Washington Park Zoo — Attraction in Michigan City

Every year, another animal is eliminated, entrance prices spike, exhibits, displays & fall or change for the worse every coming year. It break my heart that the zoo has such difficulties in keeping things. Its absolutely nothing like it use to be when I was little. & taking my kids every year.. half the animals don't even come out of their buildings & you can't even walk thru most buildings like you use use. The Reptile castle just looses more & more every year just as the entire zoo does. Really saddening & heartbreaking.

Edit: in reply to wash.park zoo's response to my post, since I can't seem to find where I can reply to their response.--I know many exhibits have been expanded although some of animals that are there are some found around this region, though they may not be the exact species around here but similar enough to kids for them not to tell a difference. I totally understand everything in your response, I go to this zoo every mothers day, every boo@the zoo since I WAS A CHILD &now take my children, along w/many other things events & random times. If prices haven't changed in 5years then there must be plenty of other reasons how $40 dissolved quickly w/out purchasing any food/drinks or anything from the gift shop, only $3 in quarters for goat feed, & $3 for 3sticks w/bird seed on it for that display. I do love that, as do my children, however, its the same type of birds my mom has, but I'm sure anything else wouldn't be too safe. That exhibit is a lot of fun. & my kids also love the water tunnel for the otters. What happened to the small playground? Is something else going to replace that? The area was empty on mothers day. I remember about 7-10years ago, the reptile castle being filled & now the entire back wall is just a huge picture of wild animals when it use to be a ton of different amphibians & whatnot. I do remember the problems w/people stealing the frogs & other things. What happened to all the different types of baboons & monkeys? There's only a few different smaller monkeys left. Why can't we walk through the lions&tigers building anymore if they're not outside, which they hardly are. One of the main things my boys want to see. I'm sorry but they don't want to see deer when there's deer running around by our house all the time, or goats, pigs, ponies/barnyard animals when they're easily found at family/friends farms in lpco. I get not everyone has that opportunity to see them at a farm & just in a zoo. The zoo is exciting for my 5yr old still but my 9yr old wants to go to a bigger one. But I will continue taking them as tradition for mothers day and boo@the zoo. I just wish there were a few more larger animals like there use to be when I was a kid. I do fully support wash.park zoo, donate all the time, & go to numerous events there, & will always continue to do so. Dont take my review so harshly. I also get there may not be enough space for large animals. But if things are going to be updated or renovate d, having a sign posted would be nice so visitors knew so that could possibly draw them back, as well as stop neg.reviews. I really didn't mean to offend. I understand many reasons behind a lot of different topics, but what we did have in the last 10-18yrs, how come we can't keep majority or...

Awesome small zoo ! It took us about 2 hours to get through everything... Great way to kill some time and wipe out the energy levels of a 2 year old and 5 year old boy 😈 Phenomenal location right across from a splash pad and a beach that's part of the paid parking-15$. Everything is free (Attraction wise) so there are no other additional fees short of food and gift shops. You can easily spend a day here for next to nothing which is wonderful considering this "not a recession".

Mom notes for the planners:

Definitely NOT super stroller/wagon friendly UNLESS you do just the main path which probably cuts your time to maybe 90 minutes. The main path is wheel friendly but there are a lot of off the beaten paths that are not wheel friendly at all.

This place is a stair master on crack. Great calorie burn, great (child) energy burn, but great shady spots to rest. No idea on food quality but it looks like only one cafe to choose from. (-maybe start a loaded dose of Bayer/aspirin cuz your gonna feel that burn tomorrow lol...)

Because of the uneven paths have a quick basic first aid kit... More "owies" than usual..(-plenty of band aids).

No hats for sale in the gift shop maybe it was just this particular weekend but definitely don't forget those!

Didn't see any water bottle filling stations -plan accordingly.

Bring cash for ice cream truck/change for old fashioned animal feed dispensers. (Gumball machine style)

Have...

My mom and I went a couple weeks ago. There are a lot of awesome things about the zoo. The peacocks roaming around was awesome because my mom is obsessed with them. I loved the wolves and capybara too. The number of different species of monkeys was great too, and they were adorable.

There were some things I didn’t like though. First, the layout is kind of confusing. I feel like most zoos I’ve been to have a ton of signs to point you in the right direction and they’re set up in circles/loops that make it easy to know where you’re going and you won’t miss any of the animals unless you purposely try to avoid them. This zoo has a lot of side paths though and sometimes you don’t know where they lead until you get there. Certain paths were also very uneven or had a lot of steps and several times there were no ramps to take instead, or at least none that obvious. This made it hard for my mom who was mobility issues.

The second thing was that the leopard geckos were extremely overweight. Most people might not notice and think they’re just meant to be chonky, and they are cute, but I have a gecko and I know how they should look and what being so obese can do to their quality of life. They may not be as big of a draw as the big cats or the monkeys, but they deserve to be taken care of just the same so I hope...