Dallas Area Zoo trip

[zoosnbrews]

This February I am planning a trip to the Dallas area. I will be going to the Dallas Zoo, Dallas World Aquarium, Fort Worth Zoo, SEA LIFE Grapevine, and will be Driving up to Oklahoma City Zoo on the last day. I have one day that I am still trying to figure out. Fossil Rim, Cameron Park Zoo, Baylor Bear Habitat and Caldwell Zoo all with in driving distance. I can most likely hit 3 of the 4 in one day with the likely root of Fossil Rim, Cameron Park then Baylor. So my main question is should I choose Fossil Rim or Caldwell Zoo to visit? Caldwell looks nice but is it worth the extra hour than Fossil Rim? Also any other tips for the area would be greatly appreciated. Can't wait to see Raccoon Dogs!!

 

[biggest_dreamer]

I did a similar trip last summer, but I unfortunately wound up deprioritizing both Caldwell and Fossil Rim even though they were on my shortlist. But I can at least confirm that Cameron Park is not a full day zoo (very charming for its size however), and given that Baylor is really just a 5 minute novelty pit stop, it shouldn’t be too hard to add on whichever other facility you wind up going with assuming the distance works in your favor.

I also drove up to OKC from Dallas and it was one of the most pleasant four hour drives I’ve ever taken, to say nothing of how incredible the zoo itself was. I keep going back and forth between OKC and Fort Worth being my favorite zoo on that trip, but they’re all fantastic honestly.

 

[NSU42]

This February I am planning a trip to the Dallas area. I will be going to the Dallas Zoo, Dallas World Aquarium, Fort Worth Zoo, SEA LIFE Grapevine, and will be Driving up to Oklahoma City Zoo on the last day. I have one day that I am still trying to figure out. Fossil Rim, Cameron Park Zoo, Baylor Bear Habitat and Caldwell Zoo all with in driving distance. I can most likely hit 3 of the 4 in one day with the likely root of Fossil Rim, Cameron Park then Baylor. So my main question is should I choose Fossil Rim or Caldwell Zoo to visit? Caldwell looks nice but is it worth the extra hour than Fossil Rim? Also any other tips for the area would be greatly appreciated. Can't wait to see Raccoon Dogs!!

The choice of Fossile Rim or Caldwell really depends your preferences. Do you typically enjoy safari parks and drive-thrus? Or do you prefer a more typical zoo? I'm not the biggest fan of drive-thru parks, but I will say Fossil Rim is one of the best ones (if not the best) I've visited. On the other hand, Caldwell is a great medium sized zoo like Cameron Park is.

That being said, if the choice is between Caldwell and Cameron Park, I would agree Cameron Park is the one to go with. While both zoos are excellent medium sized zoos, Cameron Park's Brazos River Country puts it slightly ahead. Caldwell's Africa area is better in my opinion, but there are so many of those in Texas and the rest of the US, I wouldn't target it just for that. Caldwell did recently open Amazon's River Edge though, so who knows if that would change my opinion.

I did a 2 week zoo trip through Texas back in 2022 where I visited 35 zoos and 11 aquariums and can send you my itinerary from that if it would help. Obviously, you don't have as much time, but you could at least see what I did on those days I visited the places you are talking about.

 

[zoosnbrews]

Any information would be greatly appreciated. I think I have my general itinerary mapped out. Day 1 fly in go to Dallas World Aquarium, Art museum and Nasher Sculpture center. Day 2 is Dallas Zoo and SEA LIFE Grapevine. Day 3 is Fossil Rim, Cameron Park Zoo and Baylor Bear Habitat. Day 4 is Oklahoma City Zoo. Day 5 is Fort Worth Zoo and Fly out at 7pm. I think I am going to visit Fossil Rim because of Attwater prairie chickens. There isn't anything at Caldwell Zoo I haven't seen so I would love to see a rarity. I have been to 66 Zoos and Aquariums so this trip will be really cool because there are a lot of animals I have never seen Ringtail, Raccoon Dogs, Attwater prairie chickens, and all the one off species they have at DWA.

 

[NSU42]

Any information would be greatly appreciated. I think I have my general itinerary mapped out. Day 1 fly in go to Dallas World Aquarium, Art museum and Nasher Sculpture center. Day 2 is Dallas Zoo and SEA LIFE Grapevine. Day 3 is Fossil Rim, Cameron Park Zoo and Baylor Bear Habitat. Day 4 is Oklahoma City Zoo. Day 5 is Fort Worth Zoo and Fly out at 7pm. I think I am going to visit Fossil Rim because of Attwater prairie chickens. There isn't anything at Caldwell Zoo I haven't seen so I would love to see a rarity. I have been to 66 Zoos and Aquariums so this trip will be really cool because there are a lot of animals I have never seen Ringtail, Raccoon Dogs, Attwater prairie chickens, and all the one off species they have at DWA.

