Swampdonkey's January 2024 Arizona Trip (Wildlife World, Phoenix Zoo, OdySea)

SwampDonkey

SwampDonkey

In the Swamp
Premium Member
5+ year member
I just returned from my annual trip to Phoenix Arizona and the zoo Mecca that it is becoming. I had grand plans to visit Phoenix Zoo, Wildlife World Zoo, OdySea, Butterfly Wonderland, and the new Rattlesnake Zoo at Rattlesnake Ready. However, due to circumstances we ended up cutting out Butterfly Wonderland (time), and Rattlesnake Ready (most hibernating).

Disappointingly this meant that I did not get any "new" facilities this time around, but I will be back, so it is not like I will not get another chance. I was in contact with Rattlesnake Ready about a private tour, but he was forthcoming that many of the snakes would be off exhibit this time of year. Such as it is I will save that for when I go to Arizona in the spring or summer at some point.

I will make a separate post for each place that I visited, in order that I visited.

So, without further ado, let's get to it!
 
Wildlife World Zoo, Aquarium & Safari Park

I first/last visited Wildlife World back in October 2022, so a little over a year ago. You can read that trip report here: LINK. Just to recap, WWZ is a bit of a controversial zoo to many people on ZC, but it is solidly in my personal top 3 with San Diego and Columbus topping the list. It is hard to beat the sheer number of animals, amount of different species, and size of WWZ. This place is very large, about 215 acres consisting of a more traditional zoo and a reasonably large aquarium.

It is worth remembering that this is a private zoo, not a publicly funded institution.

Areas if the park:
Safari Park: The "Safari Park" is essentially a traditional zoo setting with larger herbivore yards along with lions, white rhino, pygmy hippo, and a variety of small cats, primates and birds. Generally this is the best area of the zoo.

Aquarium: 4 buildings: Diversity of Life in Water, Predators, The Wild and the Wonderful, River Monsters. The aquarium is broadly done well, there are some complaints, but overall it is a solid aquarium, especially a private zoo aquarium.

Adventureland: Mostly North and South American animals including three indoor houses and a massive capybara and rhea yard.

Original Zoo: Varying from nice to pretty bad. Over time they are replacing and upgrading, so it is in a state of flux. Tiger, reptile house, the kangaroo walkabout and many other animals are here.

I wanted to focus on areas I missed, things that changed, and seeing animals I missed last time. We arrived about 9:15AM and stayed until 4:30. This time we skipped the kangaroos, the train ride, sealion show, and the section of enclosures from the screamers to the tiger (red lechwe, cassowary, axis, etc.). Since I saw those last time I did not feel compelled to rush through them this time when we were already short on time.

Noticed (or lack of) changes since my last visit:

Original Zoo:
  • The reptile house is fully occupied.
  • South American tapir calf is in the nursery.
  • Arabian oryx calves (3)
  • Giant anteater have replaced the cranes in the yard between the patas monkey and wallabies.
  • South American tapir moved to skyride entrance and replaced by screamer, the enclosure is quite nice now.

  • The new tiger exhibit is STILL under construction. What looked like one larger habitat appears to actually be two now as there looks like fencing being installed down the middle. The walls are partially up and they are nearly there. It will probably be another year of work unless things speed up, however.
    [URL='https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/new-construction-tiger-habitats.701152/full']
Adventureland:
  • Iguana exhibit is still under construction with no noticeable changes.

Aquarium:
  • Penguins now have a lighter blue pool color (the paint).
  • Cold water touch tank is open. There will be two side by side, one has not been finished.


  • The second largest in the River Monsters building that held nurse sharks, horned sharks, and barracuda now holds blacktip reef sharks and other fish.
Safari Park:
  • Giraffe calf on exhibit.

  • White rhino calf on exhibit with the crash.

  • Aviary still "under construction" with no progress since last year.

I am not going to do a full in-depth review here, I did that last year and my thoughts largely remain the same. It is honestly very refreshing to go somewhere that has so many species, and some that are rare or harder to find in AZA zoos these days. There is a lot of room for improvement, but I love this place.

