San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo was our first place of visit on our vacation this summer. Seriously this zoo is enormous! My best advice to anyone going here is to buy a bus pass, and bring a backpack with your own supply of water and food. You will notice in many of the pictures James has on a huge backpack. I think by us bringing this we probably saved an easy $100. Water alone was $8.

This zoo is truly amazing and was my favorite of our entire trip. We arrived at the park at 10am and did not leave until 7 that night. It was a LONG day for us. We did have a bus pass that I didn't realize was included in the tickets I purchased online so that came in handy. We were able to tour the entire park in a quick 45min and map out which places we wanted to visit first. Going on a Wednesday was also a great idea as it was not busy at all. I think we pretty much saw everything there was to see.

The giraffes were so pretty and huge up close as were the elephants. I got a wonderful picture of Alyvia picking her nose and James and Brock being silly on some cutouts that they could put their heads into. We did a ton of walking and thankfully we all had on comfortable shoes. We definitely got a great workout that day.


Another pass I didn't realize was included in our tickets was the air tram. Brock was so excited to go up on it and Alyvia was absolutely terrified. That was not my favorite part either but James and Brock loved being that high up knowing that the only thing holding us up was a piece of wire. We saw this one animal that stood on his hind legs to eat (no clue what he was called) and of course the famous pandas. Lets also not forget about those lovely snakes that both children were fascinated with.

The gorillas were extra lazy but the statues were fun for Alyvia. As you can see in the first picture below Alyvia is laughing because the mommy gorilla has nipples, and yes to embarrass me further she kept pinching them and saying it out loud for everyone to hear. These huge beetles were on display (I was itchy the rest of the day after seeing them move around) and this cute little monkey kept coming up to the glass where Brock was standing.
The kids wanted their faces painted so we indulged them in that (even though two hours later it was bath time and they had to come off) and then we had to quickly head over to the kids area where there was a petting zoo which was closing soon. By the end of the night everyone was exhausted. It was a fantastic experience and I can't wait to go back. Brock and Alyvia learned so much that day which was an added bonus because I never thought into the educational part of this. Now tomorrow is what James was looking forward to the most. Sea World!