Avery's Adventures: Columbus Zoo and Zoombezi Bay PTR

[PREMiERdrum]

As most of you know by now, my wife and I are big fans (and members) of the outstanding Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. When we renewed our membership last month, we upgraded from the standard Family Zoo Membership into Individual Gold Memberships. This membership is a full-year pass to the Zoo, along with a full season pass to Zoombezi bay, and includes free rides on all the rides in the Zoo and Jungle Jacks Landing. Since our daughter, Avery, is only 15 months old, she doesn't require a pass (yet!). The cost for 2 Gold Memberships, including free parking, was a modest $200.

This past Saturday, we packed up my sister, niece, nephew, and my mom to head up to the parks for the day. The zoo opens daily at 9:00am, Jungle Jacks Landing at 10:00am, and Zoombezi Bay at 10:30am. We decided to get to the zoo as close to opening as possible, to enjoy some peaceful time with the animals before the onslaught of crowds began. We arrived early, flashed our membership to park for free (parking is usually a meager $5), hopped on the parking lot trolleys (it amazes me that Columbus Zoo can do this, but KI and CP parked theirs years ago), and were dropped off right at the impressive new gate structure (pictured above, photo courtesy Columbus Zoo and Aquarium). We used our passes to buy discounted tickets to Zoombezi Bay to the rest of the family. Zoombezi Bay tickets are gate priced at $32.99 for adults ($24.99 for kids under 10), which also gets you admission into the Zoo and Jungle Jacks Landing (which operates on a ride wristband system).

We headed into the Zoo and enjoyed some time in the North America Region, which is where you'll find the brand-spankin'-new Polar Frontier, a jawdropping Polar Bear, Kodiak Bear, and Arctic Fox habitat which opened new for 2011.

Polar Frontier:

Avery, looking up at the polar bears swimming above her with the awesome underwater viewing:

Habitat Hollow Petting Zoo:

Other North American region photos:

After completing the loop around the Zoo's North America region, we stopped by a few of the kids favorite animals before we headed out of the Zoo and over too Zoombezi Bay.

Penguins and Flamingos in the zoo's "Shores" region

Amur Tigers in their beautiful "AsiaQuest" habitat

Koalas and the Kangaroo Walkabout (along with a fantastic lorikeet aviary) can be found in the Australia region

At this point, we left the Zoo and headed over towards Zoombezi Bay, which is a short walk thru Jungle Jack's Landing from the zoo. On this path, the first thing you'll come across is the Animal Encounters Village. This is where the zoo's promotions staff keeps their menagerie of animals (typically, animals aren't taken off exhibit to appear in shows or on television), including a troupe of Chilean Penguins, several reptiles, a handful of baby flamingos (they have 2 flamingo enclosures on property), and the famous zoo "frenemies': A young cheetah and dog which have been raised together since birth.

Columbus Zoo photo

While we were at Animal Encounters Village, there were several presenters with different animals around the camp, including one at the flamingo yard encouraging visitors to meet and pet the birds, a few people out in the grass with a snake at least 8' or 10' long, one handling a large lizard of some sort for kids to pet, and 2 people on stage with the penguins, trying to teach them to hop up steps and thru a window for the Zoo's upcoming bird show.

This is one of my favorite parts of the whole property, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

To get to the Zoombezi Bay gate, you pass thru Jungle Jacks Landing, a decent little rides park the Zoo built over the last few years. Here you'll find the classic Sea Dragon wooden roller coaster, a Scrambler, Tilt-a-Whirl, Safari (Himilaya), Flying Scooters, Bumper Cars, Wave Swinger, as well as 'Jungle Jacks Junior Land', a collection of kid-friendly rides.

Zoombezi Bay has added 2 new slides this year: Big Boa Falls and Python Plunge. Both slides share a tower (and I'm not even sure which is which), but one is a short MasterBlaster water coaster, and the other is a halfpipe type slide. The new slides are fun, and a great addition to the already solid lineup. The park is also home to a ProSlide Tornado, a family raft ride, mat racers, several body slides, several tube slides, a ProSlide Bowl, Action River (great for transportation around the park, with 4 entrances), huge water fortress / play area, a small lagoon play area for the younger children, and a unique adults only lazy river which encircles a bar.

