So my wife and I went to the Columbus zoo and was told by a few people that this zoo was very awesome and that it was worth going to. I can say I should have done my research first.

We got there about an hour after the zoo opened on a week day. Figure it would help with how many people were there so we could take our time being able to see the animals. We spent out first hour or so looking at pretty much scenery. Now I am not blaming the animals at all but most exhibits had one animal or were in hiding/sleeping. When we went to the South America area, still couldn't really see anything. Mostly scenery, until someone from staff was telling people they were letting those animals out at a certain time. That was mostly the entire zoo. I just felt like the zoo is so big that we did more walking looking at plants and trees then we did animals. The "aquarium" was a joke. It literally a 80ft wide tank with a few fish, stingrays, and manatees. I was not impressed at all.

Another thing that was upsetting was, most of the shops/restaurant and attractions (such as water park, most rides) were closed. That was very upsetting because we payed a good amount of money to have a good experience and yet we couldn't do a lot of things. We couldn't take the train around the park because it was closed. It felt like they were closing down the zoo for the year.

The prices on merchandise (souvenirs, drinks, food, etc.) are pretty steep. At most food areas the bees were out of control. We went to the "gift shop " at the end (which I figure for as big as the zoo is it would have had a bigger shop) but was sold out of a lot of things, didn't have sizes in stock, heck we spent over $100 in the gift shop on 2 shirts and a blanket and we didn't even get a bag. We would have had to pay $6 for a re-usable bag. And again most places to eat were either closed or just way over priced. But there were sure enough dip and dot stands around.

The highlight of the zoo was feeding the giraffes and petting the stingrays. I have never been able to feed giraffes before and it was bad priced at all. $15 for 4 servings (3 pieces of lettuce). It went fast but that is because I was just so excited I practically threw my lettuce at the giraffe, but still an amazing experience. The stingrays were very cool. They were very active, so much to where they were coming up out of the water and up the walls to be petted. Not very crowed at all so we were able to take our time.

All and all if you have kids, there are plenty of things for them to do (plenty of different playgrounds around the park) lots of informative and activities to do. I would not go back, not for the price and lack of seeing things.