Reid Park Zoo

We hadn’t visited the zoo in many years, and were pleased with the changes.
The polar bear exhibit has been replaced with grizzly bears, and there are a lot more elephants, including a large bull, and of course baby Nandi. Lions, tigers, jaguars, rhinos, zebras, etc. are all still there. The Malaysian sun bear and hippos are gone, but there is an Andean bear in the South American exhibit. Peacocks still roam around on the loose.
It is extremely kid-​friendly throughout with a carousel and many play areas and hands-​on activities. One of the most exciting was the giraffe feeding for $ 2. You get carrot sticks and the giraffes are right in your face, sticking out their long tongues for them. It’s so fun and amazing. Our 4-​year-​old grand-​nephew fed them and was ecstatic. There are camel rides for $ 7 per person.
For tired adults, there are plenty of benches and shade throughout.

This zoo is small and cute, and unlike most zoos I go to, this one had very little exhibits where animals weren’t out. My daughter enjoyed it so in my eyes thats a good place! Not a 5 stars because the size but other than that I enjoyed it

Marvelous little zoo. The kids love it. The grandparents love it. Much to see and do.
Why then the single star? The food. As many other reviews have noted, the food is horrid.
The restaurant has the offerings of an I-​95 truck stop circle 1985. Deep-​fried crap. Processed crap. Deep-​fried, processed crap. Take a piece of cardboard, put it in a blender with GMO corn oil and an unknown pork byproduct until you have a pulpy mess, throw in some MSG for flavor, some synthetic thickeners to give it structure, shape it into a weenie, deep-​fry it, slap it into a processed bun and then charge $ 9. This is the zoo restaurant.
Drink offerings are equally abysmal. There are caffeine drinks, artificially colored and sweetened drinks, and soda. So basically a selection of synthetic chemicals mixed with water. The closest thing to a natural drink was Sunny D, which is fake orange juice.
The satellite food carts around the zoo feature either fast food or dipping dots ice cream. For those who don’t know, dipping dots is when you take regular ice cream, add a crap load of chemicals, process the heck out of it, market the heck out of it and upcharge for it.
During a recent visit, I asked the staff at one of the fast food carts where one might find fruit for sale. After some blank looks, they suggested the main restaurant. Indeed, there was one fruit cup there. It was… and I am not kidding here… nearly inedible. The «fruit» had been sitting in its own «juices» so long that each piece of fruit tasted the same. The melon tasted like the grape which tasted like the pineapple.
Not surprisingly, there is never a line at any food establishment at the zoo, so if you like eating crap, you will not have to wait for the privilege. For the rest of us, if you do get hungry, I suggest buying the lettuce they feed the giraffes.
ADVICE TO ZOO ADMINISTRATORS: For God’s sake, change your food vendors! My recommendations are replacing Dipping Dots with Allegro gelato or Isabella’s ice cream. These are local brands whereas Dipping Dots is a national abomination, er, national brand. You could also look into having Café Botanica handle the restaurant. Or, if you don’t like these recommendations, simple find a phone book, open to the restaurant section, close your eyes and randomly point to any entry on the page. Basically anything you choose will be an improvement.

Been to better zoos but this one is getting better. The neighborhood nearby is not of the highest quality. Reports of car thefts in the parking lot. The exhibits are improving and something good to waste a few hours on with family.
Now the bad. The food place is terrible. Crappy overpriced food. Apparently they stopped providing straws animal safety claims without notice, no sign no nothing No rest room or place to wash your hands. Either eat before or after. $ 7 for a crappy kids hot dog. Pizza hot dogs and fries in a sub standard way. Again eat before or after.

The Reid park zoo is great. It is an intimate experience because it is a smaller zoo. It gives you the opportunity to get up and close with everyone’s favorite animals. Also the zoo keepers are wonderful. They sit outside the exhibit and they know a lot about the animals. Coming here makes you feel like it’s your own personal zoo. If you have the opportunity to feed the giraffes i would do it. My 1 year old son loved the giraffes and it’s a very cool experience for only 2 dollars. They are upgrading some of the exhibits which will add to the experience. If you are in Tucson and looking for something to do this is a good place to kill time

My whole family loves this zoo! The staff is always friendly, many different exhibits to check out and the picnic area is wonderful! My sons love to play in the water at Kenya Get Wet, too. We can spend an hour or two walking around looking at all the animals and everything is laid out very nicely. Never overcrowded or overwhelming. We bought a yearly gold membership and it is an amazing value, too!

