Animals in Cages

This is probably my first negative review of place we have visited. I usually like everywhere we take the kids but I did not like Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo. Wesley and Lydia liked it though. We got in for half price thanks to a gift membership from one of Chris' brothers and his wife. So far we have gotten in free to two children's museums and one science museum. We love this membership.

When we paid for our 1/2 price tickets, we asked about the safari ride since the times where posted right there. The employees told us that Josiah couldn't go because everyone has to be over 36" to go on the bumpy ride and the safari last one hour. What they didn't tell us was that it is an extra fee. We heard an announcement about going to the main gate to get tickets. Well, it was $15 for adults and $10 for children. We weren't paying an additional $35 for Chris or me to go with Lydia and Wesley on the safari since we had just paid $26 to get into the zoo. Yes, we could have found this out from their website, but we didn't do that much research for our visit. We were thinking the safari ride was like the one at Reston Zoo. By the way, no one went on the 12:30 safari.

I cannot imagine paying full price for this place. Without our membership, it would have been $52 and we did everything (but the safari) in less than three hours. It only took that long because we sat down and ate ice cream.

We bought two cups of animal food when we paid our admission. Unfortunately there weren't a lot of animals to feed. Wesley and Lydia did enjoy feeding the deer but all I could think of was how at the San Diego Wild Animal Park the deer weren't inside a fence; the kids could get right beside of the deer and pet them. Of course most zoos can't compare to the Wild Animal Park.
There were a few other animals (less than five) the kids could feed. Wesley and Lydia enjoyed feeding them and didn't complain.

Riding in the backpack is a great way for a baby to visit a zoo.
Here is a good example of how most of the animal habits were. Animals in cages.
At the bigger and nicer zoos the habitats for the animals look more natural.

The black swans were pretty (and not in cages). There are a lot of birds at this zoo.

There were also a lot of snakes on display and, thankfully, they were all behind glass. Wesley really liked looking at all the snakes.

Lydia and Wesley both fed the fish. Unfortunately, Lydia also dropped her sunglasses into the pond.

The highlight of our zoo visit was the alligator feeding. The gator habitat looked more natural than most of the exhibits. I am so glad we got to see the feeding and hear the zoo keeper's talk about the alligators. All of the alligators were once pets. When they started getting big the owners realized they couldn't keep them. The gators are fed once a day. They were enjoying chicken on Sunday.

This white duck looked very interesting.

We won't be going back. I hope the next time we go camping at Cunningham Falls, the kids don't beg to go to the zoo. So take it from us, DON'T GO.