Bristol Zoo

You could really spend half a day or more at the zoo.
It’s a lovely place with monkeys, gorilla’s and smaller animals like snakes and insects. There is a lovely HUGE green you could take a picnic or enjoy a lunch at the (over priced) café.
The prices are steep at around £14 per adult so a now and again treat i’d say.
Good location with park street and whiteladies road a walking distance along with the downs perfect for flying a kite or kicking a football around.
Easy to get to via the bus route or parking available.
Look out for vouchers in newspapers or on groupon i’ve seen a few, for family or 4 would be about £50 so no cheap day out but def one thing to make sure you do in bristol.

Yay, such a great place to spend the day!
Staff were great fun, and the animals put on great show.

I run past the Zoo very regularly and the noises that creep over the walls never cease to put a smile on my face. It always makes me want to go.
Going to the zoo is something that i don’t do anywhere near enough, something that i realised when a few friends and i went one weekend in our first year. There is something utterly enchanting about seeing these majestic creatures in the flesh.
The butterfly house is amazing. You would be a fool to think that it is not worth seeing simply because it is ‘just’ a butterfly house, as was the consensus when we went. However, once we got in we realised how spectacular the place actually is.
I always think how cool it would be to have gone to the school next to the zoo!

When I was little, trips to Chester Zoo were one of the most exciting events of all time — and now I’ve moved to Bristol (and grown up) the zoo here has replaced it.
It’s not as big as the one in Chester (or is it just that it seemed big when I was so little?), but there’s still a brilliant range of animals and birds, from Asiatic lions to gorillas and gibbons.
There are various zones within the zoo, such as ‘Zona Brazil’ with its rainforest environment; Twilight World, where you get to spy on nocturnal creatures; Bug World, which is full of creepy crawlies; and the newer Monkey Jungle, which includes an area where you can wander alongside free-​roaming lemurs.
Recently the zoo opened Zooropia, a rope adventure course for all ages in which you get to swing high above some of the zoo’s animals. I haven’t had a go, but for those with a head for heights it sounds like good fun.
Explorers’ Creek is another new interactive exhibit split into three areas: a water play area, a tropical bird house and a walk-​through parrot-​feeding area (fine if you’re happy with parrots landing on your head hoping for a snack). You can also brave walking over the wobbly bridge over the creek, if you fancy it.
Bristol Zoo always seems to be adding new attractions and keeping things interesting, which is fantastic because even as a local you always have plenty of reasons to visit time and time again.
Whatever you do, don’t miss my favourites — the hilarious capybaras. These giant, guinea pig-​like creatures spend their entire day sunbathing, wallowing in the water, and eating — what a life!

I’m deducting a star because they have lions. They look so miserable, pacing back and forth and clearly don’t have enough room. Its pretty much the first enclosure you come across and it makes you want to turn around and walk out.
However, that aside, this really is a fantastic little zoo. The butterfly garden is an absolutely fantastic addition. I like the reptile section and visiting the monkeys. The Gorillas are majestic, I feel a bit weird also about Gorillas being in a zoo. In fairness to Bristol Zoo though, they helped restore health of a few of these Gorillas and they also support conservation work to protect gorillas in the wild in Cameroon.
A great time to visit the zoo is to combine it with Boogie for Brizzle. The zoo is not especially cheap so why not make a complete day out of it. Entry to Boogie for Brizzle includes bands, kids activities and circus performers wandering around. You can wander off and see the animals, pop back have a sit down and listen to some music, head off to see more animals, its a fantastic day out.
Romeo and Juliet is also playing outdoor theatre here this year which should be good.
My only caution about going to the zoo is to take care where you stand. The first time I came here I was pee’d on my a fruitbat. The second time emitted a spray of urine all over me. Nice!

I want to start by saying what a lovely place this is for a day out! Bristol Zoo Gardens are appealing to any age group, from students to adults to families with kids, everyone would enjoy visiting this attraction.
The Zoo Gardens are beautifully designed — there is an emphasis on the fact that it is not just a zoo, and that it is meant to be a relaxing environment where you can even enjoy lunch or have a stroll across their gardens. At this zoo they have a range of different animals you can see and learn about — the penguin and seal conserve would definitely have to be my favourite, you can watch them feed at various intervals of the day which is worth going along to!
There is a large café which serves very reasonably priced food, and there are several different attractions for the children — face painting seems to be a favourite, you will see many children around painted as their favourite animals!
Prices are also very reasonable! As a student you can expect to pay £9 and as an adult you would pay £10 — they do ask that you give an extra donation of a pound towards the zoo, which isn’t much to ask! Another bonus is the fact that the car park is free — you can park up for the whole day without a worry!
Bristol Zoo Gardens are beautiful, entertaining, and a great day out — especially in the summer months!

I knew I’d been to a zoo in Bristol as a kid, but when I moved here as an adult I was baffled. I was told that Bristol Zoo was in Clifton, but Clifton just appeared to be full of residential houses, cafes and bars. Where the hell would you keep a lion and a gorilla, I thought. But hidden by a big wall, and situated up near the Downs is a zoo. And a decent zoo at that. Yes, it’s smaller than the nearby Longleat Safari Park but it has everything you’d want to see — lions, monkeys, birds, fish and meerkats. There’s a park for the kids and fun activities darted around, such as a running game which measures your speed and compares it to that of a Cheetah. The café serves delicious hot and cold food, including cakes and ice creams and the souvenir shop has everything you’d expect and more. Sometimes, I struggle to stomach the notion of zoos — animals cooped up in cages, but Bristol Zoo is part of a larger conservation group which works across the world to help animals, so that makes me feel a bit better.

