Loro Parque — Attraction in Puerto de la Cruz

Firstly do your research before going to Loro Park. The information on the website about animal conservation is misleading. A simple google of animal welfare at Loro Park will give you a truer reflection of what sort of place this is. Sadly, just another zoo making a lot of money exploiting animals.

On arrival you are funnelled through what feels like a compulsory photo op which you can buy at the end, the info desk in the entrance isn’t helpful but they will sell you a cheap hat. You also will have to pay for the toilet on top of the £35 entry!

The first animals you see are the Koi carp, who show signs of poor health and overcrowding.

Moving onto the very well manicured enclosures that are way too small and had little hiding space for the animals who are exposed through viewing platforms. Hundreds of screaming kids tapping on the glass and flashing cameras for selfies with the saddest looking creatures.

Almost all the animals look like they are expecting food from you.

Then there are the endless caged birds in metal boxes that are so small they wouldn’t even be able to make any flight within them. No respite from public view.

Now the really sad bit. The orca show which is advertised as the pinnacle of conservation and education. The show was only in Spanish but the promo video on screen suggests that the whales were saved from a fate worse than captivity and this is better than what they would have in the wild. A little google shows how most were bread in captivity and the turnover of new whales is high because of a high number of premature deaths. Not to mention the death of one of the trainers by a relative of Tilikum the whale made famous by Blackfish. Google it. Then Google orca conditions Loro Park. I do have to say well done Loro park for your SEO on Google, you manage to get a lot of hits high up to try and hide the websites raising concerns.

The show was so sad it almost made me cry for these poor orcas being forced to do tricks for handfuls of fish. Not a straight dorsal fin in sight.

The food is terrible and expensive, the catering outlets are a bit of a shambles. Navigation is terrible with a poorly planned layout. The animals are really packed in, lots of species mixed together which is sometimes normal but not as much as Loro Park has done.

A lot of the enclosures have fake walls and artificial grass. Water pools are too small and dirty. If you look closely you can see the electric fences keeping all the animals from making a dash for it. They have spent a lot of money on plants and enclosure entrances for the humans.

The worst is the penguin moving platform when hundreds of people are on a conveyor belt moving slowly around a very artificial environment. We watched penguins being relentlessly chased and attacked by other penguins with dirty water and no place to hide. On the other side there is what looks like a kitchen which claims to be for baby penguins. A bit weird to breed more penguins into an enclosure that cannot be expanded because of the viewing platform.

I’m glad I went because it has renewed my lack of faith in any zoo that makes vague claims about conservation. Chester Zoo and London Zoo back up their claims with facts.

Your £35 pays for the wrong things and conservation is not a...

Third visit here, since 2003. Still a nice zoo with some good attractions. As always, the live shows are the highlight.

Prices for drinks, ice cream and the like are not unreasonable, compared to other major overpriced attractions.

Bearing in mind how many people they allow in, the organisation of almost everything is rubbish and poorly managed.

In the live shows, you get yourself seated in your seats of choice. Then, as more and more people pile into the arena, everyone is told to move along and bunch up to make more room. Maybe just organise people with a bit of communication first, to avoid this.

Even getting into the park can be chaos. Sooo many people at peak times of year, nobody is sure which queue to get into. It doesn't matter if you have a ticket already - you still join one of two very long queues to enter... with just one security guard checking bags!!

If you don't have a ticket, you queue to get a ticket, then, in theory, join one of the other queues to get in. Of course, humans being f-ing rude, some just get their tickets and then slide into the front of the long queue ahead of others. A sense of order because we all love to queue. Well organised, it is not.

As for the attractions and animals inside, there is lots to see and photograph. The animals are clearly bored and just sit out of the way as people pass through. The gorilla does what gorillas do best... sits with its back to you, high up and doesn't move about. The indoor attractions, such as jellyfish with the fluorescent lighting effects are great. There is a conveyor track through an immersive coral reef with real fish and projections. Not quite as 'wow', as I had hoped, as you can still the structure of the building, air vents, etc. But it is good, as everyone gets a fair view, without having to compete for space at the window.

This can be a busy place and the park should consider limited daily ticket sales. People pushing for the best view, queuing for shows like a busy theme park, rude people, confined spaces. It can be stressful. It is a shame that having to be at live show up to an hour beforehand, to ensure a seat, is frustrating. It means you miss out on time spent looking at other things while you wait.

On the subject of shows, don't turn up 20 minutes before. We did for the first one and as the long queue started to move, staff told us the show was full. Get to the location an hour before. You will be at the front, or the doors will already be open and you can just walk in. Either way, you will get a seat where you want and at least you are in and sat waiting for that 45 minutes or so.

Toilets are clean and staffed, which is good.

Overall, it is worth a visit. Experience it, enjoy it, make it work for you. We won't be rushing back though, as in 20 years it hasn't changed so much that we see anything massively...

Today is 08.08.2024, Thursday and I was totally shocked how this place was overcrowded! We’ve arrived at 10am by car and I wasn’t able to find any parking spot available so we’ve parked few kilometers from park! Other drivers also were trying to find any free spot in closest living areas but everything was already occupied, so please take that into consideration if you will use your car! As I bought tickets online, we’ve passed the entrance pretty quick without any queues, but number of people inside of the park was really huge! To find a place for a show, you have to stay in the queue at least 1!!! hour BEFORE the start time! Or in another case you will just get “FULL” sign on entrance. Due to crowd of people we weren’t able to stay near animals as crowd was pushing you all the time - it was really uncomfortable and annoying! Exactly at 17:30 staff asked everyone to leave a park and huge crowd of people were staying in huge queue to leave a park because exit was through a small bridge and people were selling photos of visitors so people which were interested in these photos were blocking others to leave. All the time I had a feeling that management of the park is trying to get as much money as possible without thinking how they will be able to fit this crowd inside? I would recommend to limit amount of tickets sold for the specific date and/or make entrance for timeslots - it could help to handle comfort for both - animals and people! Another point - food on territory! It was terrible! I could also imagine that it was caused by crowd of people as you can’t cook normal pizza if hundreds of people are annoyed waiting in the long queue! The whole my family now have stomach issues after eating there. So try to eat somewhere else before visiting this park and inside you could buy some snacks to survive. Bunch of animals we weren’t able to see (maybe again they were disturbed by such huge number of people?) - like tiger, otters, gorillas etc. The shows were great, but short so we were waiting 1 hour in the queue for 30-minutes show. If nothing will be changed regarding limit of people for the day - I can‘t recommend this place as you will be a part of the annoying huge...