Wild Adventures is a park that I have heard about since I was a kid, they opened the animal area with a few rides in 1997, about when I was 15. Since then they expanded greatly, adding a water park, more rides, and more animals. Recently they have been doing a lot of renovations and making the entire park nicer, as well as adding several animals over the "off" season this past year. The park is now owned by Hershend Family Entertainment, the same company that owns Dollywood and Silverdollar City.
The best way to describe Wild Adventures is "Busch Gardens Tampa lite". In that it has animals and thrill rides, but WA is probably more family centered than Busch, with only a couple of true "thrill" rollercoasters. Unlike Busch, Wild Adventures is not AZA accredited.
Herschend also owns Newport, Adventure, and Vancouver Aquariums, so they are familiar with AZA accreditation processes, it would seem that they are purposely not seeking AZA accreditation here.
Single day admission to both the water park and theme park is $59, an annual pass starts at $115. Parking is $12, but parking is included in the Gold ($145) and Diamond ($170) passes. You can find deals during the year for discounted passes. Gold and diamond passes also include a free guest ticket and free soda, so it may be a best value to get a gold or diamond pass for two adults. Diamond pass holders also get free food for the budgies, alligators, and goats. Our family got in with a discounted Diamond pass, free Pre-K pass, and a guest ticket. All in, entry for the three of us was about $125.
We were at the park from opening at 10AM until about 7:15PM. We saw almost everything and rode most of the kiddie rides, but we did not ride the rollercoasters. We also did the water park in that time.
I am not going to focus on the ride parts as this is a zoo forum. Suffice to say they were all in good repair and fun. We did not get to ride the Tasmanian River Rapids, but it looked fun.
Unfortunately the Wanyama Observation Deck and Botanical Gardens were closed all day for a private event. This is a new area that replaced an old roller-coaster and I was quite interested to see how they designed it.
This tour/review will be counter clockwise from the entrance.
Entering the park you pass through the typical entrance plaza with tickets, two gift shops, and other minor things. The only animals here are scarlet macaw.
Next you come upon the Alligator Alley area, this is a fair sized alligator enclosure with nice sized land area and pond. There is also a rope bridge over the pond and you can feed ($5 or free for Diamond pass) the alligators that black/brown alligator food.
The Liberty Farm petting zoo is in this area, it is a typical petting zoo with goats, sheep, rabbits, and the like.
Between the Boomerang roller-coaster and the safari train is the tiger habitat. I am not sure how many sq ft it is, but it was a good size. I believe they have 5 "Bengal" tigers, three orange, one cinnamon, and one white. There is a tiger "show" in a next door amphitheater that is pretty low key, the zoo's vet does a 15-20 minute show with the tigers individually or in a pair.
Following the tigers one comes to the Safari Train. Unfortunately when they built the Wanyama Overlook they also truncated the train to about half the ride it used to be. The entire ride takes about 5 minutes and takes you around various yards for Asian, South American and African hoofstock, rhino, and flamingo. The train was a lot of fun, it does not enter the paddocks, but circles outside of them.
Species I saw:
Aviary:
Flamingo
Scarlet Ibis
Black swan
South American Yard:
Alpaca
Capybara
Black swan
Asian Yard:
Blackbuck
Waterbuffalo
Fallow deer
Giraffe Yard:
"Reticulated" giraffe (2)
African Yard #1:
Plains zebra
Ostrich
White tailed Gnu
Scimitar horned oryx
African Yard #2:
Scimitar horned oryx
Gemsbok
African Yard #3:
Empty
Indian Rhino Yard:
Indian rhinoceros
After the train there is the Giraffe Overlook, this area contains habitats for serval, red-ruffed lemur, a small aviary (golden pheasant, green turaco, bleeding-heart dove), and overlooks for giraffe, wallaby, and the South American yard.
Right outside of the Giraffe overlook is the enclosure for African lions, a male and female. It's an average enclosure, not great but not the worst that I have seen.
Next would be the Wanyama Overlook and Botanical Garden, but as mentioned it was closed for a private event. I think that the Wanyama area overlooks the same Asian yard as you see from the train, but I am not 100% sure about that.
The park's newest area is Oasis Outpost, this area contains enclosures for African crested porcupines, prairie dogs, spider monkey, sulcata and leopard tortoises, caracal, meercats, and southern tamandua. The nicest enclosures were the tortoises and caracal, meercat were average to nice. The spider monkey are adequate now as they are still very young animals, but it will be small when they grow. The most unique part is a kiddie ride where one rides in small safari jeep/cars around enclosures for the sulcata and leopard tortoises.
The last major animal area is the Alapaha Trail, the seems to be the oldest area and consists of a trail and boardwalk through swampy area with enclosures for:
Outside of the main "trail" are enclosures for fennec fox, raccoon, ring-tailed lemur, coati, sloth, and a large aviary with budgies and turaco. The aviary is pretty impressive in size for these birds. The rest of the enclosures here are adequate, but not great. Generally they are wood and wire enclosures.
Lastly there are keel-billed toucan and blue and gold macaw in the Splash Island water park area.
The most "interesting" animals were that they had caracal, Indian rhino, as well as both Indian and African crested porcupines. Surprising they did not have any "huge" constrictor snakes, venomous snakes, or otters as all of those are pretty ubiquitous in the non-AZA sector.
Overall this place was a lot of fun. I am not sure I would go super out of the way to go, but if you find yourself driving through the area it is a nice stop. It's a few hours north of me, so it makes a fun weekend away.