This Zoo isn’t the biggest you’ll ever go to, but it has to be one of the most beautiful. It lies in the heart of Clifton (the highest & most scenic part of Bristol) and is surrounded by the stunning Victorian family houses that make this part of Bristol so special.
The Seal & Penguin area is probably the highlight of this Zoo, with a bridge that positions you above the animals in their ‘swimming pool’. I think it’s the location of this part of the zoo that makes it so unique; right in the heart of a residential street and some fantastic architecture, it’s an experience unlike any other. You even wonder if the people who live in those houses can see into the Zoo from their windows.
It’s a rite of passage that if you have lived in Bristol for any length of time you have been on a date to the Zoo. I strongly recommend going when the sun is shining, there are plenty of lovely green areas to sit and drink and watch the children’s shows (usually involving a parrot).
And look out for the gorilla, he’s a bit of an exhibitionist, if you know what I mean.

I visit zoos and aquariums wherever I go in the world, and the UK really does have some of the highest standards. The question of zoos of course is a passionate debate — where do you stop when it comes to confining wild animals? A zoo? A safari park? A game reserve? When and why should conservation and protection step in?
Personally I feel that zoos have a valued place in our society. If children do not get hands on experience of animals then who is going to grow up to be the environmental champions of their generation?
Bristol Zoo take education very seriously. All animals come with a wealth of information aimed at different age groups, from silly games to hard facts of life. They don’t shy away from showing torture of gorillas (of course supplied with a warning!) and the damage to the ocean environment. It isn’t just for the small learners — the university and college students of Bristol study here as well. The zoo is also very active in conservation projects worldwide and in the surrounding Downs.
The zoo is small by, say, Marwell standards and so the animals are mostly quite small — their nocturnal animal area Twilight Zone was a pioneer in the country and is fantastic. If you get here when the gates open you can catch the animals still at dusk rather than night so you can see them asleep or just waking up.
Of course you have to have a few big guns to pull in the punters, here a pair of lions and a family of gorillas — it is said that the gorilla house is perched on some of the most expensive real estate in Bristol! They have stayed away from very large animals purely because of the space. For that head up to Longleat.
The zoo is constantly changing and improving. The new monkey and lemur enclosures are great — keep an eye out for all the environmental enrichment in the cages (that’s things to do, food to scavenge etc) — and they have just opened a human rope walkway through the monkey island which is proving very popular. Thankfully there is no age limit so I’m taking my turn later this month!
For us adult visitors there is much to enjoy. I have been on a photography course here and the open or glass cages mean that it is easy to get shots of the animals. If you are scared of spiders they have courses here to help stop that and they have regular lectures on animal conservation and research.
Tickets are £11.36 or you can get an annual pass for £48 which includes fast track entry — this is amazing on a busy day, you feel like royalty. Plus this includes a bunch of free guest passes for when friends are visiting town so that makes it worthwhile pretty quickly.

As zoo’s go I’d say this one is probably mediocre at best. Some gorillas and some lions which make it just about worth a visit, but lacks the real big stars like Elephants and Giraffe’s which really bump any zoo in to the A league.
Personally I have a fundamental dislike for zoos for the simple reason, I don’t like seeing wild animals imprisoned in ridiculously small living quarters. I’m sure standards of zoos have improved over the years, but to me, the idea of going to the zoo is so archaic that I wonder how they still exist at all.
If you like zoo’s and have been to London zoo for example, you’ll almost certainly be a little under whelmed by what’s on offer here.

To be honest, I’m not a great fan of the zoo. This stems from a childhood experience when my gran bought our family an annual season ticket to Bristol Zoo as a present and we then proceeded to go every single Sunday afternoon for a year without fail (that’s how it felt anyway!).
This coincided with a less enlightened time when it was deemed okay to lock a polar bear in an enclosure and still charge people to come and see it even as it gradually went completely mad, walking backwards and forwards in a repetitive, monotonous ritual for hours on end. I’m sure things are far better now, but to be honest the whole depressing experience put me off for life. The best I can say that it’s not just this zoo that I instinctively dislike, but all zoos.

Lions, seals, gorillas too! Bristol Zoo has got everything you’d hope for from a zoo (baring an elephant. Wendy, a long term resident passed away a few years ago, RIP). Its full title is Bristol Zoo Gardens and the site is beautiful, with manicured lawns and wide sweeping flower beds.
Like lots of tourist attractions, this place is best to see in the sun but it of course attracts the crowds just when the sun does come out. As I think seeing the zoo on a fine day without having massive crowds makes all the difference to a visit here I would strongly recommend picking the timing of your visit carefully. Don’t come in the school summer holidays, when they have to open overflow car parks. Try and mid-​week visit and going first thing in the morning.
Big enough to warrant two visits, there’s loads on offer here. Regular events (I remember holding a tarantula here years ago) means you’ll do more than just see the animals. Decent catering completes the picture to make for a thoroughly enjoyable day out.