Florida Zoo Visit

T

TeamTapir223

Well-Known Member
I am helping a friend move down to Melbourne Florida Oct 27-30 and am hoping to visit at least one animal attraction.Here are my options

1.Sea World Orlando- 45 minutes away (I grew up with fond memories of Sea World of Ohio) but cost 55 dollars.

2.Disney Animal Kingdom-45 minutes away,another expensive choice but would love to see both its Gorilla and Hippo exhibits.

3.Jacksonville Zoo- 3 hrs away but only 8 dollar reciprocal admission and seems like a great zoo to visit.

Keep in mind I've never been to any of these zoos.What are some your thougts ?Any help would be greatly appreciated.By the way my buddy and his wife have no interest in zoos so I am going to be renting a car and venturing out on my own on wenesday oct 29 for this!

Marty of Team Tapir223
 
If you can live with the longer journey, I'd say Jacksonville every time. The others are good at what they do, but are not really my style, and you'll see a much greater diversity at Jacksonville (including tapirs ;) ).

If you're in Melbourne, cry off for a couple of hours and have a look at Brevard as well. It's only small but a very nice place (and also has tapirs ;) ).

:)
 
Personal choice is the key factor here. Many zoo nerds are not big fans of SeaWorld and I am no exception. All the SeaWorlds are glitzy, expensive and filled with mainly mediocre animal habitats. Disney's Animal Kingdom I'm also not a huge fan of as it is enormously expensive and the safari ride whips past animals in a blur. Having said that, most of the animal exhibits are exemplary. You might as well visit DAK as I'm not sure when you'll be back in Orlando and seeing DAK at least once is well worth it. I think that Jacksonville is a top 20 zoo in the United States and the new Asian zone seems to be earning high praise. It would be my own choice, but at 3 hours away it might not be the sensible thing to do. Go with Disney just to see what all the fuss is about, but don't forget to see all the hoofstock at the Lodge as well!
 
Of course, if I had the chance to do one zoo (and one only) in Florida with free choice, there would be only one option for me - it would start with 'M' and end in 'iami'. One-and-a-bit days was not enough for me there.
 
There are a lot of great zoos in Florida and I pity you for having only one day and having to pick one.

Brevard Zoo is in the city you are visiting (Melbourne), but when I visited it in 2001 I did not care for it myself. I also do not like DAK for the reasons Snow Leopard mentioned (plus a bad run-in with a senior staff member), but I appear to be in the minority as everyone else on ZooChat thinks DAK is great. Jacksonville I have not been to but would like to - it seems very nice.

This is probably of no help whatsoever, but here is a list of the Florida zoos that I have personally visited in order from my favorite (top) to least liked (bottom).

Zoo Miami
Lowry Park Zoo
Busch Gardens
Palm Beach Zoo
Florida Aquarium
Disney Animal Kingdom
Brevard Zoo
Flamingo Gardens
Central Florida Zoo
Naples Zoo (aka Caribbean Gardens)
The cat rescue place in Tampa that I will not name

(The last used to be near the top of my list. That was before the owner went berserk and decided there should be no zoos anywhere in the United States and started a campaign of outright lies to spread her agenda. I refuse to list them by name because they are internet and media gluttons who scour the web and I don't want them hijacking this thread).
 
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