Coastal Wilds — Attraction in Bethany Beach

We visited with our family of four (two kids age 4 and 7) last week and had an absolute blast! The tour was fantastic and our guide, Rachel, was friendly, engaging, and very knowledgeable about the animals. She took the time to answer every question from the kids in the group and never rushed through an explanation. The tour group size was small enough that it felt very personal, I think there were about 20 people total in the group, and the tour itself was paced well so it didn't feel like anything was rushed but also didn't let any of the kids get bored at a stop. Also, it was pretty hot the day we were there, but there was plenty of shade so it never felt too uncomfortable. There was a mix of free-range animals that would come walking by while we were walking around, and animals in their enclosures that we could interact with when they were close enough to the fences. After the tour we got to hang out at shaded and cooled outdoor picnic tables where they brought some smaller animals out for the kids, and adults, to hold and take pictures with. But, they save the best part for last, where you get to go into the kangaroo pen and pet and interact with the kangaroos and wallabies, which was everyone in our groups favorite. One of the nicest things about the tour that we didn't really think about while there, but looking back made the whole experience that much better, is that we never felt rushed, and the staff took plenty of time to make sure everyone who wanted to hold and play or take pictures with the animals got the opportunity. Barn Hill Preserve does a great job of making sure to not book too many people in a tour, and to space out the tours so that the guests could pretty much take as much time as they wanted to interact with all of the animals without feeling rushed or having to move out of the way for another tour. At no point during our entire visit did it ever feel crowded, which feels like a rarity nowadays. We also opted for add on encounters with the sloth, owl, and aardvark, which were a huge hit for both the adults and kids. Our guide, Rachel, took plenty of time to teach us about their spectacled owls as she brought one out for us to gently touch and "hold" for a picture opportunity. Then, she took us into the sloth enclosure and told us all about them as we got to feed them green beans and pieces of squash. And finally, we got to meet Doogal, the aardvark, and feed him a nice delicious bug soup! The kids thought his snout and long tongue were hilarious as he slurped up all of the bug soup. Even if you aren't at the beach, it's definitely worth traveling there just to visit Barn Hill Preserve. All in all, it was a great day and made many lasting memories for our family, and we're very excited to go back and...

I was really excited to visit Coastal Wilds and ended up extremely disappointed in the lack of pricing and experience transparency. The zoo itself is clean and well-managed and the animals are thriving so at least you are supporting an organization concerned with animal welfare. If you go into the tour with the idea that this is mostly a donation rather than a worthwhile experience, it may improve things. However, this isn't advertised as such and the lack of ethical and transparent business practices is enraging.

I brought 5 kids on the experience and we paid for the extra capybara experience. Together it was nearly $500 which was a huge splurge (remember that 12+ pays the adult price of $60). We purchased tickets in advance and filled out our waivers online. We arrived on time but it took 20 min to check everyone in (20 min out of our 90 min tour) because people were filling out waivers. For this reason, the tour was rushed because there was another tour starting in 2 hours and they had to complete the entire "90 min" tour plus the add-on experiences within that 2 hour window. It takes awhile for everyone to be able to see/observe/touch an animal and you want to wait patiently for everyone to take their turn, but our guide kept rushing us along to the next exhibit before we were able to see or experience the animals. We rushed through the exhibits to sit on the porch for the small animals but it took 10 min for them to bring those down. There was no tenrec despite the website advertising this. When it was time for the capybara experience, we were in the enclosure for a total of 5 min and everyone got to feed the capybara one small piece of food and that was it. The capybara would only interact with you if you had food but there were so many of us and so little food there was very little experience. We couldn't even just be in the enclosure for very long.

So all-in-all, we got about 50 min with the animals for $500 so about $10/min. Not worth it at all. You are better off taking the Lewes Ferry across the bay and going to the Cape May zoo for free--you get to go to an awesome zoo and park grounds and the ferry ride is fun. I did this last month and it cost less money to take a car and six people across the bay and go to the zoo than for 50 min at...

Otter swim package not worth it. I'd say maybe worth $150 per person, not nearly the $300 per person we paid. It's actually a pretty small place. First indication of overpricing was when I asked for a discount coupon they sent us one for $5 (off $300!) Kind of an insult. Most of the tour was more like an 'encounter' (look at and maybe pet animals close-up through a fence) rather than 'interaction'. We got to watch camels, African cow, regular farm goats, and exotic bird through the fence while the guide shared some disorganized facts. She let us touch the shell of the tortoises but no other interaction. For the capybara we went in the pen and were allowed to gently touch it on the chin and feed it one leaf of lettuce but no petting. There's a place in Tucson AZ where you can run your hands all over the capybaras and feed them entire heads of lettuce for 60 min for $30 so I guess maybe we had that background. The kangaroos were better- we actually got to interact with them a bit- they put their hands on our arms, let us pet their bellies and they were friendly. The iguana and hedgehog were like one of these kids parties where they bring them out and let you pet them and have them walk on your hands a bit. For the owl we got to take a photo next to it with our hand stuck into a glove under it that made it look like we were holding it. We got to feed the sloths one piece of veggie each but no other interaction (as they say on their website). The otter swim was 2 otters with ten humans and for a while they mostly played with each other but finally they did climb up on our shoulders, mostly tearing at hair ties and velcro cap bands and they also swam around us and dried themselves on our towels which was fun. The best parts were the kangaroo encounter and otter swim if you could buy those separately for say $50 each that would...