I am disappointed to see that the new tiger exhibit is likely going to be split into two enclosures, it was going to be an upgrade, but now I am not so sure. It will look nicer, but I am not sure it will be much better for the tigers than what they have now. Their exhibits now are not terrible by any means, but they could be better. They did a major upgrade for the lions in the Safari park, so I was hopeful for something similar here.

We did the Safari Tram tour instead of the train this time. Honestly, I would not do the tram again, it essentially takes you to the same areas you can see on foot. If you were not going to walk then it may be worth it, but then you would miss a lot of the area. Between the two I would pick the train as it takes you to parts of the park you can't see easily from foot.

In conclusion, I would recommend WWZ to anyone in the Phoenix area. Between here and Phoenix Zoo I would pick WWZ. Phoenix Zoo is nice, but it offers a rather standard AZA experience, which of course means it is well done, but also rather homogenous to other AZA zoos. Further, WWZ is a full day zoo, whereas PZ is about a 1/2 day zoo - which depending on your time may be something to consider. Also, WWZ is on the far West part of the metro while PZ is near downtown and fairly central.




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Glad to see another trip report, @SwampDonkey. If I end up getting to Arizona this year I'll need to give WWZ a shot just for that wide array of species. Here's to hoping you have another productive zoo-year in 2024!
 
SusScrofa said:
Glad to see another trip report, @SwampDonkey. If I end up getting to Arizona this year I'll need to give WWZ a shot just for that wide array of species.
Click to expand...
It's worth the effort, IMO. Phoenix as a city really offers a lot for a zoo fan.
Here's to hoping you have another productive zoo-year in 2024!
Click to expand...
You too! I have a pretty good lineup with some new places, but hopefully some business travel puts me in some oddball cities.
 
Day 2: Phoenix Zoo

I have been to this zoo a number of times, the first being in 2015 for their Zoolights Christmas event. That visit hardly counted as I think the only animals I saw were the giraffes. Since then I have made several proper visits. My wife's family lives in Phoenix, so we make it out there at least once a year.

The rest of the review I am going to use "PHZ" for the Phoenix Zoo so I don't have to keep writing it out.

The primary purpose of this visit, outside of a general tour of the zoo, was to see the new Predator Passage area. I had seen it while it was under construction in October 2022 and my impressions were not great, so I was highly anticipating seeing it in the finished state.

PHZ is a good, if typical, AZA city zoo. All of the exhibits are done well, with the Arizona Trail being the shining star IMO. The rest of the zoo is "fine", but nothing spectacular. The species list is standard with Mexican red brocket deer, Visayan warty pigs, desert pupfish, California condor, Chinese alligator, spectacled bear, and a good rattlesnake collection being the standouts for me. Fortunately all of these were out to see with the exception of the warty pigs which were not out.

Desert pupfish pond (African Trail):
full


Mexican Red Brocket Deer (Children's Trail):
full


California Condor (Arizona Trail:
full



Some things that I noticed that had changed since October 2022:
  • Bald eagles are now in the former golden eagle enclosure in Arizona Trail.
    full


  • Golden eagles are in the former porcupine enclosure in Arizona Trail.
    full


  • Abyssinian ground hornbill occupy the former African lion habitat in African Trail.
    full
  • Predator Passage is open.

OK, let's get to the main event: Predator Passage. It's......ok. Honestly, it is nothing to really go out of your way for, but it is a decent area for leopards, lions, vultures, leopard tortoise, meercat, fennec fox, and spotted hyena.

The main lion habitat is larger than the old lion habitat, but I am not entirely sure it is really much of an upgrade. At this point it is far more open and not a lot of places to hide, in comparison to the old lion enclosure (now hornbill). The leopard habitat is fine, but rather unremarkable. The vultures have the nicest habitat, IMO, but it is not netted so they are all almost certainly pinioned. I would have preferred they netted it so they could move away from that eventually. They could net it in the future, I suppose. The vultures can be viewed at ground level and from above, which is nice.