I'll send you my itinerary via private message shortly, just so you can see the smaller places I combined with some of these. If you're on the hunt for rarities, Frank Buck Zoo in Gainesville, TX might be a good stop to see the Geoffroy's Cat. That zoo is an hour north of FW/Dallas and right on I35 so wouldn't be a huge detour on your way to or from OKC. Zoo took me probably around an hour to see in total.

 

[biggest_dreamer]

For DWA, I would recommend having a guide to follow along, such as this thread which I used: Dallas World Aquarium Species List- March 2024 [Dallas World Aquarium]

They really pack animals into every square inch of that facility, so it would be very easy to miss some of their rarest species since you would never expect a habitat to be where theirs are. Probably the biggest victims of this are the black-and-white hawk-eagle and red howlers. Honestly you probably want to bring binoculars for the hawk-eagle if you have any.

 

[zoosnbrews]

I didn't know about Frank Buck Zoo I used the AZA list as my guide. That could work, how long do you think Fort Worth Zoo would take to visit? I wouldn't mind going to the stockyard before my flight, but Zoos always come first.

 

[NSU42]

I want to say I spent around 5 hours at Fort Worth, but I also did multiple sections twice because I really enjoyed that zoo. I'm sending you my itinerary via private message now so you can take a look, but I did Frank Buck, SEA LIFE Grapevine, Fort Worth, and SeaQuest Fort Worth all in the same day. My sister started the at Dallas World Aquarium instead (I had already been during a layover in Dallas and she hadn't) and then did the rest of the day with me.

If you only looked at the AZA list, my itinerary likely has a lot of places you aren't aware of, so may be worth checking out to see what rarities the non-AZA places hold. That being said, if there are non-zoo related things you want to do while you are there, I would highly recommend doing them instead as none of those other places are really "must-see".

 

[zoosnbrews]

I leave for Dallas this Sunday! Final itinerary is Sunday Dallas World aquarium, Monday SEALIFE grapevine and Fort Worth Zoo. Tuesday is Caldwell Zoo then Cameron Park zoo and Baylor Bear Habitat. On Wednesday I will drive to Oklahoma City and visit the zoo the same day. Thursday drive back to Dallas visit the children's aquarium of Dallas and end the trip at Dallas Zoo before I fly back to Buffalo at 7. Going to be a busy trip but can't wait to see some new species and get out of the cold for a few days. I am hoping Caldwell Zoo's Amazon exhibit is open by the time I get there but at the very least I will get a decent look at its setup.

 

[zoosnbrews]

Weather this week in Dallas isn't Ideal so I changed the order of my visits. Today I visited Fort Worth Zoo. Fort Worth Zoo is an excellent facility with large well themed exhibits. Elephant Springs and predators of Asia and Africa flowed well together and was the highlight of the zoo for me, I loved watching the family herd of elephants playing together and the striped hyenas were active playing with bones. I struck out for the forth time trying to see a Ringtail. Hopefully tomorrow is the day I finally see one. MOLA is really an incredible building full of multiple species exhibits and the largest gharial pool I have ever seen. One question for anyone with Fort Worth Zoo Knowledge was the aviary in the world of Primates originally a habitat for a great ape or Monkey species? It seems to be designed like it held a primate at some point. Tomorrow Caldwell Zoo, Cameron Park zoo and Baylor Bear Habitat.

 

[King of Komodo Dragons]

Ye

Weather this week in Dallas isn't Ideal so I changed the order of my visits. Today I visited Fort Worth Zoo. Fort Worth Zoo is an excellent facility with large well themed exhibits. Elephant Springs and predators of Asia and Africa flowed well together and was the highlight of the zoo for me, I loved watching the family herd of elephants playing together and the striped hyenas were active playing with bones. I struck out for the forth time trying to see a Ringtail. Hopefully tomorrow is the day I finally see one. MOLA is really an incredible building full of multiple species exhibits and the largest gharial pool I have ever seen. One question for anyone with Fort Worth Zoo Knowledge was the aviary in the world of Primates originally a habitat for a great ape or Monkey species? It seems to be designed like it held a primate at some point. Tomorrow Caldwell Zoo, Cameron Park zoo and Baylor Bear Habitat.

Yes, at one point the indoor aviary in world of primates was a indoor habitat for the Western Lowland Gorilla. It was transitioned to being an African aviary sometimes.around 2015-2018 I can't remember exactly.

