North Georgia Wildlife Park and Safari — Attraction in Dahlonega

I decided to go to Helen for my bachelorette trip in July, and I saw this park was suggested as a nearby attraction. I was stoked, because I’ve actually wanted to do one of their animal experiences for a while now. All of my girls were as excited when I told them this was on the itinerary, and we discussed what animals we were going to try to see. Having visited now, I wish that I’d chosen something else for us all to do, because this was not worth the time/money.

To start, I called them several times to try to sort the trip out and ended up disappointed every time. The per person cost for these events are extraordinarily high, and they refused to do any group discounts. I was encouraged by my party to just choose one for myself since it was my trip, and after watching the bookings for the otters disappear and reappear for a week, I finally managed to snag one of the cheaper ones.

Day of, we get there 20 minutes early and I immediately go check-in only to find a line of people out the door. It was a Saturday in summer, so it makes sense that it was busy. However, the line barely moved. I watched as it took the girl at the register 10 minutes just to check in two people. It sounded like she was giving them a full run-through of the park, but as slowly as possible. Despite encouraging online bookings, there was no easy way to check-in for these. It took the full 20 minutes just to get to the front, and then I had to backtrack across the park to get to the otters. I will say the one good thing is that they waited for all who booked before starting the experience.

We were then taken to sit on a porch behind some of the exhibits, and an employee brought in single otter on a leash and encouraged it to hop on us for 25 minutes, while a different employee took iPhone pictures. Was it fun seeing an otter up close and getting to pet it? Yes. Was it worth the money? Absolutely not. It cost me over $150 total and that was just for me. Had my bachelorettes gone with me it would have been probably over $1000 with taxes and fees, and that seems unreasonable for what you actually get with the experience. Also this is a minor gripe, but one of the girls offhandedly mentioned the otter splash experience and how they did that by just setting up a kiddie pool. Which would be great if that experience didn’t start at 300 freaking dollars. Despite the price I had considered booking that one, but I was so glad I didn’t when I heard that because I would have flipped out.

Of course, part of that $150 was for general park admission and that was… just kind of meh. The petting zoo was generic. Some petting zoos let you get in the fence with the goats and cows, but this one didn’t. Feed buckets cost extra, and the cheapest one was $8 I think. General admission was over $40 after tax, so this extra cost was frustrating. But the goats were all pretty friendly despite us not having food. They had alpacas too, but these stayed away unless you were feeding them. Other than that, this section was kind of disappointing. They also had a bird section and a reptile room, but both of those cost extra as well. And then the tour of the actual reserve started, and we realized it was a guided tour. The girl seemed nice enough, but didn’t actually seem to know that much about the animals, especially when people asked her questions. She both went way too slow and too fast throughout the tour, and there really didn’t seem like there was that much to look at. Our group didn’t even bother with the safari portion after that. Given everything else we’d experienced, it kind of felt like a waste of time.

I honestly regret bringing my bachelorettes here. They nickel and dimed you for everything, and with the upfront cost already being pretty dang high, the cost really started to add up. And the actual experiences just didn’t seem worth that cost. On our way down there, I was optimistically thinking about the otter experience, and how if it went well, I would try to come back and do a different one. But now I don’t think I ever...

We went here so my wife could do the Capybara experience. That went great and she had a great time. We purchased it ahead of time online, which I would recommend because they do sell out and if you wait til you get there you may be out of luck.

We pre-purchased our admission as well but you still have to check-in. When we got there the line filled the building (about 15 people deep?) because they were having computer issues that day and having to do more manual lookups or something. It looked more daunting than it was because you'd have a family of 5 all waiting in line together. The only thing that was a surprise, and maybe I missed it online, was the wildlife walk - a guided tour though the more exotic animals - is something they assign a time for you to go through. They were able to get us in one that worked best with our schedule.

While the first impression with the line was of chaos (not their fault), once we got cleared, I loved the place due to the people working there. Everyone we encountered working there was very nice and very helpful. When you read their online conditions, it sounds like if you're 30 seconds late for your encounter they are going to tell you to pound sand and keep your money. But the reality is they worked very hard to make sure that no one got left behind - even with the computer glitch, they were in constant communication with the experience groups to try and get those waiting to check in to their experiences.

My wife was the only one that did the owl experience and they could have hurried her through it and had some free time, but the guide spent the full 45 minutes with just her.

The petting zoo is mostly goats, sheep and some pigs. While she was doing her experiences, I bought some feed and made friends (until the feed was gone). They have two working dogs who wander around, so I spent 15 minutes just petting one of the Great Pyrenees.

The walking tour was well done. The guides knew a lot about the species and the particular animals they had there, had a good sense of humor, and were interesting to listen to. They even have one building where they have the day/night cycle reversed for the animals - it is dark with red lights, but that way you can sorta see some of the nocturnal animals.

The drive thru safari is short but decent views of the animals in there. They do have one off-shoot where the animals come right up to your car looking for feed. Lllama/alpaccas, cows, bison and an emu. I like the fact that I could turn on the exterior cameras on my explorer to see I was clear to move forward. That section was worth it just for the cows.

About the only potential issue I could see - didn't affect us - is if your encounter is in the safari area. Depending on the drivers going through at the time, and how much they ones in front of you want to stop and look, it could take you longer than expected to get to one of those locations, so plan ahead. Also, good idea to take a screenshot of any reservation info - we didn't need it, but cel service up there is miserable at best (AT&T) so pulling it up if needed would be a logistical nightmare.

But overall I really enjoyed it due to the very friendly nature of everyone there. They seemed very committed to their jobs and to helping you have a good experience. Plus I got to hear a sentence I've never heard before from a kid of one of the employees "Bye...I'm going to go pet my...

So let me be fair with this review, I would give this zoo 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 But the staff get zero(0) 🌟.

My daughter's dream is to become a vet, And as a gift for graduating high school and getting into her College We drove 11 hours to stay out there, just to visit this place because of the wolf encounters.

At some point in the trip, my youngest daughter who is only 9 years old noticed a rabbit she wanted to adopt, I asked the girl In the front desk are they available? She said yes, they all are. I then asked her to please double-check and she radio in for someone named Emily, She also said over the radio Yes! they are All available.

We said great! we will take her. We told our daughter that she was getting the rabbit, She was very excited.

As I was standing near the front area, A girl who works there came to the front and the rest Of the employees told her that someone had adopted a rabbit and she said, "Oh my God!!!! wish one???. When they told her which one we were taking, she put a sad face and said that's my favorite one, I like holding her.

After we walked around for an hour and my daughter was even trying to figure out the name for the rabbit. One of the workers approached us and said that they were so sorry, They forgot that someone had reserved the rabbit

At this point I knew something was fishy. So when I asked them to please double-check, Just to make sure.

All of a sudden the Emily girl arrives, and a older woman who works there asks Emily what's the deal with the rabbit?

When the Emily girl noticed that I was standing nearby listening to the conversation, she asked the lady can I speak to you outback?

At this point, I knew I was right! Something was wrong, why would she have to take this conversation into a private area?

So!!! Basically the worker who liked the rabbit blocked the adoption breaking my little girl's heart. This is terrible. Why would anyone do that to a child? Why would the supervisors of the zoo allow a worker to do this? If the worker liked the rabbit that much, she should have adopted it, Not waited into some poor little girl was told it was okay, Then let her walk around for an entire hour to then just break her heart later. 💔 As a parent, I was heartbroken myself for my daughter and I was very disgusted with the place. I will never visit this place and I would encourage others that I know never to set foot in this place

And obviously we did what all parents would do when we got home, we purchased a beautiful baby rabbit and now our little girl 😊...But how terrible for a place to play with some child's heart this way, They are heartless.

They will probably respond by saying we are working hard at making changes. That's their way of basically telling all of the bad reviews. Go screw yourself, we...