Review of The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore

We had an opportunity to visit the well known Maryland Zoo in Baltimore during the last long weekend of the Memorial Day. This lovely zoo is situated at 405W, Franklin street, Baltimore having phone number as 410 396 7102. It took around 45 minutes for us to drive from my son's residence in the city of Nottingham.

As soon as we reach near zoo area, we were amazed to see number of people and vehicles visiting this zoo with their young ones and the families. There was also a lot of rush in the parking place. We could get parking space in the parking lot C, in spite of our reaching early by around 11 am. There was also a big queue at the gate for buying the entrée tickets. Looking to the individual ticket of $15 for an adult, we decided to buy the complete membership of the zoo at the charge of $87, which is good enough for 2 adults and any number of your own children for a period of one year. If you are with young children or physically handicapped persons, and have forgotten to bring your own stroller/wheel chair, these are available on rent at the rate of $6 each. There is a free tram service inside the zoo between two main stations in case you may not like to walk. The tram service drops you at the entrance gate of various sections of the zoo. The first segment of the zoo is the Polar Bear watch. Two large polar bears would be seen relaxing in the cold water. There is an air conditioned view station for these polar bears above their residing area. This gave us a very calm and peaceful viewing of this rare animal. We entered the African Journey segment thereafter. This section consists of various types of deer's, ostrich, and the most rarely found eagles, which are called the king of the birds. The rhinos, zebras, giraffes, leopards, cheetahs, and the famous African lions were the next. The baby elephant Samson, which is the latest addition to this zoo, was really worth seeing. The Chimpanzee Forest, which is designed very similar to the real African forest, was the main attraction on our return path from African Journey. There was also a camel ride inside this African Journey at the rate of $4 per person. It took around couple of hours for us to completely see the African Journey segment of the zoo.

As soon as we came out of it, we made our way to the third segment of the zoo, which is called Maryland Wilderness. This segment is mainly for the children. There is a rock climbing pole at the entrance of this segment. There are animals like reptiles, turtles, and most of the amphibians. There is also a petting zoo for the children here in this segment. The farm yard can also be seen here where the chickens and other farm animals are kept. There is also a cave in which there are bats, rattlesnakes, and the skunk and can be viewed in from very short distance. The wide varieties of the birds are also kept here in all sorts of beautiful colors. It took around an hour for us to visit this segment.

There are in all around 2000 animals kept here in the most natural environment of the forest. The zoo opens at 10 am and the zoo gate closes for new visitors at 4 pm. However, the visitors who have already entered inside the zoo can remain in the zoo up to 5 pm. The last tram service is at 5 pm. There are three restaurants that serve various types of the fast food in the zoo. The restrooms and the pure filtered cold drinking water tabs are found at many places in the zoo. There are various programs of keeper chat, at all different timings, in which you can discuss your questions regarding the animals with the zookeepers. There are two gift shops, which are called Wild things and the Bird cage, which are also situated inside the zoo from where you can buy the gift items. However, we found such items quiet costly here at these gift shops. We came out finally from the zoo at around 4 pm after completely seeing it. Though, we were quiet exhausted, we enjoyed our visit to this zoo immensely due to our grandson who enjoyed the zoo most.

With summer coming round the corner, it would be really a good idea to visit this zoo with all our children and family.