 

[zoosnbrews]

Day 2 was a lot of driving but well worth it. Caldwell Zoo is a wonderful small town zoo and I can't believe I almost didn't go to it as I was deciding between it and Fossil Rim. The theming was very well done and most of the exhibits are large and well stocked. I was shocked when I walked up to the white tailed deer, Bison, longhorn exhibit and a massive heard of deer was running all over the large exhibit, I counted at least 16 individuals. The rest of North America was very nice with a lot of active cats because it was only 40 degrees when I got there. Only thing I found odd was the random White Tiger exhibit at the end of the NA exhibits and the very small Black bear exhibit when they have so much room around it. Maybe when the Tigers eventually pass (they are 18+) they can move the black bears into the exhibit and find a better species like coyotes or foxes for the bear habitat. The African area was very impressive, huge exhibit for colobus Monkeys and Bongo. Caldwell Zoo did a nice job with mixed species exhibits and predator prey views. I loved that you could see the watering hole exhibit, giraffe feeding are and elephants all from the lion exhibit. Large herds of Kudu Impala Gnu and zebra were very active and the elephants were all playing, bumping each other from the feeder. The new Amazon area is still fenced off but is easy to see. It looks large and well done, the giant otter exhibit looks very nice and it should only help make this zoo a must visit if you're near it. Cameron Park zoo in Waco had very similar exhibits to Caldwell Zoo I enjoyed Caldwell Zoo more but this was still a nice zoo with a focus of Texas, Africa and a smaller Asian area. The Asian area was well done and the Orangutan exhibit was a very nice size with plenty of climbing structures. There is a large flock of black vultures that call the zoo home well over 100 all over the zoo which kind of surprised me that the Zoos bird collection was all out with avian flu currently high. The highlight of the zoo and the day was I finally saw a Ringtail! I have been to 60+ zoos and have seen 4 empty Ringtail exhibits so it was amazing to see a creature that has eluded me for years. I ended the day by seeing an empty bear exhibit at Baylor University. Today is Dallas zoo and Children's aquarium of Dallas trying to fit it in before the temperature drops below freezing for the next 2 days.

 

[biggest_dreamer]

Congrats on the ringtail! I think I visited 4 zoos that kept them during my Texas trip last summer (Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Cameron Park, Fort Worth) and only at Oklahoma City did I actually get a good look at one, and aside from that trip I’ve never even been to a zoo that has them. Did you get to see the gerenuk at Cameron Park? They were off exhibit during my visit, which was one of the trip’s biggest sore spots.

And yeah, I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if I saw more individual wild black vultures there on the day of my visit than individuals of every other species added together.

 

[zoosnbrews]

No Gerenuk, it is very cold for Texas currently so there was a lot of no shows, Of course I'd love to see all the animals but I really enjoy seeing the design of the habitats so even if it's a no show I just enjoyed seeing each Zoos design choices.

 

[Pastiche]

Day 2 was a lot of driving but well worth it. Caldwell Zoo is a wonderful small town zoo and I can't believe I almost didn't go to it as I was deciding between it and Fossil Rim. The theming was very well done and most of the exhibits are large and well stocked. I was shocked when I walked up to the white tailed deer, Bison, longhorn exhibit and a massive heard of deer was running all over the large exhibit, I counted at least 16 individuals. The rest of North America was very nice with a lot of active cats because it was only 40 degrees when I got there. Only thing I found odd was the random White Tiger exhibit at the end of the NA exhibits and the very small Black bear exhibit when they have so much room around it. Maybe when the Tigers eventually pass (they are 18+) they can move the black bears into the exhibit and find a better species like coyotes or foxes for the bear habitat. The African area was very impressive, huge exhibit for colobus Monkeys and Bongo. Caldwell Zoo did a nice job with mixed species exhibits and predator prey views. I loved that you could see the watering hole exhibit, giraffe feeding are and elephants all from the lion exhibit. Large herds of Kudu Impala Gnu and zebra were very active and the elephants were all playing, bumping each other from the feeder. The new Amazon area is still fenced off but is easy to see. It looks large and well done, the giant otter exhibit looks very nice and it should only help make this zoo a must visit if you're near it. Cameron Park zoo in Waco had very similar exhibits to Caldwell Zoo I enjoyed Caldwell Zoo more but this was still a nice zoo with a focus of Texas, Africa and a smaller Asian area. The Asian area was well done and the Orangutan exhibit was a very nice size with plenty of climbing structures. There is a large flock of black vultures that call the zoo home well over 100 all over the zoo which kind of surprised me that the Zoos bird collection was all out with avian flu currently high. The highlight of the zoo and the day was I finally saw a Ringtail! I have been to 60+ zoos and have seen 4 empty Ringtail exhibits so it was amazing to see a creature that has eluded me for years. I ended the day by seeing an empty bear exhibit at Baylor University. Today is Dallas zoo and Children's aquarium of Dallas trying to fit it in before the temperature drops below freezing for the next 2 days.

