Zoo Miami is a beautiful zoo but much more like a long, long walk in a nice park setting. Parking is free. Compared to other zoos I have visited, I felt that the animals were not the main attraction here. There was lots of lovely foliage and large open spaces to walk. Yes, you can see lots of animals but they require lots of walking. I have walked 10 miles or so on a visit to Disney World, but this park seemed even worse than that although it probably was not as large. The main attraction to me, at this zoo, was the idea that you could rent a bike to carry the whole family through the zoo.
The day we visited, the park was fairly empty. We chose to pay extra for the monorail, a feeding and carousel ride since we had two children with us. The monorail gave us a good overview of the zoo, it was air conditioned, and allow us to sit down for the ride. It moves very slowly, though, so to get around the whole zoo took us at least 1/2 hour. You can see animals from the monorail but the glass is not designed for good viewing.
We planned on feeding the giraffes but took a wrong turn trying to find something to drink. We had to settle on feeding the birds, but when we finally found our way there, the birds were too full and did not want to eat. Lucky for us the tortoise was right next door and it was feeding time. We did enjoy feeding the tortoise.
The carousel was fun, once we found it. The children enjoyed riding as much as they wanted to. There was no line to wait in, just get on and get off. We felt that the signage could be improved at this zoo. It was difficult to know where you were even with a map.
The park is beautiful, the staff was great. Our real problem was that we planned on renting the bikes but ran out of time and could not do that. Biking would be a great way to travel this park and I hope someday to return here and do so. I wonder what kinds of problems occur, though, if there are too many bikes on the path? The day we were here, the zoo was almost empty.