I visited the zoo with my sister and children ages 7, 7, 12 and 17. On Wednesday the zoo has free admission,, but you must make a reservation online. There are additional fees, to get an any of the special presentations such as the children’s zoo, butterfly Pavilion, Tram, and monorail requires an additional $17.95 which we pay paid. The free tickets for general admission become available at 5 PM on Mondays forWednesday. The website for the zoo is extremely slow and cumbersome. It took hours to get the tickets. You can only get four at a time so two of us had to do that.
The zoo was very clean and there were hand sanitizing stations everywhere. What was missing were directional signs. There are a few for major attractions but it is very difficult to maneuver the zoo without constantly asking directions from staff. They really need to improve signage. We did download the Zhu app but it wasn’t good. It’s still left us confused. They need something more like Waze or Google maps to go from one place to the other and label the paths with names. You can wander around for hours confused.
The zoo is located in the center of the Bronx known for its hills which date back to the Ice Age. There’s lots of walking up and down hill. We enjoyed most of the animals including the seals, aquatic mammals including penguins, aviary, butterfly Pavilion, the mouse house, monkeys, and giraffes. The kids favorite was definitely the children’s zoo which is located right next to the Southern Boulevard parking lot. There were goats, chickens, turkeys, sheep. The animals were friendly and looking for food. For $.50 you can buy a handful of dried food that you can hand feed to the animals. Our little kids are quite excited about this.
The butterfly Pavilion was gorgeous. There were thousands of butterflies and beautiful colors all over. This is an indoor experience.
At the end of the day we enjoyed our monorail ride through Africa where we saw a tiger, rhinoceros, gazelles, and other African animals. We took the trim back up near the children’s zoo area where we had entered.
There are some cafés in the zoo. The menu is very basic: hotdogs, hamburgers, pizza, and sandwiches. The pizza was quite good. Prices are high. You can easily bring your own lunch and picnic set on one of the tables that are near the cafés.
Staff were very friendly and helpful. Overall, the Bronx Zoo is one of the best. It could be better however with improvements in signage that are very much needed and improvements in the website. We appreciate the efforts of the Conservancy to protect species that would otherwise be extinct and to advance animal science. This is a great place to spend an entire day.
If driving I suggest parking at the Southern Boulevard lot which is then very close to the children’s to and other attractions. The zoo promotes membership which is a great way to support this nonprofit organization. They should however make the enhancements to signage and website.