The best way to describe Wild Adventures is "Busch Gardens Tampa lite". In that it has animals and thrill rides, but WA is probably more family centered than Busch, with only a couple of true "thrill" rollercoasters. Unlike Busch, Wild Adventures is not AZA accredited.
Herschend also owns Newport, Adventure, and Vancouver Aquariums, so they are familiar with AZA accreditation processes, it would seem that they are purposely not seeking AZA accreditation here.
Single day admission to both the water park and theme park is $59, an annual pass starts at $115. Parking is $12, but parking is included in the Gold ($145) and Diamond ($170) passes. You can find deals during the year for discounted passes. Gold and diamond passes also include a free guest ticket and free soda, so it may be a best value to get a gold or diamond pass for two adults. Diamond pass holders also get free food for the budgies, alligators, and goats. Our family got in with a discounted Diamond pass, free Pre-K pass, and a guest ticket. All in, entry for the three of us was about $125.
We were at the park from opening at 10AM until about 7:15PM. We saw almost everything and rode most of the kiddie rides, but we did not ride the rollercoasters. We also did the water park in that time.
I am not going to focus on the ride parts as this is a zoo forum. Suffice to say they were all in good repair and fun. We did not get to ride the Tasmanian River Rapids, but it looked fun.
Unfortunately the Wanyama Observation Deck and Botanical Gardens were closed all day for a private event. This is a new area that replaced an old roller-coaster and I was quite interested to see how they designed it.
This tour/review will be counter clockwise from the entrance.
Entering the park you pass through the typical entrance plaza with tickets, two gift shops, and other minor things. The only animals here are scarlet macaw.
Next you come upon the Alligator Alley area, this is a fair sized alligator enclosure with nice sized land area and pond. There is also a rope bridge over the pond and you can feed ($5 or free for Diamond pass) the alligators that black/brown alligator food.
The Liberty Farm petting zoo is in this area, it is a typical petting zoo with goats, sheep, rabbits, and the like.
Between the Boomerang roller-coaster and the safari train is the tiger habitat. I am not sure how many sq ft it is, but it was a good size. I believe they have 5 "Bengal" tigers, three orange, one cinnamon, and one white. There is a tiger "show" in a next door amphitheater that is pretty low key, the zoo's vet does a 15-20 minute show with the tigers individually or in a pair.
Following the tigers one comes to the Safari Train. Unfortunately when they built the Wanyama Overlook they also truncated the train to about half the ride it used to be. The entire ride takes about 5 minutes and takes you around various yards for Asian, South American and African hoofstock, rhino, and flamingo. The train was a lot of fun, it does not enter the paddocks, but circles outside of them.
Species I saw:
Aviary:
Flamingo
Scarlet Ibis
Black swan
South American Yard:
Alpaca
Capybara
Black swan
Asian Yard:
Blackbuck
Waterbuffalo
Fallow deer
Giraffe Yard:
"Reticulated" giraffe (2)
African Yard #1:
Plains zebra
Ostrich
White tailed Gnu
Scimitar horned oryx
African Yard #2:
Scimitar horned oryx
Gemsbok
African Yard #3:
Empty
Indian Rhino Yard:
Indian rhinoceros
After the train there is the Giraffe Overlook, this area contains habitats for serval, red-ruffed lemur, a small aviary (golden pheasant, green turaco, bleeding-heart dove), and overlooks for giraffe, wallaby, and the South American yard.
Right outside of the Giraffe overlook is the enclosure for African lions, a male and female. It's an average enclosure, not great but not the worst that I have seen.
Next would be the Wanyama Overlook and Botanical Garden, but as mentioned it was closed for a private event. I think that the Wanyama area overlooks the same Asian yard as you see from the train, but I am not 100% sure about that.
The park's newest area is Oasis Outpost, this area contains enclosures for African crested porcupines, prairie dogs, spider monkey, sulcata and leopard tortoises, caracal, meercats, and southern tamandua. The nicest enclosures were the tortoises and caracal, meercat were average to nice. The spider monkey are adequate now as they are still very young animals, but it will be small when they grow. The most unique part is a kiddie ride where one rides in small safari jeep/cars around enclosures for the sulcata and leopard tortoises.
The last major animal area is the Alapaha Trail, the seems to be the oldest area and consists of a trail and boardwalk through swampy area with enclosures for:
- Skunk
- Kookaburra
- Burrowing parrot
- American alligator
- African grey parrot
- Diamond dove
- Sandhill crane
- Boar
- Alligator and common snapping turtle
- Indian Crested porcupine
- Black bear
- Snakes
- Red-footed tortoises
- Green monkey
- Red-tailed hawk
- Military macaw
- Fallow deer
Outside of the main "trail" are enclosures for fennec fox, raccoon, ring-tailed lemur, coati, sloth, and a large aviary with budgies and turaco. The aviary is pretty impressive in size for these birds. The rest of the enclosures here are adequate, but not great. Generally they are wood and wire enclosures.
Lastly there are keel-billed toucan and blue and gold macaw in the Splash Island water park area.
The most "interesting" animals were that they had caracal, Indian rhino, as well as both Indian and African crested porcupines. Surprising they did not have any "huge" constrictor snakes, venomous snakes, or otters as all of those are pretty ubiquitous in the non-AZA sector.
Overall this place was a lot of fun. I am not sure I would go super out of the way to go, but if you find yourself driving through the area it is a nice stop. It's a few hours north of me, so it makes a fun weekend away.
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