The St. Louis Zoo: A Magical Place for Families
As I mentioned in the overview of our four day, three night, St. Louis itinerary, the St. Louis Zoo was one of our biggest surprises (in a good way!).
We enjoy our local zoo in Wisconsin (we’re zoo pass members) so we’re no strangers to loving zoos, but we now understand why the St. Louis Zoo is ranked one of the best in the country, and we couldn’t agree more.
Between the interactive exhibits (those penguins!), the rides, and the large amount of shade thanks to a beautiful park, we loved everything about our visit.
The Location of St. Louis Zoo
St. Louis Zoo is located in Forest Park which is home to five different civic institutions: the Zoo, the Science Center, the Art Museum, the Muny (theater), and the History Museum. There are also countless green spaces, playgrounds, walking/riding paths, etc. We were only able to visit the St. Louis Zoo, but certainly you could spend days just visiting all there is to see in Forest Park.
Visiting the St. Louis Zoo
We visited the St. Louis Zoo on a Saturday in the middle of May. The forecast was calling for highs in the 90s (average high in May in St. Louis is 77F). Luckily, both our kids are up before 7am, so getting an early start is inevitable. The St. Louis Zoo opens at 9am and we pulled into the parking lot at 8:58am.
There is a good amount of free parking around Forest Park, but since the Zoo is free, we opted to pay $20 for the parking right in front of the zoo entrance. We only waited for two cars to pay for their parking and then we were in.
*Important tip: At noon we left the zoo to grab lunch and head to our next adventure, Grant’s Farm. The line to park for the Zoo was backed up to the expressway! So make sure you get to the zoo early.
Exhibits at the St. Louis Zoo
Full disclosure, we only saw about half of the St. Louis Zoo. We had tickets to go to Maifest at Grant’s Farm in the afternoon so we spent three hours at the zoo in the morning. The exhibits we saw were amazing so I’m sure the rest are as well (I heard from multiple people that we had check out the tiger cubs in the Big Cat area, which we never got to do.)
The Polar Bear exhibit was my toddler’s favorite. He stood next to the glass for five minutes, interacting with this huge guy. Part of the exhibit is inside so we were able to get our family out of the heat. I just couldn’t get over how big these animals are.
The Sea Lion Exhibit was really neat as well. You walk down a tunnel, through this cave, and at the bottom you’re in a tube that runs through the water in the Sea Lion’s tank. So these little cuties are swimming over you, and next to you. The sun was shining so all the guests in the tube looked like we were underwater as well.
My one year old really enjoyed this, mostly because there was a ledge he could walk on and touch all the glass. My toddler didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that we were under water. He liked the tunnel leading to and from the exhibit the best.
My husband and my favorite exhibit was the penguins and puffins. You enter the exhibit and are surrounded by the noise, smell and temperature that these animals live in. When they “talk” to each other, they are loud. The temperature in the room was 40F (which for the five minutes we were in there felt great on a 90F day). We got to see a zookeeper feeding the penguins and were so close, we could have touched them as they swam by (but they tell you not to, so we didn’t.)
Other things to do
The St. Louis Zoo does a brilliant job immersing it’s guests. We had butterflies land on us in the Butterfly Exhibit, got right up to typical insects you can find in your house with explanations as to why, sat next to an Orangutan, and measured our hand size against the Polar Bear’s. It was a truly magical place.
My toddler and I rode the carousel for $3 total. He got to ride on the Tiger and thought it was the coolest thing ever. There is a cute train that goes around the zoo, but we opted not to do that this time as our time at the zoo was limited (we have a train at our zoo where we’re members).
There is also a Sea Lion show and a Bird show that we didn’t make time for (the one year old definitely would not have sat for it).
They had a Dinosaur exhibit as a limited engagement. It looked neat, but it was $6 per person (2 & under free) and since we knew we couldn’t even see all of the zoo, we opted not to pay for the Dinosaurs.
Lastly, there is a Sting Ray Exhibit, where you get to touch them (for $5, 2 and under are free) and feed them (for $2). We almost had our toddler do this, but thought he might get a bit scared so we skipped it. It was really busy though, and as someone who has done this at a different zoo/aquarium, it is really neat.
Overall Summary: A Magical Place
My husband and I were struggling to pinpoint a great way to describe why we loved this zoo so much, and then my husband nailed it on the head. He said it felt like we were in Disney. The people were so friendly. The park and exhibits were very well taken care of. We just had a wonderful time. We couldn’t believe a zoo could make us feel this way, but it did. We’ll definitely be back.
