was time to call it a day as we had two very hot and exhausted toddlers on our hands.

We had an absolutely fantastic day out at Chester Zoo and will definitely be going back in the future MissB has been telling everybody and anybody about her day there since we came back. We meant to call in at the shop and buy her a toy as a souvenir when we were leaving but we forgot which is a shame but I’m sure it won’t be long until our next visit.