Central Park Zoo is small but very charming zoo located inside of Central Park of New York City.
The exact location of the zoo entrance is at 64th Street & 5th Avenue. If you check my previous article about Manhattan streets grid you will be able to locate the park very easily.
During the year the zoo is open from April 6, until November 2. From Monday to Friday the opening hours are from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and on weekends and holidays from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM.
The zoo is divided into a few sections. The central garden with the sea lions pool on the middle.
There is a place where the snow leopards lives.
Red pandas also have their dedicated area.
You can visit the polar circle with penguins, grizzly bears area, tropical zone with the rain forest where you can see a lot of animals and different kinds of birds.
The Tisch Children’s Zoo have the separate entrance, since we bought the package entrance ticket we were able to enter with the same ticket.
The Tisch Children’s Zoo is the home to sheep, goats, zebu, and many more big and small animals and birds.
All the animals were adorable but my favorite was the Patagonian Cavy and Lama of course.
Lama was so tamed, she sat by the fence allowing everyone to pet her.
The ducks were a bit aggressive, so I did my best to avoid them. They were walking around in the small groups.
I also liked the rain forest part of the zoo, because the birds were flying around free, they were not locked in cages.
The humidity inside of this building was very high.
You almost got the feeling that you were walking trough a real rain forest.
There you can see many different kinds of birds.
We didn’t manage to see any snow monkeys, they were probably hiding from the heat somewhere in the shadow of the trees. They actually love the water very much, but we didn’t see them by the water. The weather was sizzling and sun was burning very much.
The penguins in the polar circle were so funny. They acted very busy, constantly walking around, jumping in to the water and out.
Some of them were very fat with the huge bellies. I enjoyed watching them and I laughed so much.
They were jumping into the water, swimming around and posing to the visitors. Besides of Macaroni penguins, there were also Chinstrap Penguins, Gentoo Penguins and King Penguins.
We watched some vets trying to give medicine or vitamins to the Ruffed Lemurs. These animals were so stubborn and they gave them a really hard time. The poor vets were trying again and again but the stubborn lemurs were spiting the medicine on the floor again and again. At some point one of them even spit it on the vet’s head. I felt sorry for the vets, but I also admired their patience and dedication.
We also visited the 4-D theater, it was included in our tickets. But it was nothing special worth visiting.
Even though some kids were really excited with the special effects, some others begun to cry as soon as the movie and the effects started. A few moms had to run out quickly in order to calm their screaming babies down. Therefore this experience is not recommended for children under the age of 4.
As for the big children like us, I wouldn’t recommend the 4-D experience, because it is boring and short, nothing special in other words.
In general we enjoyed very much our visit to the Central Park Zoo.
In my opinion Central Park and the Central Park Zoo are worth visiting while in NYC.
It is a beautiful oasis between the skyscrapers.
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If you wish to find the nice place to stay in NYC and Manhattan, please check the link below. NYC accommodation. There you can find all different kinds of hotels, reviews, prices and information about availability for your desired dates. We stayed at the Avalon hotel, I will describe our experience in one of my next articles.
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