Review: The Greenville Zoo

I recently visited my area's most popular family attraction, the Greenville Zoo. The zoo offers many attractions: a chance for you and your children to see interesting and diverse wildlife, a concession stand, and a gift shop, as well as playgrounds and educational exhibits. This is a relatively small zoo, so keep in mind that overcrowding can be an issue during the peak seasons.

Hours and Admissions

The zoo is open daily from 10:00 am until 4:30 pm, with the exception of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's days. Admission is five dollars for adults, $2.50 for children ages 3-15, and free for children under three years of age.

One year membership options are also available through the Friends of the Zoo program. They offer considerable savings for those who plan on visiting often. You can learn more about the various membership options on their website, www.greenvillezoo.com.

The Wildlife

The Greenville Zoo offers a diverse range of wildlife, from your everyday farm animals to the more exotic. Upon entering, the first animal you will come across is the African elephant. These are truly majestic creatures, and my personal favorite. Next is the primate area, which consists of several different species, including apes and two types of lemur. A little farther up the walkway and you'll see a building on your left: the reptile exhibit. This is one of my favorite attractions. They have a wide variety of reptiles, including snakes, turtles, and lizards of many kinds, with interesting information about each species. When I visited, the anaconda display was under construction, so this particular exhibit should be up and running soon.

After leaving the reptile exhibit, you have a choice of two paths. The path on the right will lead you to the education building, which is used for various programs that the zoo offers, including Summer Zoo Camp, a special program for children. Past the education building are the future giraffe and lion exhibits. These are currently under construction, as the zoo is expanding, with estimated completion in summer 2007. Next is a relatively new display, the orangutans. I found this exhibit particularly endearing, as it consists of a mated pair of orangutans and a baby, "Baby Bob", born in January of 2007. Continuing down the path on the left will take you past the concessions, gift shop, and restroom area, and on to the bird area, which includes the hornbill and the toucan.

From here the paths are winding, and you have many choices. Don't worry about missing anything, as the walkways will wrap back around on themselves. Other exhibits the zoo has to offer include alligators, red pandas, leopards, tortoises, and flamingos, to name a few. There is also an area with farm animals, such as goats, chickens, and a Vietnamese potbellied pig. Animal food is available for sale that you may feed to the goats.

All exhibits offer informational podiums so that you may learn more about the species and its habits.

Concessions

There is not a lot up for grabs at the concession stand. Your basic choices are soda and water, with a few food items such as popcorn. The prices are, in my opinion, steep. Note that they do not offer lids or straws for the cups, so you may want to bring your own cups if you have children to avoid messes.

Gift Shop

I found this to be your basic, run of the mill gift shop. On offer are various stuffed animals, t-shirts, and novelty items that are wildlife-related. They have some very attractive jewelry items, and lots of cute things for the kids. The prices are slightly higher than what I'd consider average, but not exorbitant. This is a great place to purchase souvenirs of your trip. My suggestion on a low-cost souvenir would be the postcards.

Restrooms

The restroom facilities were surprisingly clean and orderly. All dispensers were filled, and the toilets, sinks, and floors were quite clean. The water fountain located outside of the restrooms offered cool, clean water with no "metallic" taste.

Playground

The Greenville Zoo also offers a large playground adjacent to the parking lot. There are monkey bars, swings, and slides, in addition to other fun activities for the kids. The playground seemed well-kept and clean. I saw no trash lying around. It is boxed in and sand covers the ground for safety and cleanliness.

There is a reason that this is one of the most popular attractions in Greenville. All-in-all, the zoo was a very enjoyable experience. It was fun, informative, and had a lot to offer. The only downsides are the overcrowding and the lack of choice/steepness of price at the concession stand. Despite these minor downfalls, it's definitely worth the admission fee, and I will be visiting again.