Zoo itself? I had a great time. The program mom dragged me into (in the facility but apparently a separate guy who rented out the space) with spider monkeys? Extremely mixed feelings. There were no other red flags, they seemed to be positive reinforcement trained by him instead of the usual abuse you see in these cases, he did give important boundaries heads ups like "wait for them to jump on your lap instead of picking them up", and he gave the monkeys an hour break after us, but it was still a dude with monkeys in full clothing on leashes intended to be hugged with like no educational message. Still, at least I can say what one hanging off me by the tail feels like (holy crap, she was strong - this was her ploy to still be attached to me while still stealing applesauce from a box in there, looked like the break room).
It is interesting how one of the first things he insisted on was that he did NOT cut the spider monkeys' thumbs off - for all the valid criticism he could get, the fact that the one he immediately had to debunk regarded spider monkeys having four fingers was interesting.
It was a guy who called himself "Tyler Exotic" and wisked us into a room in the back of the facility that I think is mostly used for private events, kind of near the sloth room.
It is worth noting that the employees were making heavy note the whole time as to how he wasn't with them. The keepers as a whole seemed pretty mixed on this as well. There were zero questions for the Reptarium keepers - I noticed them often noting when the rather crowded night was making the reptiles stressed and bringing them back to their terrariums to give them a break, then swap out for a calm herper.
