Clyde Peeling's Reptiland — Attraction in Gregg Township

Everything here is of top-notch quality! The buildings and grounds are immaculately clean. The staff are knowledgeable and friendly. The exhibits are well laid out and well lighted. I especially loved that almost every exhibit was occupied! At many zoos, there is a smattering of exhibits that have the name tag of the species listed, along with a description, but the cage/exhibit will be empty - the animal is simply not there. But that is not the case here at Clyde's zoo. With only one exception, every cage/exhibit contained the animal that it was supposed to. And another thing that's great about this place is that the habitat in each exhibit is designed so that the animal can't hide. No matter where it goes in the cage, it will be visible to the onlookers. This is obviously intentional and must have taken a lot of thoughtful design work when the habitats were created. There are several presentations throughout each day, and I attended both the presentation on Alligators and the presentation on venom. Both were well done. The presentation on venom was especially enjoyable and informative. So, this all begs the question ..... if everything was so great, why am I only giving it 4 stars? Well, first of all, I want to emphasize that 4 stars is really really good. It is only one notch down from perfect. So I see 4 stars as a really high grade. The main thing that kept it from being 5 stars was that the entire campus is rather small. When I come to a specialty zoo such ar as this, I expect for there to be so much to see - so many exhibits and so many animals - that I can spend an entire day there, from open to close, and still not take everything in to my satisfaction. But after 2 1/2 hours at Clyde's, I was done. I had attended the two presentations that interested me, and I had walked around the entire campus twice - the first time to take everything in in detail, and the second time to make sure that I hadn't missed anything the first time. And after those 2 1/2 hours, I felt as if I had taken in everything that there was to see and learn. This surprised me because I thought I would be there all day. But there literally wasn't anything else to see, so I left. I would have loved to see an entire area dedicated to the reptiles and amphibians that are native to Pennsylvania. I would also have loved to see an entire area dedicated to field herping - educating youngsters about searching for herps themselves, out in nature. But there wasn't anything specifically all about either of these two genres of herpetology. So, in summary, Clyde Peeling's Reptileland is a really really cool place, but there is still room for it to grow and to cover things that it currently doesn't...

My family and I stopped in after seeing the billboards on our drive back from Hershey. Very expensive and they do not have any discounts or reciprocals with other facilities. Tried to give us a gift card since the bird areas were closed but we couldn't use it off admission. Should have known right there the place was going to be a scam. One of the people in the gift shop was running around like crazy while the other sat doing nothing. Felt really bad for the one actually working. He was the only staff member who even acknowledged us. The "show" was awful, my kids wanted to leave because it was a lecture about dinosaurs not a live animal show as advertised. The animated dinosaurs were falling apart, covered in mold/mildew, and most didn't even work. Worst of all was the clearly sick and neglected animals. The giant tortoise looked like it was dying. He laid in one spot while the little ones stepped all over it. The poor thing didn't even lift its head. The "pool" for them was filthy, poop all over the ground, and no vegetation anywhere for them. The sad anaconda looked severely malnourished, just skin and bones barely able to sit in a puddle. The garter snakes were infested with mites. One was twitching while the other was trying to submerge itself in the water because it was so bad. The small tortoises in a tiny cage with no water were scratching at the glass to try and escape. The iguana was obviously depressed just laying in a corner. Iguanas are such smart animals and the poor thing is stuck in a box with nothing but dirt and a rock. At least let the animal outside! I can't believe it was "AZA" absolutely nothing like our zoo back in Rochester. I should have done some research before stopping and I truly do feel bad supporting road-side places like this but it won't...

We went there yesterday, it was awesome! When I saw it on the website I thought the facility would be bigger so when I pulled up after a 2 hr drive I was thinking that we would be in and out in a few hrs, I was wrong! We got there at 1030am and didn't finish until about 4pm! It was awesome! A lot of times when you go to a zoo they have displays that are empty or say they are being checked out, not here, every single exhibit had what it said. All the signs were full of interesting facts that my 7 yr old enjoyed hearing about and discussing not just the boring parts. They had little animal shows/encounters like every 30 minutes that kept us busy being able to learn about different animals and pet them. The dinosaur animatronic section was awesome! Life-size and they moved pretty realistically, my 2 yr old liked it but he was a little concerned they were real lol. They have a parakeet atrium where there is like 100 birds that fly around you and you can feed them for $2 cash, so bring some ones. They have Emus that you can feed, bring some quarters. This place was every little boys dream day lol. They didn't have many food options for people so I would suggest making sure you have ample stuff for yourself. Almost every employee was very friendly and great to deal with. Their souvenir shop was nice and not crazy priced. They have a behind the scenes tour to see all the animals they have in the back for $120 for 4 people, I think we we will be back for that, it needs to be booked a week in advance. They said there is A LOT more animals in the back that they lend out to other facilities for exhibits. I would highly recommend this place, it was 2 hours away from Lehigh Valley and 1 hour from Penn state for a point...