Bayou Wildlife Zoo — Attraction in Alvin

THE OWNER IS A JERK! AVOID!!! We went for our school field trip, & the flyer sent home & the brochure at the park said $7/person for groups of 15 + Monday- Friday. When we got there, they demanded $12/person, stating that the owner changed the price this morning as schools were arriving. They do not take credit cards, so for all the people who brought exact change, or only had a ten-dollar bill, had to go to an ATM & withdrawal cash in order to be allowed in! He complained about how many chaperones we had, saying this isn't how schools need to do field trips. No one said there was a limit on Chaperones. Each class had about 5 chaperones', which sounds reasonable, when you're having to protect a bunch of kids from walking in & out of the parking area, where cars are driving in every direction, while viewing the animals at the park. Each class fit perfectly on one tram with all the chaperones. We never had to take more than one tram for a class. Half of the park was closed due to the flooding they recently had, which is understandable, but it's something that should have been brought to the schools attention, to give them the option to reschedule the field trip date, so that the kids could enjoy the entire zoo. Again, with the pricing increase, the Chaperones paid almost double the group rate, and got half the value of what the park offers. They continuously apologized for the behavior of the owner. At one point we could see an employee and the owner arguing, and another employee leaving the park angry at the owners behavior. They overbooked the park for the amount of Elementary schools that they had attending that day, saw that he could make an extra buck off of us, and took advantage of the opportunity. THEN WHAT MADE ME DECIDE TO NEVER GO BACK, was the fact that the group of chaperones that was holding all of the kids lunches got LOCKED OUT of the park, & the owner refused to let them inside!! He said they were at max capacity, & they couldn't go in until someone else left. Well, it was 10:30 AM, & everyone was just arriving at the park, so there was no way anyone was going to be leaving anytime soon. The group of moms asked if the owner could let them park up front and walk back, so that they could at least get the kids their lunches, & he said that wasn't an option, as it was too dangerous for them to walk through there, & he wasn't going to take that risk. Okay, that's somewhat understandable. BUT then they asked what they could do to get the kids their lunches, and he stated that it was not his problem. They asked him if he could please take the coolers with the kids lunches in them to the kids, & he said he could not do that. WHILE I SITTING ON A GOLFCART! Again, they asked how the kids were going to get their lunches, & he said " That's not my problem." SERIOUSLY?! We have over 100 kids in that park, & you're going to say that it's not your problem if they can get lunch or not?! They asked if another parent inside the park could drive their car up to the front, pick them & the lunches up, & go back inside the park, & he said that wasn't an option either, because they couldn't park up front. He then told them that they were supposed to arrive at 9:30 AM for entry, yet the park does not open until 10:00 AM. Our school was not leaving from La Porte until 9:00 AM. We are a good 45 minutes out from the Wildlife Zoo. Most of the parents left the school around 8:45 AM & arrived at the park around 9:30 AM, but had to sit on the side of 517 for close to an hour before being able to enter the park, because of how busy it was. Due to traffic, I arrived at 9:40 AM & didn't park my car until 10:30 AM. The SUV with all of the lunches in it was shortly behind me. Finally, after nearly an hour, another employee came up & told them that he found a spot for them. Those animals aren't taken care of properly. Looking at the hooves on the animals in the petting zoo was disturbing. There is a longhorn that has horns so heavy that he can't lift his head up anymore. Other than the owner, the employees inside the park...

I guess they might be understaffed because the place needed to be cleaned, flies were frequent, had to watch for crap. Went today 3/18/17 at around 11:20AM for a birthday so we had the group rate (10$/adult). Line was long to get in the zoo, lady in the front was very quick and didn't give us our 5 cents in change back, we didn't mind. Vehicles that were pulling everyone (Part of the tram) were in rough shape. Animal enclosures were sketchy looking with how they were rusty and falling apart. Small ponies at the front in the small enclosure was very sad to look at and almost made me want to cry because the noise one of them was making (sounded like a whimper). One emu had very liquidy feces, don't know what was going on there.

Ostriches, emus, and deer seem to have been enjoying themselves. Lady who was getting people on the rides did not go by the numbers people were given at the front and there was ultimately a bad system getting people on the trams. Don't buy any bucket of food. It's a rip off, might be different at the beginning of the day. When we got there, I was standing by a vehicle and a little girl came up to me with a bucket/container of food that she and her family had left and in the end i still haf food left after sharing it with my bf and one of his brothers. I never have been there so had said sure and thank you. She returned to her vehicle with her family and they left. Food was given to everyone in our group in excess and we gave some to the people not in our group at the front of the tram because we didn't need all of it.

If you want animals, but don't want to go to the zoo, this is something different. I enjoyed seeing the animals and enjoyed watching how they behaved. I got some great pictures, even more than what I posted. Had an emu eat out of my food bucket. Pretty cool.

Bring a cooler, pile drinks and stuff in there. Sun screen isn't all that necessary (coming from a very pale person). I put a little on my face but that was it, I didn't need anymore. - it was a little over cast and the trams are covered. Bring hand sanitizer because the bathrooms range from a Porta potty to a dimly lit room. Petting zoo there as well with rides on horses for people under 90 pounds. 1 ride on the tram per person. When animals came near, the driver would slow down to almost a stop. The driver we had was pretty cool. Didn't talk too much and didn't talk too little. Good for family fun. Seats on the tram are not very comfortable. Sitting on the side means sitting against a flat metal gate. Seats were similar to wooden park benches, imagine that in a slow moving vehicle for about 30-40 minute ride. They don't accept credit or debit cards, so be prepared with cash...

One might be inclined to believe that this would be an entertaining place for a birthday party, with your wonderful event taking place in a relaxing, wide-open rural area tucked into Alvin, TX. Perhaps my adventurous son believed that in his ability to enjoy the animals without worrying about an oppressive dictator. For the adults, however, this was not the case. My wife came quite prepared to this facility, which, as it turns out, is managed by an authoritarian regime. From the moment the decorations were being set up, my entire party was nagged into trying to hurry things up so we could make sure to get on the tram at the exact minute our scheduled tram was to depart. Japan probably modeled their steadfastness and adherence to train schedules from these managers. There was no assistance given to try and hurry this process along other than passive-aggressive reminders that we weren't departing on time, regardless of the fact that our full party hadn't arrived. Mind you, this is all taking place approximately 2 hours before the zoo even opens to the public. I'm really quite glad that we were able to push off a little before 9:00AM, which is when our last guest arrived in their car and got to watch us chug along in the tram which they were unable to board "in motion" due to some kind of draconic restriction. The price that we paid for them to be able to ride the tram was instantly forfeit for them (built into the cost of the party admission), as they had to catch a much later, publicly available tram on their own dime. Note: I'm not actually glad for that. Annoying, to say the least. Regardless, the prevailing theme of the party for the adults who planned it was "stress". Everyone involved in the process felt hurried, rushed, and frantic at trying to make sure we followed some confusing and, frankly, irrational timeline. They didn't even want us to park near the party area to unload the decorations we'd brought in order to facilitate the celerity they demanded for setting our party up. We had to arrive exactly on time and leave exactly on time, lest we might upset some cosmic force that its regular customers might exert upon the hapless unoccupied tables in the general waiting area. I'm sure the other members of my party could expound upon their dramatic experiences personally, but I'm sticking to what I personally saw and heard firsthand. Thankfully, I have nothing but good things to say about the tram driver and the wildlife experience. The animals were quite enjoyable in the way they accosted us for food and I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I could avoid having to deal with anyone who works in the management of the...