Went here kinda spur of the moment and I’m really glad I did! The zoo is a little smaller than most but they have awesome animals. At $ 9 per person it’s not badly priced either. The only downfall is that they close at like 4:00 so there’s a limited window.
The animals are out and about and seem happy. You can also get rather close to them to snap some good pictures. The Tigers were awesome! When it came walking by I talked to it and it rolled over… so cute! The brown bears were really cute as was the baby elephant. The animals seem well taken care of and maintained.

I love zoos and was so excited to see a new one.
The Reid park zoo is great although it’s a bit smaller than most zoos it’s pretty and the animals seem much happier.
We were able to see many exhibits going early mid morning and the animals get so close they are literally in your face.
The elephants had babies and were running around playing and having fun and all the animals seemed happy.
Only downside was the admission seems a little high for such a small zoo and only one concession area was open.

I Love the zoo at 8am on a sunday morning. Other times its just a place for school kids to spend their day and just be so loud, when you are there to enjoy the quiet movements of the animals.
The best times to go are in the morning when they release the animals from their kennels. You get to see them run out like they are «Free»
The membership is worth it, cause you can use it at other places other than in Tucson. We have used it at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

This review is on the summer nights only. I went there tonight and was a little disappointed because a lot of the animals were not out especially since we had to pay even being zoo members.
We always start out with the tigers and neither one was out. On our way to see the giraffes the zookeeper was putting the last one out away. The rhino, zebra, bears and monkey were not out either. I am not sure if it was because it looked like it was going to rain or because they don’t keep out all the animals during the evening events. I would have understood if it was almost 8 when the zoo closed for the evening but it was 7.
My son was sad he didn’t get to see all the animals since he literally asks to go daily. I am glad we are zoo members and can go on a regular basis during the day.

While I am not a huge fan of zoo’s I can completely get behind those that are actively trying to grow and better the environments of their animals. That’s why I love this yearly event, and others Unilocal has helped with. This year the proceeds of this fundraiser went to build a new animal health center and by the amount of people that were there I really hope they made some cash!
I went with a group of friends and we all had a great time. We were given a cute sampling glass along with our tasting tickets when we entered and then proceeded to taste our way through all the breweries that showed up, there were so many! They really had a great turnout with a large variety of beers throughout and some really great food stations scattered around too. They were thoughtful enough to have water stations everywhere. While we were too busy enjoying ourselves to even make it through to all the stations we had a great time and will gladly be back next year. Way to go Reid Park!

It was an eventful day at the zoo. Just after a rain the animals were feeling frisky! The Lions caught a bird mid air and played with it until it died and then they lost intrest… cats will be cats I suppose.
I go here about 3 – 4 times a month with my daughter. It is a great zoo. I do have some concerns that a couple enclosures are too small. But they are constantly making upgrades and stimulating the animals with toys and hidden treats.
This is a great place for the kid and adults to see all the amazing animals and learn about them.
They do lots of conservation work shops and arts and crafts for the kids. They offer birthday parties, mothers day brunch, weddings, zoo lights which is just outstanding around the holidays!
The staff and volunteer staff are great and will share facts over and over.
If you have kids I recommend getting a membership, It pays it self off in the first couple times you use it!
The restaurant has surprisingly unhealthy options and a recent and hefty price hike. Lots of deep fried crap, sometimes they offer fruit or a salad. I would assume a place that is about conservation would have greener food options… that would be one of my few gripes. They would only be rated ²⁄₅.
The gift shop has some neat items! and ofcourse its WAY over priced but some of the proceeds fund the zoo. so when your kid is say «please mommy» you just think at least it helps the animals… Take my money.

Pretty awesome zoo for $ 18 per person. They have rhinos, tigers, a jaguar, giraffes, monkeys, elephants, etc. You can also feed the giraffes!
There are a couple places to eat and grass for the kids to run around on.
Be very careful in the parking lot! We were only there for an hour and when we returned to our car the suv next to us had been broken into, 3 windows completely smashed!

