Bronx Zoo Review ( Asia Gate Entrance to Bug Carousel )

Twenty to thirty years ago, I used to hear how great the Bronx Zoo was and that it was one of the best, if not, the best zoo in the nation. Either the Bronx Zoo was being overrated at the time or the zoo itself hasn't kept up with the times. Maybe my expectations were too high to start, but even when I make myself impartial so as to judge the Bronx Zoo, at least from the Asia Gate Entrance to the Bug Carousel, after our first and possibly our last visit, not only I but my wife also wasn't too impressed.

The Bad About the Bronx Zoo ( Asia Gate Entrance to Bug Carousel )

The walk paths were entirely too narrow for the amount of people at the zoo, especially at the nexus of pathways. Speaking of which, we went on "donate what you like Wednesday" as the ticket price you pay to enter the zoo, and either that's the day of the week every school kid in the country goes to the zoo or the Bronx zoo isn't capable of accommodating the number of visitors to it.

You had to walk nearly a country mile to get from one poorly planned animal exhibit to the next. ( Penning this review, I now read on Wikipedia that " the Bronx Zoo is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States." ) It's great that the animals have a somewhat large area in which to live. However, when you finally do arrive at the designated place for viewing the animals, the building specifications for these areas weren't too demanding to say the least. The viewing areas were really poorly planned and aren't very accommodating.

Immediately after entering the zoo from the Asia Gate Entrance, and before even seeing one thing, the zoo was already asking us for more money, by way of camel rides. The Bronx Zoo wanted us to upgrade to a more expensive ticket or pay a $5 flat fee to ride a camel. Now, I understand budgets and operating costs and so forth; however, the Bronx Zoo poorly planned when and where to ask visitors to shell out some more money for the camel ride-that's for sure! It's not such a good idea to have people pay to enter and then ask them to pay some more money before they even see one thing in the zoo.

One thing we did see in the zoo is something we would have liked to not have seen: A beautiful peacock was out of its holding area or it was allowed to walk around on its own, I don't know; but what I do know is a kid, whose parent kept letting him chase it into trapped areas, was really scaring it to no end for the few minutes I'd seen them around me. No park attendants were around to stop the unruly behavior that the parent had no qualms allowing, nor to save the bird from a near coronary.

If the older child that was let on the loose wasn't disturbing enough to the peacock, it also had to contend with the endless stream of people surrounding it as it tried to escape the child. Soon after that, I turned to my wife and said how about we let our daughter ride the carousel and call it a day, because this trip to the Bronx Zoo is turning out to be not so enjoyable. To which she most readily agreed that the Bronx Zoo had turned out to be not a very enjoyable experience. We ponied up a couple more dollars for the Bug Carousel and turned tail back home.

Before seeing the plight of the poor peacock, we'd seen how the Bronx Zoo put a sign up in front of the giraffe enclosure saying, "Welcome such-and-such to the zoo." The wife figured it meant the Bronx Zoo had a new baby giraffe, but we wouldn't really know; the sign didn't tell us anything beyond the above quote, and neither did the Bronx Zoo do anything more to be informative, by way of its non-existent attendants.

An occasional sighting of an attendant would have been nice, particularly at the outset of our Bronx Zoo visit. At the very first intersection of paths, the posted signs that give directions around the Bronx Zoo weren't too clear in steering us to where we wanted to go. I had to re-check them and the map several times to make sure we were going to head in the direction of what my daughter particularly likes these days, the giraffes. And even then, after walking down the finally selected path some distance, I had to ask someone walking in the opposite direction if she knew whether the giraffes were in the direction from whence she came.

Along the way at a very busy intersection, where the 4-D theater is located, we spotted an NYPD officer revving and riding his scooter entirely too fast through the crowd. He kept revving the engine loudly so as to force his way through the crowd, as if he was in a hurry. Only to stop and joke and talk with a Bronx Zoo employee after making his way through the thickest part of the crowds.

The Good About the Bronx Zoo ( Asia Gate Entrance to Bug Carousel )

What was very nice about the Bronx Zoo was the continuous shade you walked under, provided by the thick woodlands throughout the zoo-at least the part of the zoo we visited. Again, we entered through the Asia Gate Entrance and to where we stopped at the Bug Carousel we walked under a continuous tree canopy of shade. That, in itself, is a very big plus for the Bronx Zoo.

We did see a giraffe do something they don't do very often; we watched a full grown adult giraffe sit down. It took him a few minutes to get the hind legs folded down just right, but he did it and it was a sight to see. The wife particularly enjoyed seeing that.

Plus, there were quite a few giraffes to be seen at the Bronx Zoo-at least at first. Not long after spotting a bunch of giraffes, all of them were gone but two. Of which, one of the two remaining giraffes was the one that sat down.

I don't recall ever seeing African Hyenas at a zoo, but the ones I'd seen at the Bronx Zoo I almost couldn't believe. They are much larger than I thought they were-much larger. Hyenas are really big dogs!

The Bronx Zoo gets two thumbs up for designating one day of the week as a day the public contributes to the zoo what they want as the ticket price.

We didn't ride the Bronx Zoo shuttle, which takes you long distances around the zoo. And even though it costs extra money to ride it, the Bronx Zoo gets kudos for having a shuttle available. Additionally, having the ( Wild Asia ) monorail take you around the Asian animals that are exhibited on both sides of the Bronx River is even more commendable of the Bronx Zoo.

Along with several other New York Zoos and the New York Aquarium, the Bronx Zoo is party to honoring yearly paid memberships for individuals and families, allowing unlimited visits for a year. When you do the math for ticket prices, and considering how large and therefore how long it takes you to see the entire Bronx Zoo, it pays to buy a yearly membership. Bronx Zoo gets a high five for that, and for us that more than likely means we'll give the Bronx Zoo another chance; another chance to enjoy seeing God's wonderful creatures on this side of paradise!

Sources:

Bronx Zoo, Connecting People to Wild Nature, http://www.bronxzoo.com/

Wikipedia, Bronx Zoo, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx_Zoo