The spotted hyena enclosure also rotates with lions, personally I think it is a nicer looking enclosure than the main lion habitat.

Overall I would rate this new area a B or C depending on the enclosure. It really is just "fine", but I would have hoped that an AZA zoo in a metro that is very large and expanding would have done better. This is a similar complaint I have with ZooTampa's renovation of the Florida area, it just feels like it was done on the cheap. If this were Wildlife World I would have said that it is fantastic, but the resources that a zoo like PHZ can leverage in comparison to a private zoo should enable better than this.

Spotted Hyena:
full


Leopard:
full

full


Vultures:
full

full


Lion:
full

full


PHZ is a zoo that takes me about 1/2 day to see everything. It's design is a bit frustrating as you must backtrack a couple of times to see it all, in particular over in the Tropics Trail and Children's Trail. Don't skip the Children's Trail as that is where some of the more interesting species are kept. It can make a good combined day visit with OdySea if you wanted to make a long zoo day out of it.
 
Day 3: Arizona Museum of Natural History (Mesa AZ)
While not a zoo, this is a really nice little museum. They had great dioramas on dinosaurs, astronomy, as well as cultural displays of Mesoamerica, volcanoes, rocks and minerals, real meteors, the gold mining history and a small original jail cell. They also had a gold panning area where you can pan for real gold nuggets (very small...) for no additional cost to the entry. There were two tanks with animals, one with softshell turtles and another with some small fish that I can't remember what they were.
 
Day 4: OdySea Aquarium (Scottsdale AZ)

This was my third trip to OdySea, the first visit was in December 2016 after they had recently opened, the second was in January 2022. The aquarium has really matured since they opened in 2016. At that time it was nice, but it was a bit sterile feeling. Since then they have added more animals and adjusted the displays. They recently opened the Indo-Pacific Reef tank, which is an improvement over the generic "coral reef" tank that it replaced.

This is a pretty large aquarium, we arrived at opening at 9AM and stayed about 2.5 hours.

One unique feature at OdySea is that you immediately take a escalator to the second floor and then later descend another escalator through a acrylic tunnel; but the escalators throughout the facility were closed for maintenance. That was not a big deal overall, but it was disappointing to not go through the tunnel.

First area (un-named gallery):
The first area is not really themed or anything, but this is where you find nice tanks for paddlefish, turtles, culvers dwarf caiman (6 of them), and a sturgeon touch tank. The touch tank is pretty unique and a lot of fun, they have 3 sturgeon that are about 42 inches long. This area also holds some rather un-inspired exhibits for green winged macaw, two toed sloths, toco toucan, electric eel, piranha, Asian small clawed otters, and Asian water monitor.

Past those tanks is a large open area with touch pools for stingrays and cold water tide pools. Adjacent to this is the Penguin Point which is a fairly standard indoor African penguin exhibit. It has a pop-up in the enclosure that you can climb into, which is nice.

full

full

full

full

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full


After the penguins is where you would usually take the escalator down to level one through the Open Ocean tank, but this was closed so we had to take the stairs.

The Open Ocean tank has various fish, honestly I did not really stop long there this time. Adjacent are large tanks for California and Pacific fish such as rockfish, spiny lobsters, etc. There is also a nice pop-up in one of the California tanks. Also this is where there are tanks for several jellyfish species such as sea nettles, spotted lagoon, and moon.

Leaving that area takes you into the Great Barrier Reef tank/tunnel. The tunnel leads to the Reef area where there are two large tanks, one Caribbean Reef and one Indo-Pacific Reef. The Indo-Pacific tank is new, it was previously a generic "reef" tank.

