The floors in the Mersus Emergo creaked pretty terribly (especially with lots of people in there) and it was also pretty hot in there. Certainly not the most pleasant experience I've had in a reptile house.
I agree with your comments above this photo. The Reptile House at Pairi Daiza was incredibly hot when I visited earlier this year (on a blistering summer day) and with the thick crowds of people, the terrible signage, the claustrophobic atmosphere, etc.) it became a disappointing experience. Between the Aquarium and Reptile House, Pairi Daiza has a lot of unfulfilled potential.
@snowleopard The Mersus Emergo reptile house and the Nautilus aquarium were some of Pairi Daiza's (at the time still Parc Paradisio) early major projects, both dating back to the early 2000s, and I think both are starting to show their age and suffering from the greatly increased visitor numbers they weren't designed for (though overcrowding can be problem throughout the park). I would also argue that some of the exhibits aren't entirely up to animal welfare specs anymore - although that was mostly the case in the aquarium and not quite as much in the reptile house.
I was lucky to have visited the Mersus Emergo on Friday, when it was busy enough but not unpleasant. With regards to the Aquarium, I visited it right at opening time on Saturday and it was sadly already overcrowded - and I didn't have a good experience in there. I would say the aquarium was the section of Pairi Daiza I liked the least and had the least positive experience in.
If one compares these two houses to the rest of Pairi Daiza they really aren't leveling up anymore and I would say they are due for some changes and redevelopments. Then again, Pairi Daiza might well have something up their sleeves already...
I managed to be the first visitor on Thursday 25th October, which was rather nice. I quite like these long exhibits for species like the rhinoceros iguana - most of the others are less satisfactory. But I do agree that neither Mersus Emergo nor the Aquarium provide as good an experience for the visitor as the other areas of Pairi Daiza. Moreover the quality of environments for some of the animals were less than impressive - sights like chameleons climbing in plastic foliage and the group of Cyphotilapia frontosa (large predatory cichlids from Lake Tanganyika) in one of the plastic cylinder tanks displeased me, to put it mildly.
Mersus Emergo is a pretty strange concept overall. I'm not sure whether to admire the imagination of the person who designed a combined giraffe stable and reptile house or to doubt the wisdom of the decision to disguise it as a boat. I'm also not sure whether I like the feeling of disorientation caused by the very dark entrance to the reptile section, following the apparently flat route through the exhibits, but then having to go down a staircase to reach the Exit door which is right beside the Entrance (the secret is that the floors slope upwards very slightly as you pass along each corridor).
