Río Safari Elche — Attraction in Elx / Elche

Fun day out - if a little on the expensive side versus somewhere like Terra Natura in Murcia. A safari park with water park and slides as an aside, the safari park - although looking a bit tired and in need of a bit of TLC - was actually quite good. We visited in August so a lot of the animals were understandably sheltering from the heat, but there’s a good selection of animals to see, and they look to be well cared for. We saw two Orangutans and it must be the first time I’ve seen these in captivity where they didn’t look utterly depressed. They were active, eating and generally interacting with each other and some other small monkeys they shared an enclosure with.

There’s a rise in safari style tour goes round the park periodically if you want to queue for it - the narration for the safari is in Spanish (understandably!) so it’s an option if you want to queue but the park isn’t so big that you can’t walk around it in a couple of hours or so.

The water park was good - probably better suited to kids (perhaps age 5 - 12) than to adults with some decent slides and a water play structure for younger kids, as well as the lazy river and some small pools and smaller slides for the littlest ones. You can hire rubber rings for the slides (there are a few free ones if you queue) and you can hire sun loungers for €5 each.

Changing rooms are basic but fine, there’s lots of provision for eating with outdoor fast food and indoor restaurant options available. Lockers are available to hire for a fee - although this doesn’t seem to be advertised anywhere and you have to queue at the pizza place to get a key..

Lots of free parking just over the road on what is essentially rough ground and pretty easy to get to not too far away from Alicante airport.

Worth booking online to save a few € and to beat the queues when you arrive. The park offers cheaper tickets after 3pm so we found the water park got...

Great place for families. The staff are friendly and endlessly cheerful. Most of them speak a little English, if your Spanish Isn't too good. The waterpark is mainly for kids under 10, but adults are able to go on the slides too. We went with teens aged 16 and 17 and paid for the splash park, simply to cool off in the intense midday heat (much needed in August!). My teens absolutely love animals, so the Safari was great. Nice enclosures, animals all healthy and well cared for. This zoo is about rescue and conservation, as all good zoos are these days. Your money helps pay for that. We paid for the kids to swim with Sealions (40 euros each!) and they loved it! My only gripe is that they didn't allow us into the enclosure to spectate, specifically so they could take their own rather naff photos, then try and charge us extortionate prices (I'm not exaggerating!). The photos were taken separately of each child, so 8 euros per photo, after an already very expensive day, was ridiculous! We enquired about a digital copy. They only do it on USB and will charge you 60 euros for 15 pics!!! So for us, with two children, that would have been 130 euros!!!!! Sod that! We let the kids pick just 2 paper copies each (most of the photos were rubbish anyway) and just made do with what we'd managed to capture from a distance. :( So honestly, don't bother with the photos, unless you're loaded, but it is a lovely place other than that. There is a dirt road that leads to it, which IMO is best avoided. Better to drive into Santa Pola, then follow satnav from there, which will take you on proper roads (it's easy!). They have plenty of snack venues, if you don't mind blowing even more money, but lots of tables in shade for picnickers. They have a souvenir shop selling plushies, sweets. swimwear and sun cream, if you forgot yours. Water was very clean when...

I love zoos and supports the work they do,but i also have A certain standard of welfare that i expect to see, before i find it ethical. And for that reason I give Rio safari elche 1 star. My experience at the park. I saw a lot of low budget enclosures, that I find okay, as I believe good food quality, enrichment, positive training and interaction with keepers can out weigh that. But I saw a lot of animals with stiff hind legs, overgrowth hooves on all the the hoof species, both very thin and over weighted animals. Pigs with stomachs so big the spine was press downwards, stomach almost touching the ground and the back legs couldn’t almost lift them because of the weight. Many animals with access to dirty, low or no water at all (flamingoes for example). All this indicates low quality of nutrition = lots of health issues.

A tortoise in a terrarium without access to uv lights or heating lamp ( which is fundamental for tortoise care and actually illegal in some countries do deny tortoise access to).

I could see around that enrichments are provided, but for what I saw food was served on plate for many animals. Taking away the opportunity for searching/working for there food, as many species spends hours, often herbivores up to 12 hours a day, is a shame, as you are denying them to perform natural behaviour. A zookeeper came by the goat and pig enclosure and tipped over some grain by the fence. Only placing food one spot and the group of 30 animals came fighting to get access to it, laying all on top of each other and got stuck in the fence. The pigs was very aggressively biting the goats and one young goat started to bleed from its head. It’s so unnecessary, causing stress and damage to animals.

I see lack of interest and responsibility from this park, they could do so...