Franklin Park Zoo

Overall, it was a mediocre experience. The management appears to have decided to spend money on major projects but ignore upkeep.

During my last visit with the family, there were areas of the park that were cordoned off with large construction vehicles moving about, and the sound of trucks backing up signals and jackhammers were deafening in some areas. Yet simple, important things like the lettering describing animals or exhibits would be worn off and some exhibits, interactive buttons didn't work, and the lettering was worn off on some as well. At some exhibits, the glass was scratched and cloudy, making it difficult to clearly see that animals.

They don't offer paper handout Maps, insted they encourage you to take photographs of a few static map signs around the park, which sounds good in concept but, in actuality the bright sunlight makes even the most expensive phone difficult to see. There's not necessarily a clear path to be taken without a map. The entrances to some exhibits are kind of obscured, and you really need to know where to go to find them. One example is a building near the Aviary, on the outside there are some cages attached to the building that have cockatoos and other birds, but pthere is no signage or information posted on the outside to let you know that it has attractions inside and no clear path to get to the entrance.

My other complaints are the immense price gouging that takes place there and the lack of opened food or refreshment booths. While walking through the park, we noticed five different refreshment booths with products ranging from ice cream to nuts and empanadas, and none of them were open. Two of them were on the path, and three of them were adjacent to the one brick and mortar refreshment location that was opened in the park.

To give you an idea of the price gouging, a single serving bottle of soda or filtered water sells for $4 in the vending machines. A dippin dots knock-off version that sells for around $2 in the supermarket here they are charging $6. The ice cream is available in vending machines with a limited selection. And all vending machines only accept credit cards, no cash. We eventually found a larger selection at the gift shop in a freezer. We've been to a lot of theme parks with gift shops, and souvenir stores in tourist locations and in all of our experiences this was the most overpriced gift shop we have been to they were offering a small backpack with a character on it for $40 they also offer medium-sized, stuffed animals for $150. We buy refrigeratormagnes almost everywhere we travel for 4 to 6 dollars, here they wanted 10 dollars.

There was one particular issue we had that really bothered me. Inside the building that housed the gorilla habitat, there was a vending machine selling commemorative coins for $5 a piece. There were four coins to choose from with different animals on the face of each. You could buy all four for $15. We attempted to buy one after swiping a credit card and selecting the desired coin a light flashed saying select another so apparently you're automatically signed up to get all four, well we tried to select all four but one was out of stock so we had to get a duplicate. We called the number on the machine, and they said that there possibly could be a chance to exchange one of the duplicates at the gift shop, but they weren't sure if they carried the coins. We went to the gift shop and they did not carry the coins and were unable to help us in any way they could not give us a refund for the coin and they could not exchange it for anything so we ended up with a duplicate of one and two other coins we didn't want it all.

I understand this is not some multimillion dollar theme park experience in Orlando or some vacation destination, but even a limited Zoo like this could do a better job of staffing, upkeep and taking care of their customers without pringing every penny out of the customers.