As someone who used to live in Tyler, I'm super happy to see someone pointing out Timber and Tylers exhibit (the Black Bears). I was super sad when I went to go and see them, I am a super big bear fan and when I go to zoos I immediately go to any bear exhibit they have. Unfortunately during the entire time we were there, they laid absently against their chainlink fence because they had nothing to do in the enclosure.

The Giant otters are gorgeous! I have some really nice aquatic videos of them and the penguins under the water. I definitely don't think the Black Bear should disqualify this zoo from a visit! Just wanted to point out I never really see anyone talking about them

 

[zoosnbrews]

Day 3 was Dallas Zoo, Children's aquarium of Dallas and SEALIFE Grapevine. Speaking to some people in town many said Dallas zoo wasn't that great but I had a much different view. I can understand the average person liking Fort Worth or Dallas World Aquarium better so maybe that's where that opinion came from. It was a colder morning around 35-40 so the animals that were out were very active. I enjoyed the primate/ Asian section in North section, nice spaces for the gibbons and langur. The tiger exhibit was long and spacious. I wish the Herpitarium was open but I can't control that. The African section of the zoo was well done with most exhibits have multiple viewing options. No Hippos but the exhibit was very nice. The Gorillas and the Elephants where the highlights for me. Both were active with large groups and spacious exhibits. I really enjoyed the Dallas zoo and liked the concept of mixing elephants with other species even if they don't do it anymore. The 2 aquariums were nothing special, Children's aquarium was small but did have some interactive things like a touch tank and stingrays for kids but I was there for probably 20 minutes or less. SEALIFE was your typical mall aquarium with many upsells for kids and a shark tunnel. I do always enjoy seeing a guitarfish so that was a plus. Day 4 is Dallas World Aquarium and I have already visited before this post and man was I Blown away.

 

[zoosnbrews]

Day 4 was Dallas World Aquarium, I was a little nervous that the Shoebill storks would be away because it was 18 degrees when I got to the aquarium and I knew they were outside but the had them covered and with heaters and they were out and one was standing right at the fence so I was a foot away. What am incredible animal and set the tone for the rest of the visit. The blue fairy penguins were active and swimming all over the exhibit. Once in the actual rainforest I was fully absorbed by it's beauty and expansive views. I knew from other posts and helpful hints given to me to look everywhere and use the guide as to not missing all the species and rarities. Some of the exhibits are on the small size but overall with all the lush plantings and multiple views this place is very impressive. I was able to most of the animals I wanted to see and took my time taking several trips threw the facility. The Manatee and shark tunnel only increases how amazing this place actually was. Dallas World Aquarium is definitely in my top 10 places I have visited and a great end to this trip. The Dallas Fort Worth area is very lucky to have so many great facilities. You can see all 4 great apes, Hippos both Elephants, 3 kinds of Rhinos plus all the local exhibits great reptile collections and some of the rarest birds in the world. Great trip over all now I need is to find more vegetables because man they love beef here. After this trip I am at 74 zoos/aquariums with a Tennessee trip planned for August.

 

[NSU42]

Speaking to some people in town many said Dallas zoo wasn't that great but I had a much different view. I can understand the average person liking Fort Worth or Dallas World Aquarium better so maybe that's where that opinion came from.

The problem/reason for this is that the general public doesn't have enough experience (ie zoo visits) to truly give a nuanced opinion on the matter. In terms of "major zoos/aquariums" visited, most of them have likely only been to the three facilities in the DFW area and not much else. Humans also very much have a need to rank/compare things so when comparing the Dallas Zoo vs. the Fort Worth Zoo one has to come out on top, and when you have only been to a couple of places, this leads to their being a "good" and "bad/not great" zoo.

This happens with the Minnesota Zoo and Como Park Zoo in the Twin Cities area as well, where people have the opportunity to visit two good zoos quite easily and then make judgements/comparisons of the two. A good chunk of locals view Como as the better zoo, even though it is much smaller than Minnesota and takes nowhere near the same amount of time to visit, because it has a lot more of the typical ABC animals people expect to see when they go to the zoo than Minnesota does. While, I never thought Como was the better zoo, I also never really understood why people on this site viewed Minnesota as a really good zoo either, but my visits allowed me to gain perspective on it and truly appreciate Minnesota for what it is.

Dallas and Fort Worth, I imagine, suffer the same type of comparison being so close together and both being major zoos likely exacerbates the situation as there is A LOT of overlap between their collections, which leads to even more direct comparison. As you've stated, I'm really not surprised the general public would deem Fort Worth as the better zoo and dismiss Dallas as being not that great, because Fort Worth does a much better job of drawing in and engaging the visitor with their theming.

Honestly, I think I'm in the minority on this sight as I believe Fort Worth is a better zoo of the two as well (I visited the two in 2022, so exhibit's like Fort Worth's new predator complex were not open yet). That being said, Dallas is still a top notch zoo, but I have a lot more experiences to compare it to and realize that.