For a smaller size zoo Reid Park is GREAT!
Having been around the Minnesota zoo growing up this zoo seems so small, but being an adult in Tucson I have really come to appreciate Reid Park zoo. Whenever I have gone everything has been very clean, there are never really large crowds that would rain on your good experience, and all the staff has been super friendly! Normally I wouldnt want to really go more than twice a year max, just because it is smaller so you can really only go so many times. However, I recently took the time to go on their website and found so many cool events that they do, some at night, and was so happy! Part of why its hard to enjoy the zoo a lot is this terrible heat, but their night events are perfect because the temp has cooled down and in addition to to seeing the animals they will have a beer tasting etc. So awesome!
The prices are not crazy out of this world expensive which makes it nice for big family’s or groups. The gift shop can be kind of expensive but I have yet to see a gift shop anywhere that isn’t! They redid the elephant area so that is a must check out exhibit that kids will love because there are many cute little activities. The otters are my favorite, and you can pay to feed the giraffes which is so fun for any age! Best part: the peacocks have free roam and you will cross paths with many which is silly but so exciting! Even though im 21 now i still love looking around to see if they dropped any feathers.
If your looking for good clean fun in Tucson this zoo is a must!!!

I really loved the Reid Park zoo. I went with my friend and her two year old. We all had a very enjoyable visit. They have so many different types of animals. We were there for a good four hours and still didn’t get to see everything. They have a lot of great interactive exhibits for kids. My favorite part of the day was feeding the giraffes. It was a very memorable experience.
Another thing that I appreciated about this zoo was the amount of space they give each animal. I’ve been to zoos that were kind of sad because the animals looked cramped and unhappy. This zoo was sure to allocate plenty of space to each exhibit.

We were visiting my mom in AZ and decide to take my 15 month old to the zoo for the first time. I like how small this zoo was only because we could fit in most everything before the little man was ready for his nap. It was very clean and offered great views of all the animals.
The zoo is very interactive and at almost every cage or compound there was someone there to answer questions and give you general information about the animals. I LOVED that the peacocks were just randomly walking around, although you had to be careful of the ones in the trees #poopalert!!!
The camel rides looked like so much fun and it was great that you could feed the giraffes. We got to see the baby elephant Nandi… so cute! My son enjoyed looking at all the animals, I think his favorite were the ducks, sea otters and the ball the bears were playing with!
My husband did make a comment about how some of the cages seemed a little small for certain animals. While not a zoo expert, I felt the same way. Next time we visit we’ll gladly come back!

Great zoo. This is our favorite zoo to spend time with the family. It isn’t real big and the size is perfect for a afternoon out. It is well maintained, clean, and the employees are friendly. The prices are ‘t bad for admission or to get drinks, snacks, etc. Good amount of animals to see.

It’s cool, if you’re into a small intimate type of zoo with not that many workers to answer questions. The cages are so small for the size of the animals. It’s disturbing. I saw a rhino pacing in sheer stress due to the amount of space it had. It made me feel guilty for coming to the zoo. It just felt so wrong…
Zoo lights is even more disappointing. You walk around in the dark to look at seizure causing christmas lights flashing and one camel. Ta-​Da! Go to the zoo for the company of your friends/​family you take with you– dont expect much of sight seeing.

If you visit Tucson, you have to check out their zoo. Aside from employing some of the most knowledgeable, nicest folks on the planet, they have some really cool interactive exhibits. Camel riding, anyone? On top of that, it’s really clean and their Christmas lights are an attraction in and of itself. During my first and only visit I learned that locals are lucky enough to have access to tons of local events which involve both food and drink and tons of fun… all for a good purpose!
Aside from the camels, the gibbons are my favorite. So active and totally cute!

i was so impressed with this zoo! really clean (especially the bathrooms by the elephants), nice shaded walk ways throughout, nice seating areas around. They had docents and zookeepers at various exhibits to provide fun facts and answer questions. It was such a wonderful experience! And if you haven’t seen the new baby elephant — you must go! that little baby girl is the cutest thing ever! she stumbles over herself and the tree trunks while chasing after her mom — she’s just too cute!