Jeff's rotation off was over Labor Day weekend, so we were able to get away, but chose to stay close in order to only take Bennett out of school for 1 day since school just started. Our initial plan was to do a 4 day trip and use all of our passes to go to Legoland, the SD Zoo, and the SD Safari Park. However, August was so darn hot that we jetted off to San Diego a few times before Labor Day and went to Legoland and the zoo, so those got checked off our list. The only place we hadn't been was the Zoo Safari Park.
We chose to go on Friday since the SD schools were in session and we'd have fewer crowds. What we didn't know is that quite a few of the restaurants/watering hole areas would also be closed since crowds were less. Yeah for less people. Nay on the "not being able to get ice cold water when we wanted". Water fountain water yes. Ice cold--not until we found an open restaurant. That and the fact that it was 109 the day we went were the only negatives. (92 degrees at the beach location where we were staying. 15 degrees hotter inland where the lovely breeze was now gone. 😨)
The San Diego Zoo peeps have it figured out y'all! This place was nothing short of amazing! Due to the fact that we have yearly passes, we paid nothing until we were ready to eat lunch! Our admission (Koala level) got us into the Safari Park and onto the free Africa Tram. I had read reviews of needing to get there early in order to avoid the tram lines, so we got there right after the park opened at 9:00am. The Africa Tram doesn't open until 10am, but it gave us a chance to see the park a little and not have any line--since we went on a less crowded day. We also read to go early since the animals don't move around as much in the heat of the day--AKA--EVER since it was 109!
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| An egg hatched two cute boys! |
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| They loved the petting zoo and brushing the goats! |
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| Look! I have a lemur tail! |
Africa Tram--Takes you around the entire "Savannah" area of the zoo. All the animals we saw in the Savannah could live there harmoniously since none were each other's predators/prey. Giraffes, rhinos, buffalo, antelope--many kinds, cheetahs, etc. were so amazing to see in a larger area than in a zoo climate. The tram ride took about 30 minutes and was a perfect way to start our day at the Safari Park.
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| Ready to get our sweat on! |
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| Giraffes always get the most pics since they're our favorite! |
Nursery--We got to see the new tiger cub, who was so precocious and adorable! I can't even think of the other animals we saw in this area.
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| Cute, precocious guy! |
Playgrounds--Now this is where the SD peeps excel! We walked in expecting a playground. Normal. American. Etc. What we found was nothing of the sort! We only took time to visit one of these African themed playgrounds, but other than the tram ride, the boys thought the playground was the best thing ever--and Jeff and I would have to agree! The one playground we visited had tasks for you to accomplish--One was pumping, gathering, and delivering water to cattle and the other was to build a "home". We all had a blast on these and had free run since, again, not a lot of people were there that day. This seriously kept us busy for about 45 minutes.
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| Jeff taking water to the cattle. |
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| Bennett prepping to take water by dumping it on himself! |
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Ry got in on it too--we all did! It was sweltering! |
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| Building a hut! |
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| Proud of their work! |
We didn't see everything at the Safari Park. We decided that since we have passes that we'd rather visit again when it's cooler than kill ourselves in one day. We were in desperate need of cooling off, ice cream, etc--anything that would cool us! We can't wait to visit again and see what we missed--and visit some favorites again!
Side Note: The Safari Park has several different "Caravan" options you can choose. We chose to do none of these. The one where you would be able to feed the giraffes and rhinos was $139 per person--and we've fed giraffes at the zoo! There is a fun zip-line caravan and ropes course caravan that we'll probably do when they're older (Ropes Course = 7 years old at least). What we saw on the Africa Tram was perfect though--no need for any other type at this point in our lives---and wallets
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