full

full

full

full

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full



Ocean Voyager:
The Ocean Voyager "ride" takes about 20 minutes. Essentially you sit in a movie theater style chair and it rotates the entire seating area around 4 different large tanks. The tanks are divided between sharks, sealions, groupers, and sea turtles. Unfortunately only the sharks tank is visible outside of the ride. Fortunately that is the tank with the most interesting animals (to me) which includes sand tiger, lemon, and sandbar sharks along with crevalle jack and other fish. The "Sea turtle" tank has 2 kemps ridley turtles, crevalle jack, a blacktip reef shark, and a school of 10 large tarpon. The Grouper tank also holds green sea turtle, Queensland and giant grouper (2 of each), bat rays, southern stingrays, and guitar fish. The remaining tank is the sealion tank which had three sealions.
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In conclusion, OdySea is a really nice medium-large size aquarium. There is nothing particularly special about the species collection, but it is a pretty complete one. If I were them I would cut out the birds and sloths, the exhibits are sub-standard and just not needed, they feel very out of place. OdySea has steadily improved since opening and looks to have a bright future in the city.
 
SwampDonkey said:
Day 2: Phoenix Zoo

I have been to this zoo a number of times, the first being in 2015 for their Zoolights Christmas event. That visit hardly counted as I think the only animals I saw were the giraffes. Since then I have made several proper visits. My wife's family lives in Phoenix, so we make it out there at least once a year.

The rest of the review I am going to use "PHZ" for the Phoenix Zoo so I don't have to keep writing it out.

The primary purpose of this visit, outside of a general tour of the zoo, was to see the new Predator Passage area. I had seen it while it was under construction in October 2022 and my impressions were not great, so I was highly anticipating seeing it in the finished state.

PHZ is a good, if typical, AZA city zoo. All of the exhibits are done well, with the Arizona Trail being the shining star IMO. The rest of the zoo is "fine", but nothing spectacular. The species list is standard with Mexican red brocket deer, Visayan warty pigs, desert pupfish, California condor, Chinese alligator, spectacled bear, and a good rattlesnake collection being the standouts for me. Fortunately all of these were out to see with the exception of the warty pigs which were not out.

Desert pupfish pond (African Trail):
full


Mexican Red Brocket Deer (Children's Trail):
full


California Condor (Arizona Trail:
full



Some things that I noticed that had changed since October 2022:
  • Bald eagles are now in the former golden eagle enclosure in Arizona Trail.
    full


  • Golden eagles are in the former porcupine enclosure in Arizona Trail.
    full


  • Abyssinian ground hornbill occupy the former African lion habitat in African Trail.
    full
  • Predator Passage is open.

OK, let's get to the main event: Predator Passage. It's......ok. Honestly, it is nothing to really go out of your way for, but it is a decent area for leopards, lions, vultures, leopard tortoise, meercat, fennec fox, and spotted hyena.

The main lion habitat is larger than the old lion habitat, but I am not entirely sure it is really much of an upgrade. At this point it is far more open and not a lot of places to hide, in comparison to the old lion enclosure (now hornbill). The leopard habitat is fine, but rather unremarkable. The vultures have the nicest habitat, IMO, but it is not netted so they are all almost certainly pinioned. I would have preferred they netted it so they could move away from that eventually. They could net it in the future, I suppose. The vultures can be viewed at ground level and from above, which is nice.

The spotted hyena enclosure also rotates with lions, personally I think it is a nicer looking enclosure than the main lion habitat.

Overall I would rate this new area a B or C depending on the enclosure. It really is just "fine", but I would have hoped that an AZA zoo in a metro that is very large and expanding would have done better. This is a similar complaint I have with ZooTampa's renovation of the Florida area, it just feels like it was done on the cheap. If this were Wildlife World I would have said that it is fantastic, but the resources that a zoo like PHZ can leverage in comparison to a private zoo should enable better than this.

Spotted Hyena:
full


Leopard:
full

full


Vultures:
full

full


Lion:
full

full


PHZ is a zoo that takes me about 1/2 day to see everything. It's design is a bit frustrating as you must backtrack a couple of times to see it all, in particular over in the Tropics Trail and Children's Trail. Don't skip the Children's Trail as that is where some of the more interesting species are kept. It can make a good combined day visit with OdySea if you wanted to make a long zoo day out of it.
Click to expand...

Is there no underwater viewing for the desert pupfish?
 
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