This report is part of a series from a trip to the Bay area that I took this month. In addition to Happy Hollow I will be posting reports on Monterey Bay, CuriOdyssey, Aquarium of the Bay, and the California Academy of Sciences.
Happy Hollow Park and Zoo is a small AZA zoo and kids amusement park in San Jose California. The zoo is part of a larger children's park with various playgrounds and kiddie rides. I won't review the kids rids and playgrounds as this is a zoo forum, but suffice to say this has to be one of the cleanest and well kept city amusement parks I have ever seen.
As per the rest of the trip, I visited Happy Hollow with my wife and son. Entry is $18 for everyone age 2 and over, but there is a 50% AZA reciprocal discount. The admission includes all of the rides as well as the animals, so it is not a bad deal if you have kids.
However, much like CuriOdyssey, if you don't have small kids wishing to do the rides I think that $18 is a bit expensive for the common animals held. With the AZA discount you might consider it if you have spare time and want to check another zoo off of your list.
Parking is supposed to be something like $5 or $10, but they didn't ask and I didn't pay for it....there are not ticket booths to pay, you pay at the gate, so I am not sure how they enforce that at all. I did not realize we were supposed to pay for parking until I was leaving and saw it on the ticket prices sign.
The zoo part would take someone around an hour to tour, maybe less if you are not too slow. It is honestly a very compact part of the zoo, it may take you longer to walk from the parking to the animals than through the animals, most likely.
We walked the zoo parts in about 30-45 minutes and I went back to take a few more pictures for around 10 more minutes. It is just not a big place.
The zoo section is well designed with mostly sized mammals being the main show. They had a few reptiles as well, but no real reptile display or house (which is frankly a little strange as kids oriented zoos often have lots of herps). The weakest habitat is probably the sulcata tortoise yard, but even that is not terrible.
The zoo is divided into "Zoo on the Hill" and "Zoo in the Hollow", but logically they are really one area with a carousel separating them.
Zoo On the Hill is the newer section, I gather, but all that is here is a giant anteater, petting zoo, and red ruffed lemurs. There is one nice habitat for the anteater and two well done habitats for the lemurs. There were two goats when we were there, but they have since (this past weekend) retired them. They will be replacing them with younger animals soon.
Giant anteater
Red ruffed lemur
Guinea pigs
Goats (all gone now)
Zoo in the Hollow is the older section, but it is just as well done. This part of the facility holds most of the animals. The quality of all of the habitats is well done, as you would hope from an AZA zoo. Below is a species list from everything that I saw in this section:
Capybara
Red and white ruffed lemur
Jaguar
Fossa
American alligator
Meerkat
Wallaby
Turkey vulture (not out)
Macaws (not out)
Sulcata tortoise
Chacoan peccary
Red Panda
Ring tailed lemur
Fennec Fox
Overall this is a nice little zoo, I am glad that we spent some time here and we had fun. I am not sure that I would go back should I find myself in the are again, but it is possible. That said, between the titans of SF Zoo and Oakland Zoo, this is a very small place, but it is not aiming to compete with them. It fulfills its goal of being a nice place for kids and their parents to spend some time.
Giant anteater habitat:
Red ruffed lemur habitat:
American Alligator:
Sulcata tortoise yard:
Capybara:
Happy Hollow Park and Zoo is a small AZA zoo and kids amusement park in San Jose California. The zoo is part of a larger children's park with various playgrounds and kiddie rides. I won't review the kids rids and playgrounds as this is a zoo forum, but suffice to say this has to be one of the cleanest and well kept city amusement parks I have ever seen.
As per the rest of the trip, I visited Happy Hollow with my wife and son. Entry is $18 for everyone age 2 and over, but there is a 50% AZA reciprocal discount. The admission includes all of the rides as well as the animals, so it is not a bad deal if you have kids.
However, much like CuriOdyssey, if you don't have small kids wishing to do the rides I think that $18 is a bit expensive for the common animals held. With the AZA discount you might consider it if you have spare time and want to check another zoo off of your list.
Parking is supposed to be something like $5 or $10, but they didn't ask and I didn't pay for it....there are not ticket booths to pay, you pay at the gate, so I am not sure how they enforce that at all. I did not realize we were supposed to pay for parking until I was leaving and saw it on the ticket prices sign.
The zoo part would take someone around an hour to tour, maybe less if you are not too slow. It is honestly a very compact part of the zoo, it may take you longer to walk from the parking to the animals than through the animals, most likely.
We walked the zoo parts in about 30-45 minutes and I went back to take a few more pictures for around 10 more minutes. It is just not a big place.
The zoo section is well designed with mostly sized mammals being the main show. They had a few reptiles as well, but no real reptile display or house (which is frankly a little strange as kids oriented zoos often have lots of herps). The weakest habitat is probably the sulcata tortoise yard, but even that is not terrible.
The zoo is divided into "Zoo on the Hill" and "Zoo in the Hollow", but logically they are really one area with a carousel separating them.
Zoo On the Hill is the newer section, I gather, but all that is here is a giant anteater, petting zoo, and red ruffed lemurs. There is one nice habitat for the anteater and two well done habitats for the lemurs. There were two goats when we were there, but they have since (this past weekend) retired them. They will be replacing them with younger animals soon.
Giant anteater
Red ruffed lemur
Guinea pigs
Goats (all gone now)
Zoo in the Hollow is the older section, but it is just as well done. This part of the facility holds most of the animals. The quality of all of the habitats is well done, as you would hope from an AZA zoo. Below is a species list from everything that I saw in this section:
Capybara
Red and white ruffed lemur
Jaguar
Fossa
American alligator
Meerkat
Wallaby
Turkey vulture (not out)
Macaws (not out)
Sulcata tortoise
Chacoan peccary
Red Panda
Ring tailed lemur
Fennec Fox
Overall this is a nice little zoo, I am glad that we spent some time here and we had fun. I am not sure that I would go back should I find myself in the are again, but it is possible. That said, between the titans of SF Zoo and Oakland Zoo, this is a very small place, but it is not aiming to compete with them. It fulfills its goal of being a nice place for kids and their parents to spend some time.
Giant anteater habitat:
Red ruffed lemur habitat:
American Alligator:
Sulcata tortoise yard:
Capybara:
