Edinburgh Zoo

If you're planning on taking kids to Edinburgh Zoo to see some cute exotic animals, just forget it. 6hrs travel to take my kids to my favourite place growing up. It didn't take long after arriving to see I made a big mistake.

First off, that car park needs to be modernised BIG TIME. The road up is terribly steep and the machines to get your ticket, I hope you have long arms because damn, that was awkward. The spaces themselves are clearly for a couple of generations ago. Very small and also on a very steep incline. The strain on cars coming in was very noticeable.

Second issue, the entrance is at the BOTTOM of the hill. So, you have to strain your poor car to get to the top only for you to walk down to get entry, even if you're disabled. Great thinking. Here's the catch. You can gain entry at the top of the hill, IF you pay for an over priced membership card (or whatever it is).

As a disabled person, I've already had to traverse this mega hill just to get the entrance. What a great start. We got our tickets and in we went. Now, when I was a kid. You use to walk in and were greeted by some magnificent VERY loud and highly entertaining see lions (or something similar). Today, we were greeted by some mingy looking Meerkats. Could you get a more boring unoriginal choice for a zoo? One look around and I very quickly noticed that the zoo was no longer a simple walk with an open view. It's now full of small wooden corridors, wrapped in foliage. Designed to bring you to enclosures. Unfortunately, this makes the place extremely closed in and reduces the view of the animals considerably.

We walked around the first half of the park and we saw very little. We saw a Red Panda (who was adorable), some cute baby penguins and a couple of monkeys. Everything else was missing. Lots of dirty logs and mud, but no animals. Were they locked in their sleeping areas? We wouldn't know. Our view was constantly blocked by foliage and other obstacles.

We had a look in the little critter zone. it had some snails and a lizard. Nothing interesting. More monkeys, again blocked by foliage. After this we decided to make our way to the Rhino, hippo etc and just found ourselves walking up one tedious large incline after another. Poor signing and nothing to see. The rhino was impressive but was too busy eating. We saw more of his gigantic willy than him himself. The hippo we didn't see. We made our way further up to the cats, seeing one empty enclosure after another. Were there animals there? If there was, we didn't see them. We did see a wild cat, who was beautiful. But didn't see a tiger or lion. Lots more tedious inclines, which were getting a lot steeper.

By this point my daughter declared this a pretty bad zoo and I had to agree with her. We spent more time staring at empty logs and walking up long tedious hills than we did standing looking at beautiful animals. Hell, I think we saw more play parks and over expensive cafés than we did animals. We called it quits just after 2 hrs.

Ironically, we were standing right next to the fence which the car was parked next to. But we couldn't exit anywhere near there because we didn't own a pretentious membership pass. We had to trek aaaall the way back down the tedious steep slopes to get the exit and then walk aaaaall the way back up the hill to get the car out.

It was a really miserable experience. There was no joy or excitement from anyone we saw. Most of the people we walked past were complaining about the same things that I've put into this review. Empty enclosures, foliage and no attempt to make the slopes any easier to traverse.

I know they advertised mobility scooters at the front etc but people shouldn't need to (unless they genuinely require one). These slopes could have easy going steps with banisters built onto them. The entrance could be at the TOP of the hill and a cable car or something to bring you back up to the top when you're done. But no.

I wouldn't recommend it. Go to the Highland Wildlife Park instead. Much better quality and nowhere near as sad, tired and boring.