My boyfriend and I decided to take a trip to Paignton zoo at the weekend and I must say that I'm glad we did.
First I'll tell you the 'need to know' information.
Opening times: The zoo is actually open all year round except for christmas day. The Zoo opens to the public at 10:00am everyday, in summer it closes at 6pm and in Winter it closes at 5pm (or earlier depending on how quickly it gets dark)
Prices: It costs £8.25 for an adult It costs £6.00 for a child It costs £6.75 for students and senior citizens and it costs £25.75 for a family (2 adults and 2 children)
If you go as a group of 15 or more people, you get a discount and the prices are, Adults £6.75, Children (3 - 15 years) £4.95, Children under 3, free Students and senior citizens £5.50
The zoo has recently brought in the hire of electric wheelchairs and scooters for disabled visitors, it costs £5.00 to hire each and they also require a £20 returnable deposit. When yopu arrive at the zoo, a member of staff will show you how to use the scooters and wheelchairs and you will be asked to sign a disclaimer.
There is a restaurant in the zoo although I would recommend taking lunch or buying it from one of the many burgervans in the zoo as the restaurant prices are very high. If you take your own lunch, there are plenty of benches to sit on and an area of the zoo has picnic tables which will seat 100 people.
There are 5 sets of toilets in the zoo so you don't need to worry and there is also a first aid station in the middle of the zoo.
There are hundreds of animals in the zoo, too many to list here but I will name some of the ones I can remember to give you an idea of what to look forward to if you decide to visit.
There are 3 American Bison in the Zoo, 2 adults and one baby and you can find them in the savannah habitat area. It was lovely watching them grazing and even though they're huge and powerful, they look very sweet!
They have Zebras in the Zoo, I'm not sure how many because I only saw one and it was quite far away from the fence.
They have 3 Red Pandas, these often hide in the trees but I was lucky enough to see all 3 and take some lovely pictures.
We went to the elephant and Giraffe house and saw the baby Giraffe being bottle fed - that was pretty amazing to watch and there's 2 elephants.
There are 4 Lowland Gorillas, these are extremely powerful creatures and it was great to watch how playful they were with each other.
I saw my favourite animals which are cheetahs, apparently there are 4 but we only saw 2 - it was really nice because they were right near the glass window.
There's a male lion and a female lion, the male was really noisy but the female was asleep!
We wanted to see the Tiger but when we went past its enclosure, it was nowhere to be seen.
3 animals I've seen in the Zoo before but couldn't find this time were the kangaroos, tapirs and wolves. I know they still have them but we didn't botherr buying a zoo map because it's more exciting trying to find your own way around the zoo!!
There are also many kinds of birds and monkeys to be seen in the zoo and you can get on a little train (for 50p)b which takes you on a 5 minute tour of the zoo.
I hope this has helped and if you have any questions, please leave a message in my guest book, thanks for the read, Gemma.
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Paignton Zoo is a brilliant place. Best Zoo ive been to. Seems quite expensive to get in at first, but well worth it. Have you tried the bird place in Torquay? Its meant to be the sister of the Zoo, thats good too!!!
Barbsie 27.01.2004 15:21
I went to Paignton Zoo about 18 months ago, and I thought that the Red Pandas were the cutest things that I had ever seen!
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