With a 15 month old, we naturally spent most of the day in Katoomba Lagoon, the smallest kids area. We did take a few pics of Avery adventuring around the park, which can give you a taste of the architecture and look of the park.

Here's Avery (along with myself and her Gigi) walking into the park for the first time (we were here 2 weeks ago, but she's started walking since then!)

Katoomba Lagoon: This is where we parked for the day

"Dad, what's behind these rocks?"

Thanks for reading!

[PREMiERdrum]

And for those of you who have never been (or it's been a while), take a look at the park's map. This place is monsterous!

Full-sized PDF available HERE

[The Interpreter]

Wow, she's walking already! Congratulations, PaPa, and thanks for the great report and wonderful pictures!

[DaveStroem]

Thanks for the PTR. I too love the Columbus Zoo. The new park map looks great too.

Are the tubes for the lazy rivers free or charged this year? I know they charged for them the first year and it turned into a big mess. People would steal your tube while you were in the wave pool or worse people would ride them in the wave pool and crash into others.

[PREMiERdrum]

Thanks for the PTR. I too love the Columbus Zoo. The new park map looks great too.

Are the tubes for the lazy rivers free or charged this year? I know they charged for them the first year and it turned into a big mess. People would steal your tube while you were in the wave pool or worse people would ride them in the wave pool and crash into others.

Tubes are free... the tube rental fee was a holdover from the Wyandot Lake business model. Remember, the Zoo brought Manny Gonzalez over from SIX to help them develop and manage the new park, and he brought with him some of SIX's bad habits (don't get me wrong, I did God-knows-how-many stories with Manny that first year, and he was a delight to work with).

The big question mark for me, going forward, is how the zoo integrates the 70+ acre African Savannah with the rest of the park. The land they've got slated for this expansion is due north of Polar Frontier, on the other side of Powell Rd (directly east of the Zoo's management offices and water tower). I'm thinking we'll see a new pedestrian pathway (or rather a re-opening of the existing pathway) from the main plaza, beside the old elephant paddock (now housing black rhinos), along the east side (rear) of the Pachyderm building, along the back of the new elephant yard, and under Powell Rd. That will be quite a hike!

[jdawg1998]

Wow, just wow. I did not realize how huge Columbus Zoo was! You'd think they'd make the whole place an all-inclusive resort named "Columbus Adventures" - no, seriously - that would be cool.

[PREMiERdrum]

Wow, just wow. I did not realize how huge Columbus Zoo was! You'd think they'd make the whole place an all-inclusive resort named "Columbus Adventures" - no, seriously - that would be cool.

You're not that far off... they've already completed a feasibility study of an on-site hotel (which found it to be a very positive proposition), and the hotel is likely to open along with the African Savannah area in the next few years. Once they have an on-property themed hotel (they've specifically said 'Safari Themed' thus far), potentially an indoor waterpark, an expanded Jungle Jack's Landing, Zoombezi Bay, and the huge zoo itself, they'll have a 3-day sellable destination on their hands.

[Creed Bratton]

Wow, just wow. I did not realize how huge Columbus Zoo was! You'd think they'd make the whole place an all-inclusive resort named "Columbus Adventures" - no, seriously - that would be cool.

You're not that far off... they've already completed a feasibility study of an on-site hotel (which found it to be a very positive proposition), and the hotel is likely to open along with the African Savannah area in the next few years. Once they have an on-property themed hotel (they've specifically said 'Safari Themed' thus far), potentially an indoor waterpark, an expanded Jungle Jack's Landing, Zoombezi Bay, and the huge zoo itself, they'll have a 3-day sellable destination on their hands.

I had heard that too! I for one think the Columbus Zoo is an amazing zoo! It by far is my favorite one out of the many free and paid-admission zoos I've been to. I look forward to a hotel (possibly an indoor waterpark) and an expansion of Jungle Jacks Landing! When I'm in Ohio, I'm sure I'll be staying at the hotel (when/if it opens). I do think that an expansion of Jungle Jack's Landing would be a great idea, I just hope that they would keep the rides bracelets and get rid of the tickets, or maybe even do a separate admission, kind of like they do for Zoombezi Bay (but still gives you access to the zoo).

[Avatar]

This was a great trip report, nicely presented and a fun read. I have heard great things about the Columbus Zoo for a long time and your report has helped move that trip to a higher priority on our list. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience.