John Ball Zoo — Attraction in Grand Rapids

I grew up mere blocks away from John Ball Zoo, and even attended a one-year school program for 6th graders which was based at the zoo ("Zoo School"). I have very fond memories of JBZ.

As a whole, John Ball Zoo is a fine small zoo which is a perfect weekend (or weekday) excursion with the kids. During the event days, such as the "Zoo Lights" lantern festival, it's even more enjoyable with family and friends.

It's a relatively small zoo, built into the hills of Grand Rapids' West Side neighborhood. As far as developed and exhibited area, it's merely 40 acres or so. If you include the surrounding John Ball Park, which mostly pulls double-duty as parking for the zoo nowadays, it's actually quite a large zoo, but without amenities or exhibited attractions, the Park is mainly for picnics and school recess.

The exhibits are overall well-maintained, but most are a bit aged, with the exception of the Pygmy Hippo exhibit, which was built recently. The aquarium within the zoo is small and could do with some significant expansion and refreshment. In fact, the same could be said for most of the exhibits: they are showing their age and size.

Amenities are plentiful and well-maintained. There are several snack huts, concession stands, and restrooms, all accessible and generally clean. On busy days, like any public space, maintenance and cleanliness may suffer, but the staff do their best to keep the space clean.

There is an event space atop the Zoo which is used for weddings and other events, which is wonderful, clean, and easily accessed either by foot or the "funicular", which is a short gondola ride up the hill to the event space.

The zip line and ropes courses offer fun distractions for the adventurous, and the petting zoo provides ample petting time for the little ones.

Overall, John Ball Zoo does an excellent job flexing it's limited size. Past efforts to expand the zoo into the surrounding park land was met with fierce opposition from local residents, but would be a very welcome change for the Zoo if it were to be attempted again. John Ball Zoo could be a keystone attraction for Grand Rapids, on par with the Detroit Zoo, Phoenix Zoo, or San Diego Zoo, if the right funding and marketing were to conjoin. I would welcome such a change.

Until such a time, enjoy a relatively inexpensive, fun day at John Ball Zoo, especially during special event days. The Zoo would be happy to...

Originally pre purchased tickets for the lantern festival. We also decided to purchase tickets to the zoo. There is no combination or discount ticket for purchasing tickets to both on the same day. Overall the zoo was ok. I personally wasn’t impressed. Unless there were more animals somewhere else, there were a lot of exhibits that had only one animal and some were closed. Overall the facilities attempted to appear decent. We used the bathrooms just outside the entrance, located in an older building. The women’s was ran down and stunk a bit. The exhibits located inside stunk, especially the aquarium where the penguins were. It took us a couple of hours to get through the zoo. You are able to bring in your own food or drink. I was surprised there was no checking of bags. A lot of the lanterns are already set up during the day so you could save some money and see the lanterns & animals. They do add more lanterns for the festival. If attending the festival, I do suggest purchasing tickets after dark, even 10p/10:30p. I was worried about purchasing the later tickets because I didn’t know how much time we would have to walk through. We were there until almost 11p/11:30p and no one was trying to kick us out. The later times are better because it is less crowded, less strollers & wagons. At particulars times it could feel like herding cattle. You are able to get better pictures during the later times. Don’t expect to see any animals during the festival. Parking is crazy busy so plan on arriving 30 minutes early. I would recommend visiting the lantern at...

We visited on a Wednesday, during the day with a group. Most the animals were hidden or not there, the one ride was closed, many closed animal areas. The only thing that looked kept up was the Chinese lantern thing that I guess is at night for additional cost. The penguins and otter very active and fun, The chimps were great but looked like they had mange. No giraffes, elephants, big lions, etc one lioness barely could see, One tiger we could see his head. Only one really small shark. A ton of walking it took so long to get everywhere just to keep encouraging the kids that we’d see something all to see empty exhibits or one leg of something. The Photo Booth was broke. We spent a lot of extra money to make up for the kids to have a good time at least they had some stuff like the VR glasses so they could see sharks, gift shop and play area and sitting areas were nice to eat snacks. The gem gold digging was fun, but again additional cost. Snacks were very pricey. Gift shop some children small toy sets were $5 . The one hoodie had Chinese stuff on it for $70 most other logo hoodies $70 sale ones were $40. I think the main focus was on the lantern thing, beautiful but not really the purpose of the zoo. The penny smashing maching doesn’t take Pennys it was card only for $4.00 for 4 pennys and other coin machine was 4 for $15. Free and close parking was nice. I wouldn’t go back unless I knew it was significantly kept up better with major enhancements. Which is sad because it’s a great place to...