This past week my family and I were watching our local news here in Charlotte NC. As we were watching the broadcast, a special came on about a local petting zoo located in Troutman, NC. The name of the petting zoo is Zootasic Park of Lake Norman. On the news they had a baby kangaroo, tiger, and a couple small animals which were very cute.
It was very neat to see this petting zoo on the news because a few weeks before I had purchased a Groupon offer good for 2 adult admission tickets for $7. Each adult admission ticket was valued at $7, which came out to be a buy one, get one offer. So we all decided to head to the Zootastic Park to have a fun filled afternoon.
When we had arrived to the Zootastic Park Zoo, it seemed to be a lot of land but little inside area to see animals. It was about 98 degrees when we had arrived so I did not want to be outside because I was already sweating. As we walked inside to the barn, there were a few birds to the left of where you walk in and then they had a concession area to the right.
It was really different because about 10 feet from the entrance you approach a desk where you pay admission. The guy that was working had told me that we would be joining a group guided tour around the zoo. I had asked him if we had to go through the tour or if we could just view the animals on our own.
He had told us that it was federal regulations to go on a guided tour and then once we were done with the tour we could go back on our own. I know it’s the law but there were at least 20 people in our group and it was hard to hear the tour guide and to be able to see the animals as we visited them each. I would much rather walk on my own and observe the animals, but the rules are the rules I guess.
As we paid for our admission tickets, we also had the opportunity to purchase feed for $2 a bucket so we bought a couple buckets for the kids as well. Then the tour started and my headache began! There were so many kids screaming, loud, and mistreating the animals as we went along. We had visited the reptiles and in one tank was a snake and the girl was slapping the glass of the tank. I was hoping that the snake would come out and attack the kid for being so stupid!
On the tour, our guide was very insightful and knowledgeable but that was only when I could hear him talking. Our tour guide was also very different looking, which he was wearing a hat with a feather in it and just looked strange. He was very nice to say the least, but he definitely fit the job. When my family had completed the full circle tour around we then dropped from the group to go around and re-visit the animals.
My kids had loved raja, the tiger which was only 30 lbs. She was so cute but she could still take one of my kids down so we had one of the guides come over and go inside with us. My kids kept asking me “dad can we get a tiger as a pet?” and I was laughing to myself over this. I was thinking to myself that would be too deadly and not right to the animal.
My overall take of the Zootastic Park Zoo was that it was neat to be able to get close to all the animals, but wish that more of it was indoors. Many of the animals were breathing very hard in the corners of their pens looking horrible due to the heat. Many of them looked like they desperately needed am air conditioned spot inside, but that was not to be found. Some of the animals such as the horses looked like they were a little on the underweight side of being healthy. You could fully see their rib cages, but we weren’t sure if they were being rescued or not.
I would recommend the Zootastic Park Zoo only if the Zoo is not packed and you could have a smaller group tour. It is nice to be able to hear the guides and also see the animals at the same time.
