Day Trips to London Zoo!

Hi everyone,

You might remember that I wrote about  the convenience of family day trips to the beach with minibuses and drivers. 

Well, on Easter Monday I took a visit to London Zoo for the first time in 11 years and realised this would be the perfect venture for friends and families – especially by taking a coach or minibus as you can circumvent traffic with the bus lanes! Nestled in Regents Park between Baker Street and Camden Town, it’s an easy journey by minicoach from a number of towns such as Marlow, High Wycombe, Windsor, Slough, Windsor, Amersham and Aylesbury to name but a few! 

As I’m sure I’ve previously mentioned, I really love trips to the zoo so you won’t find an impartial or neutral review here. I do care a about animal welfare though,  so if I thought the animals were kept in anything less than optimal conditions (save being in the wild) I would definitely want to tell you this.

Fortunately though, London Zoo (and Whipsnade) are run by ZSL who clearly put their animals first and I’m sure would never let them live in the conditions which sadly we see in some other countries. 

I went with my 6 year old son and the weather was really pleasant. London Zoo isn’t as big as the safari parks with acres and acres of space. As such, London Zoo is better suited to the smaller animals although there are giraffes (which can even be seen from the road outside and Regents Park) and they don’t seem at all cramped. Actually, I was more excited to see their Okapi (the only living relative of the giraffe), really beautiful and rare animals. 

Another highlight was the Komodo Dragon enclosure. It was wonderful to be up close to these fascinating creatures and we made sure to catch the 3.30pm show which included feeding time. I’ve not seen Komodo Dragon’s at any other zoos and it felt really special to see one in real life!

We also really enjoyed the Lemurs. Visitors are able to walk through their enclosure and it’s a real treat. With many animals, especially the big cats, we often just see them lounging around, quite aloof, but lemurs are always great value and interact with the visitors as well as being very active and demonstrating their impressive acrobatic skills!

The best part of our day though, as with my last visit, was the Rainforest Life Exhibit. This indoor rainforest is also immersive. The moment we walked in we spotted a sloth hanging right above our heads although he was on a mission to get some fruit and steadily made his way across the trees towards his target! There were also fruit bats flying around us and a couple of anteaters relaxing high up on some branches!

Despite being on a smaller plot of land than Whipsnade and being pretty busy (well it was Easter Monday), the zoo doesn’t feel cramped and we still covered a lot of ground. 20,000 steps according to my phone, although some of that was walking through Regent’s Park, a treat in itself.

London Zoo was actually an inexpensive and memorable day out. I loved it and so did my son. I would recommend taking a refillable water bottle and some snacks though, as food and drinks can rack up the cost a bit.

Visiting by minibus (or minicoach) from Bucks, Berks or West London obviously saves on tube fares and gets you direct to the front gate as well as being a great choice for sustainable travel, fitting in nicely with the zoo’s own conservation objectives!

If you have any questions about hiring a minibus and coach, do get in touch!

Thanks

CityWise Travel Team