Chilly
RIP Tag Fairy
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2006
- Messages
- 14,014
Thursday 31st May
Today we were going to San Diego Zoo but first things first, breakfast, which was included in our stay. It was a pretty good spread, eggs, toast, pastries, cereals, fruit juices, hot drinks, bagals, and muffins. The doors to the dining room/lounge were wide open to the tables by the pool and sparrows were flying in and eating the crumbs, they would come very close to you. We drove to the zoo arriving about 10am and there were hundreds of kids outside on school field trips but once inside it was fine as the zoo is huge so plenty of space for everyone to spread out. We decided to ride the sky-safari over to the other side of the park which obviously a lot of other people had decided to do as well as we had to queue for a while but we used the time to plan our route around the zoo.
The zoo is massive with both large new crowd drawing exhibits and smaller older ones over a very hilly area of Balboa Park. We spent the whole day here and saw nearly everything. I'll give you the highlights. First up we saw the elephants who have a lovely big area and are always entertaining and i'm sure these were smiling, especially the one getting a pedicure, they get 2 of these a week! Near them were some condors, their wing spread is huge. We saw some cute koala bears who were in a temporary home as they are getting a huge new area built for them and some other animals. We saw some big cats but I felt their enclosures were a bit small and then a very loud toucan.
For lunch I got orange chicken and it was quite a big portion, and Mike got a teriyaki chicken burger with bacon and pineapple, seemed an odd combo to me but Mike said it worked. We then used one of 2 travelators they have to get back up one of the hills.
Next up were the polar bears and they were my favourite of the day. There were 3, 1 male and 2 females, and they were having a great time, playing with their toys and play fighting with each other, I could have watched them for ages.
We saw some more regular zoo animals and then it was panda time, they had 2 of their 3 pandas out today the dad and his son, mum wasn't on show as they were hoping she might be pregnant. Both boys were sleeping though. We then saw some other bears but they were also not doing much so weren't as good as the ones we saw in Vancouver or as close.
Next up we got on the double decker bus guided zoo tour. It was much hotter today than we were expecting so could have done with the shade downstairs but opted for the better view upstairs. The guy loading the bus said each side gets equal animal views but that wasn't true, the right side definately had the most animals and we were on the left but that side was the polar bear side so i was pleased to see them again and some very interesting giraffes.
Today we were going to San Diego Zoo but first things first, breakfast, which was included in our stay. It was a pretty good spread, eggs, toast, pastries, cereals, fruit juices, hot drinks, bagals, and muffins. The doors to the dining room/lounge were wide open to the tables by the pool and sparrows were flying in and eating the crumbs, they would come very close to you. We drove to the zoo arriving about 10am and there were hundreds of kids outside on school field trips but once inside it was fine as the zoo is huge so plenty of space for everyone to spread out. We decided to ride the sky-safari over to the other side of the park which obviously a lot of other people had decided to do as well as we had to queue for a while but we used the time to plan our route around the zoo.
The zoo is massive with both large new crowd drawing exhibits and smaller older ones over a very hilly area of Balboa Park. We spent the whole day here and saw nearly everything. I'll give you the highlights. First up we saw the elephants who have a lovely big area and are always entertaining and i'm sure these were smiling, especially the one getting a pedicure, they get 2 of these a week! Near them were some condors, their wing spread is huge. We saw some cute koala bears who were in a temporary home as they are getting a huge new area built for them and some other animals. We saw some big cats but I felt their enclosures were a bit small and then a very loud toucan.
For lunch I got orange chicken and it was quite a big portion, and Mike got a teriyaki chicken burger with bacon and pineapple, seemed an odd combo to me but Mike said it worked. We then used one of 2 travelators they have to get back up one of the hills.
Next up were the polar bears and they were my favourite of the day. There were 3, 1 male and 2 females, and they were having a great time, playing with their toys and play fighting with each other, I could have watched them for ages.
We saw some more regular zoo animals and then it was panda time, they had 2 of their 3 pandas out today the dad and his son, mum wasn't on show as they were hoping she might be pregnant. Both boys were sleeping though. We then saw some other bears but they were also not doing much so weren't as good as the ones we saw in Vancouver or as close.
Next up we got on the double decker bus guided zoo tour. It was much hotter today than we were expecting so could have done with the shade downstairs but opted for the better view upstairs. The guy loading the bus said each side gets equal animal views but that wasn't true, the right side definately had the most animals and we were on the left but that side was the polar bear side so i was pleased to see them again and some very interesting giraffes.
Quite right too - who needs that level of sarcasm in a trip report 
